Hiding from the Awful Ants

Last night, after a tremendous thunderstorm, the awful ants came out. They are so named by me because they have wings and they can push their little squirmy bodies through screens, fly into a house, then promptly shed those wings so they can get it on on the floor. The wings go everywhere--in your sink, on your toothbrush, in between your sheets. Aghh! And the awful ants never come out in moderation; they come out in hordes.

I could actually hear the the awful ants coming. The storm was abating, and I was standing outside. The night seemed for a moment to get calmer and sweeter. Then just as the thunder was fading away the awful ants took up the tune. Wah!! I could hear the sound of their wings. I ran into my house and turned off all my lights so they couldn't find me. (Does this sound like a horror movie? It is.)

More Than Supper Required

She was a scrawny thing: small, undernourished, needy. My roommate introduced me to her. More like Laka introduced herself to my roommate and I got thrown in on the bargain. Laka was ten years old when I met her. She was in the lower grades of the school where I held my first teaching job. Her family lived down the street from my house, but they were a strange family. . .It didn’t seem like they noticed their daughter very much let alone feed her very well. She seemed to be more like a stray animal than a child.

She would drop by my house at night with a hungry look on her face. I would ask her, “What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Instant noodles.” She would say.

“Lunch?” I quizzed her down.

“Instant noodles.”

“Supper?”

“Instant noodles.”

It was always the same. She had eaten something she cooked herself-- something easy and cheap for a ten-year-old to make.

“Come in.” I would tell her. Then I’d feed her a portion of my supper. Because Laka was small and overlooked she could be awkward at times. I remember she was not ashamed to ask for more food. If I had anything on my shelves she would point at it, “What is that? Can I have it?” If we left anything sitting around she would pick it up. She once grabbed my roommate’s camera and started taking pictures. My roommate and I decided after that if she ate with us she would have to follow our house rules. “No touching” we would tell her. “Laka, ask before you take things,” we would scold her.

My most vivid memory of her was on Saturday afternoon we went for a walk together. I remember she took my hand and held it as we walked down the street. Strangely enough my strongest emotion was shame. I was embarrassed to be seen walking down main street with this child clinging to me. I was worried that people might laugh at me for being so conned by her.

True, I had enough compassion to feed her, but I did not enough courage to love her. True, she always stopped by my house after I was exhausted from work. True, she wanted to spend every Saturday with me (my only day off). True, she was inconvenient. But why didn’t I love her more? She needed so much more than my begrudging offer of supper.

Words We Dislike

Today at lunch several of the English and ESL teachers were discussing words we dislike. Nowadays and moreover are top of our list. Somewhere, somehow, nowadays got voted as the most popular way to start an essay (at least in Thailand). My first reaction to an essay starting with, nowadays is generally to let out a small scream. I'm on the verge of banning nowadays and moreover completely from use. I might even write in my syllabus: Thou shalt not start an essay with nowadays.

From our discussion of least-favorite-words-in-student-essays we moved to least-favorite-words-in-general. One of the school administrators sitting at our table mentioned how he hates synergy. Synergy has all all the markings of a hip word gone south.

If an administrator could hate synergy, I hate the word excellence. Mostly because so many schools go around proclaiming that they strive for excellence that is sounds blah. I can't see or touch or feel excellence. What do they mean? Saying that something is excellent is like saying someone is nice or saying that something is interesting.

I don't know how to change excellent; I don't know how to resuscitate the word so it's breathing again--but until then moreover! and nowadays!

Writing Advice

I tend to wax eloquent. I get carried away and often overstate things. When it comes to writing—I love to emphasis the wonder, the poetry, the magic of writing. I love all the goosebumpy things. But forsooth. I also live in the ordinary-run-of-the-mill-must-get-the-writing-done-soon world. I know that not everything I’ve written has come from the muses. Some articles have come out of sheer frustration. I’ve written many things with a kind of constipation-of-words approach. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. The words didn’t come. But I simply wrote until they came (in this case deadlines and bosses and people who make you write—bless their nazi-souls) are great aids.

The greatest writing advice I was ever given. “What is the secret of writing? The secret of writing is sitting on your ass and doing it.”

Marriage Proposal from a Monk

I live in Thailand. The following experience happened to me in Chiang Mai.

Last spring I received a marriage proposal. It happened all quite innocently.

The Thais were indulging in their weeklong water fight (Songkran) and by the end of the week--I had had enough. I was tired of getting wet so I sought refuge at a temple. I had just found a delightful place (a bench between two trees) to read when a Buddhist monk approached me. He stood over my bench adjusting his robe and talking to me in Thai.

After I let him know that I didn’t understand him, he switched to English. He was casual, but I was nervous as I reviewed the culturally-appropriate-ways-to-relate-to-a-monk. I thought of the rules: 1) Never touch a monk. Check, easy enough. 2) Don't point your feet at them. He sat cross-legged across from me on the park bench; I worried that sitting cross-legged across from him might somehow qualify as pointing-my-feet.

For a while we had a nice, but relatively boring conversation. We discussed the number of siblings we had. My job. His job. Tourism. Thailand. But then the conversation took a slight turn (almost unnoticeable at first but it grew stranger by the moment). First he asked me if I could teach him. I said it was possible if he was interested in attending my school. The conversation meandered along and then again he asked if he could be my student. Yes, yes, I reassured him that that was completely possible. But then he changed his tone. Could he follow me? Well, yes of course I told him. He was more than welcome to visit my school. Then he asked again. Could he follow me? Finally, I asked, “What do you mean when you say you want to follow me?”

He said, “get married.” He was very was very optimistic about our compatibility. He listed why I was a perfect candidate for marriage. He said, "you speak a little Thai” (I’m not sure how he reached that conclusion); "my parents like foreigners"; and "we're not too different in age" (he's 21--a 7 year gap). And the final kicker he said, "you could become a Buddhist."* Then he said (quite dramatically I might add), "when I'm done with these yellow robes then I'll come find you."

With such small barriers to marriage, why not?

*When I noted that I wasn’t ready to convert to Buddhism anytime soon. He offered to compromise. He could become a Christian.

Just Faces

When I was student teaching, life was interesting. I remember getting asked out on a date by one of my students in class. As in I asked, “Do you have any more questions about the material?” And the student replied, “Yes, would you go out with my Saturday night?” I remember an incident where I accidentally caught my food on fire in the teachers’ lounge (quite embarrassing for someone trying to ‘lay low’). But what I remember most was a conversation that I overheard between my mentor teacher and one of her colleagues. They were discussing how to divide the students up between them. He said, “It doesn’t matter. They are just faces to me.”

I was appalled. Ever since then I’ve been working against that his mantra. May I never reach the point where students are just faces.

I know that at some high schools we can teach one hundred students in a day. Or sometimes in college we can have one hundred in a classroom. But once all we see are faces than we have lost sight of our vision.

Each student walks into our classroom with a history, with a personality, and with unique needs and talents.

Names are important. That’s where we start. But showing up early to class so we can talk to our students, attending their games, going to their concerts, meeting their family that’s the next step. We start to take a history; we start to see them in the context of their lives. We do what one educator recommended: the proper study of teachers is their students.

Sometimes I’ve taken notes. There was a student who told me that she had never had a birthday party. I wrote that down. Someday I might get a chance to orchestrate a birthday party for her.

It’s when we start to know our students and invest in their lives that teaching becomes worthwhile. It’s our professional secret. Investment in other people reaps personal satisfaction.

I pity the teacher now who only saw faces. He’s missed out on what makes teaching truly worthwhile. Last year a student said, “Oh you must like teaching because you know you’ll make a difference in someone’s life.” My first thought after she said that was—“No, I like teaching because I like my students.”

Ten Minutes to Excellence

I think it was Harry Wong in The First Days of School who said that teachers are the only professionals who are expected to start out perfect and get better.

How do we do it? How do we become better craftsmen? I know I don't have much time to think let alone "get better at what I do." So this is my current solution. I try to spend the first 10 minutes of work reading something related to teaching.

This school year I've managed in those 10 minute sessions to read a whole textbook on how to teach literature as well as a couple chapters on creative thinking. It isn't much. But the ideas have helped. Also, I think those 10 minutes work to keep whetting my appetite for better teaching.

I think this post could have been labeled a little more humbly. Maybe it should be "10 minutes toward getting just a little better." But somedays that's all we can do. If I can get just a little better at what I do, someday I'll be the teacher I dream to be.