Teacher Tantrums: Who’s Your SpongeBob?

(In which it was a battle between my student and my endangered patience.)

***

I’ve been suspending this blog entry for a long time since I can’t think of an incident to let it go with. But fortunately, I now have enough reasons to upset SpongeBob fans by including him in this post fueled by a student-teacher fight.

Because of my early shift, I was able to watch SpongeBob. That day’s episode was “Mrs. Puff, You're Fired”. Miss Puff (SpongeBob’s driving teacher) was reprimanded by the superintendent for SpongeBob’s numerous failing grades (1,258,056 times!) She was told that if he failed yet another test, she’ll be fired. She retorted that SpongeBob is unteachable. So they let him took a driving test and Miss Puff guided him with the process, trying desperately to make him remember what to do. In the end, another failed test was added to SpongeBob’s notorious records.

So Miss Puff was fired but instead of sulking over the loss of her job, she was delighted!

“No more SpongeBob!” she laughed in disbelief mixed with relief.

So another teacher took over. He’s a disciplinarian shark wearing military uniform who gave his students this preview of his teaching methods.

“Your spines will break, your teeth will ache. Your eyes will be bloodshot.”

Then he threw two students out for eating and speaking.

In the end, SpongeBob still failed and Miss Puff wept when she realized that she’ll be having SpongeBob in her class again. At least the superintendent now realized how unteachable SpongeBob is.

We were told, as teachers, that if the students didn’t learn, then we didn’t teach. For that reason, we are expected to do our job well and make sure that all students (but I prefer the “majority” of them) will learn. Throughout the class time, we’re also expected to keep our cool and be patient for slow learners. And those things I always tried (and succeeded) to keep in mind (and to practice) . . . until today.

My first student every day is, although not as unteachable as SpongeBob, is definitely not as cheerful and optimistic let alone amusing. He stutters when he speaks and has an attitude as if he’s smarter than his teacher. After having several classes with him in a regular classroom and on telephone as well as hearing the feedbacks from his former teachers, I was utterly convinced that he doesn’t really need the kind of instruction we’re offering. He needs something more special.

As always, I put my best (as well as the most patient and understanding) foot forward in our class. I do not want to be irritated with his antics and mild attacks of arrogance and rudeness. But of course, everything has its limits and my patience isn’t an exception. I didn’t mind if he obviously didn’t listen to me as he kept on giving incorrect answers after another. But he continuously breathed hard on the receiver. And that I couldn’t take anymore.

“Carl, could you please stop breathing hard on the phone? It’s painful to my ear!” I said impatiently.

“W-what? I-it’s not me!” he stammered in defense.

“Then who is it? What is it?” I asked back, my face warmer.

“I-I d-don’t know! I-it’s not m-me! T-the shoo-shoo sound, I don’t know! It’s not me!”

“Ok. There’s no shoo-shoo sound now.”

“I said i-it’s not me! Are you crazy? – “

“- What?!”

Dead air. Silence as cold as the air in the office and as hard as my grip on the table. For more than half a minute no one spoke. The shoo-shoo sound was completely gone. I tried to gather the remaining calmness in me and continued the class. Just two more minutes, I thought.

“Yeah, so Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins even asked their neighbors to do things for them,” I said in an obviously high-pitched voice which made me realize that I’m not a very good liar.

I heard movements in the other line and a button was pressed. I didn’t say more since I know there was no one who’ll respond. I clicked the off button fifty seconds before the class was supposed to end.

I informed the staff about the incident and they promised to check it. After half an hour, Camille dashed in my room, leaned on the open door with her left hand on her left hip.

“What happened? With Carl?”

She’s dead serious. What now? I’m dead meat?

“I listened to the call. It’s your fault!” she said, still dead serious.

“What?” I asked, completely thinking she’s mistaken.

“Yes, and because of that I’m gonna punish you.”

Uh oh. Am I gonna be fired like Mrs. Puff because of the fault of a student?

I looked at her face but couldn’t do that for long because of the hardness of her expression.

“Refresh your schedule!”

I pressed F5 and waited forever for the page to load. The page was slowly becoming clear when she uttered, “Congratulations!” sweetly like a nightingale.

I put my hand on my chest as if in fear of my heart falling. I knitted my eyebrows when I saw her laughing.

“I listened. And I talked to him. I heard the shoo-shoo sound too but he said it wasn’t him. So I told him ‘Do you wanna die or something?’ Haha! But anyway, look at your schedule? Where’s Carl? Congratulations!” Camille gleefully recounted.

I smiled at her but I told her I felt bad with what happened too. I also shouted at him and that somehow made me at fault.

But enough with the guilty trip.

“No more Carl! No more Carl! Haha!”

Photo Source:
Mrs. Puff, You’re Fired!

Meet Lex

(In which my attempted “teacher mode” was ambushed by an influx of childish inquiries.)

(Edit: This post was supposed to be posted yesterday. Thanks to the blackout.)

***

In this company, you are most likely to get the unexpected chance of running into some cool and not-so-cool people. And yesterday, I experienced both - which is just really timely since I was thinking of something to post.

So today, Esmeralda was absent because of another blast of abdominal cramps as the second day of her “magic day” ticks off. Ladies, you know what I mean. So I was given a substitute student – Jony, a young man of sixteen with a lanky frame and an innocent face. We were about to start the class when I receive another news.

“He won’t be having his make-up class today so you’ll be having a class with another student,” says the admin assistant.

“Who?” I asked.

She pointed to a boy with sunglasses carrying a paper bag.

I also met the boy’s guardian who appeared to be a stage mom by all definitions. She asked me my name with a tone that says “Are you sure you can handle this kid?” and “Don’t you think you look too young to work? Where are your parents?” at the same time. And so I responded with the coldest expression I can get from within me.

“Rezzell.”

“Ree-jell?” she tried desperately, and looked up as if she’s trying to paint my face in her memory so she’ll know whom to rally against in case something terrible happened. Then, as though she realized she was late for a lunch date, she motioned us to hurry. I felt the tip of her finger on my back which made me make my steps bigger to get farther from her. “Duh! You are not supposed to boss me around!” I thought.

And so I tried to look cool in front of the new student. Besides, we’ll be sharing a room just for this day. I introduced myself. “I’m Rezzell.”

“Huh? Lee-jar?”

“No, Ree-zel.”

“Ahh.. What?”

From that moment, I knew I’m dealing with the Korean version of Dennis the Menace.

“It’s Rezzell. Nice to meet you.” I lend my hand to him which he took with a smile. What a firm handshake it was! And after a couple of seconds, I realized he was trying to break my metacarpals.

I smiled at him and he let go of my hands. Whew! It’s gonna be a long class!

“Okay, let’s start our class. I see that you were given a homework on – “

“Teacher?”

“Yes?”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty two.”

“Eh?”

“Why? Do I look thirty?”

“No.” and then he gave me this smile that says “I’m so cute. Am I not?”

When he opened his mouth again, I was bombarded with questions like Is this your first job? What’s your first job? The second? Why did you leave your previous jobs? I wasn’t expecting that I’ll be in a job interview.

“Okay. Let’s study - uhm… Your name is . . . ?”

He shook his head in utter disappointment.

“I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“Lex.”

“Oh. Pardon me for forgetting your name. I won’t forget it anymore. Never.”

“Why? Is there something special with my name?”

I smiled.

So right now, you have the idea that this boy has an above average speaking skills. Oh wait till you hear what else he wants to say. So the first hour was spent this way:

30% for “the class” which is composed of

· 10% = me asking questions

· 10% = Lex reading the answers

· 10% = Lex smiling

70% for “free talking” where

· 40% = Lex asking questions

· 30% = me trying to make sense of what’s happening

That’s it for the first hour. (Boxing ring bell)

So I learned that his guardian wants him to study and be given tons of homework. So that’s what I tried to do for the second hour.

“Okay, Lex. You have answered your homework incorrectly. You should have read the questions carefully. You see, that’s one of the reasons why students fail tests.”

“I know. If you don’t read the instructions, you might answer it the wrong way.”

“Right. Now why did this happen?”

“Because I don’t want to read.”

“Because . . . ?”

“I don’t like reading.”

“What an excuse! Ok, let’s check your other homework – “

“Teacher Lizard, - “

“- Rezzell.”

“But that’s so hard to pronounce!”

“But that’s my name! You wouldn’t want to be named after a reptile, would you?”

“Anyway, are you married?”

“No, do you think I’m old enough to get married?”

“I know you’re not. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why? You don’t like or they don’t like?”

“I don’t like.”

“You’re lying. They don’t like, right?”

Silence.

“Perhaps. But the fact that ‘I don’t like’ remains.”

“You think you’re pretty or very pretty?"

“Average”

“Teacher Ayin says you’re cute.”

“That’s for her. It’s different for me.”

“You don’t want to be considered beautiful?”

“Who doesn’t? But, dear, the thing is, we have to be realistic. Can we study now?”

He shook his head and spoke in Korean.

“Hey! Why are you speaking in Korean?"

“The same reasons why you’re speaking in Filipino.”

“Am I speaking in Filipino now? You were actually the one who said ‘hay, naku’ a while ago.” to which he retorted “But why shouldn’t I speak in my language?”

I took a deep breath. “Because you are in an English classroom of an English academy and you are talking to your English teacher. Are those reasons enough?”

“No.”

“And why?”

“Guess.”

“You are officially getting into my nerves.” I said under my breath.

“Give me a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t speak Korean.”

“Hey, I should be the one giving orders!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the teacher!”

“Ok. Forget it.”

So we went back to our lesson. I asked him to read the story and he asked me to help him – a paragraph for each of us. He chose me to read first which is better since the paragraphs that were assigned to him were longer.

And the bell rang. “Okay, let’s call it a day. Your homework will be – “

“Bye Teacher Lizard.” And he dashed out of the room to meet his friend. I ran after him to the corridors.