Genuine Gratitude

While at work, recently, my mobile phone ended up in the hands of one of my students when she told me, “I want to see.” She swiftly unlocked the screen and opened the camera application like a pro and proceeded to document our class break time. The resulting video can be seen to the left. It was at this moment, while she was sitting in my lap and another 3 children were kittens under the table, that I realized how appreciation towards me I have felt in the time I have been here. I think a lot of it has to do with the overall attitude of the students and the general atmosphere of my workplace, which is usually pretty positive. While I enjoyed the work I did in Korea, I found it hard to feel appreciated. Mostly because of the management style, but also I felt the kids were not very appreciative. To be honest, I don’t blame them. The way our school director wanted us to work was to teach the students as if they were adults (regardless of age), but to discipline them according to their age. So, 4th graders were expected to come and read, write, and study for 3 hours with no games or any kind of fun learning activity to keep them interested. So, while I may have been an interesting person to some of my students, to most (mainly the middle schoolers), I was probably that boring foreign teacher who yells a lot. At my Taiwan school, we are encouraged to make our classes as interesting as possible and games are a necessity. So much so, that part of our training is learning how to create games for your different classes. It makes a huge difference in the classroom atmosphere, and therefore on my attitude, when you have a room full of smiling kids who are all so excited to tell me the present tense conjugations of the verb “be” if it means they get to kill sharks that I drew in the whiteboard ocean. Some of those sharks have some pretty menacing-looking teeth, some with blood as instructed by one of the students, and a couple with cute, girly eyelashes. It makes me sad when they choose to kill the cute ones first.

I will occasionally teach kindergarten when one of the permanent teachers needs a vacation or is sick.  After teaching a few different classes, a lot of the students know me.  One morning, I was there to teach a class I hadn’t taught before.  When I walked into the large common area where all the students gather with their classes before going to their classrooms, one little boy saw me and his face lit up.

“Oh! Teacher Brigid, will you be in Dog class today?”

“Yes, I will be in Dog class, today.”

“Yes!”

He then turned to the boy next to him and started chattering excitedly in Chinese.  I had never met this kid before, nor had I ever taught his class.  I’m not sure where he learned my name, or why he was so excited, but it’s moments like this when I feel that I actually am more than just that foreign teacher.  Now, I’ve been to that kindergarten enough that every time I walk in the common area, at least 3 toddlers, no taller than my hip, will make a beeline for me and attach themselves to my legs.  I end up having to pry them off so I can do their morning exercises with them.

There are also the students at my school, which is pretty small, but still has a sizable amount of students.  I’m the foreign teacher for about 65% of the classes at the school, so I know most of the students there.  The planning area for the foreign teachers is tucked in a corner, but it still very visible for the students. They all wave and greet me when they come in, and they will say goodbye when they leave.  There are kids that will run across the play area to our desk when they see me or the other foreign teacher walk in.  Some of them can’t speak any English save for “Hello”, and “My name is _____.” So many times I hear, “Teacher Brigid!” and they just smile and look at me as I greet them, and then return to playing with their Chinese yo-yos.  The one student I’m always looking around for is Rain.  This kid is probably one of, if not the tiniest kids in his class and has one of those smiles that makes him look like he is always thinking of some horribly nasty plan.  If he hears my voice or seems me, he will fling open the door to the classroom where he is supposed to be napping with the other students and announce, “Teacher Brigid is a poo-poo!” Then he’ll laugh, flash one of his horribly cute missing-teeth smiles and wait for me to chase him back in the room, turn him upside-down and threaten him with 100 spelling tests.  I also have my advanced students who are a little older (fifth and sixth grade).  I know they appreciate me when I see them gathering in the classroom before class and two or three of them will see me and come running out saying, “Teacher Brigid, will you kill Johnny? He is sooo annoying!  Johnny! Teacher Brigid will kill you!”  It’s nice to be appreciated as the official executioner.

As always, not everything is perfect and there are still those punk kids that have decided they don’t need to listen to the foreign teacher, since they don’t understand what I’m saying anyways, nor can I speak Chinese, so I must not be someone who should be respected.  Mainly, they are some of the little ones who have never studied English.  I feel it is a combination of still learning how to be in a classroom, not knowing how to interact with a foreigner, and in a few cases, inherited attitudes towards foreigners.  The latter, I feel was a bigger problem with some of my Korean students.  I felt a noted difference in respect from several students in comparison to their behavior towards the Korean staff. While this judgment may be incorrect, it was the conclusion I came to after observations and conversations with the other foreign teachers.

All that aside, it is still nice to go to work and be greeted by 50 kids all smiling and looking genuinely happy to see you.  Even Rain, despite his declarations that I am, in fact, feces is pleased to come to English school and see me.  This, ultimately, makes me genuinely excited to see them.