I was blown away. I don't really have much teaching experience. I wouldn't categorize myself as someone who loves children. I'm the oldest cousin on my father's side of the family, where each of his five siblings have had two or three kids. I don't go out of my way to work with children, but after two younger brothers and a boatload of cousins, I can handle them.
Maybe I should have known. When I was in high school, I volunteered for a week at a Catholic elementary school that had a very large population of black and Hispanic kids. I was "Miss Balerie" and the most adorable children on the planet would hug me, try to climb up my legs, play with my hair, and sit on my lap. Looking back, I felt like I didn't do much teaching. I read with them, checked their work, and monitored them at recess. But they taught me about themselves and their family and their ideas. I saw their teachers encouraging them to color pictures of Jesus in any colors they wanted, and I watched as a myriad of different colored Jesuses were drawn. I laughed when I cleaned up the desk of a first-grade teacher and saw she had saved a picture of the world, drawn in dark colors and surrounded in black squiggles. It said:
I want to destroy the world with my hands. Destroying the world gets me mad.
I asked the teacher if she worried about the child who drew such a dark, commanding picture. She smiled and said this little boy obviously just had a deep soul and needed to express himself. I learned about teaching that day.
Similarly to my experiences volunteering in America, I felt my task as a teacher was just as focused on encouraging the kids and giving them a space to grow than on helping them learn English. I was an ambassador of American culture, and as long as I could make the kids like me and want to talk to me in English, they would improve somehow.
My class was so quiet the first day that I felt a bit discouraged. Somehow, distinct personalities emerged and gave the classroom a personality all of it's own.
Jenny: Jenny was the only student to choose her own English name. She was quiet and a bit distant, but so smart. I rather liked her, probably more than she liked me, if only because I was the same kind of awkward, brainy girl at that age. While the other kids struggled to write about their experiences to her parents, Jenny had written a complex letter detailing how complicated the camp situation was for her. She liked learning, but she missed home. She gave it her all, but I hope she's not pressured too much at home.
Rita: Rita wrote on one of her assignments that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up, and she certainly commanded the classroom. She was my other very smart girl, but she also had the gifts of physical ability and leadership. She was rather talkative and strong-willed, and kept the boys in line. I think she has the talent to do pretty much anything she wanted.
Veronica: Veronica was this tiny, cute little thing. Somehow, I don't think she understood how tiny and cute she was, because everyday she'd pinch my cheeks and say, "Teacher, cutie!" She was good friends with Clara. The two had the same haircut and would often walk together hand-in-hand. The height difference was hilarious.
Clara: Clara was tall, a good dancer, and pretty smart in her own right. She taught all of the students the Wonder Girls dance they performed in the Camp Idol assembly. Her and Veronica were pretty boy crazy, and they told me which boys they liked. In a true mother-hen style, my co-teacher and I would gossip about how our girls were way too cute for those boys anyway!
Vivien: Vivien was my sweetheart. She was the slowest to get her work done, but she tried so hard to learn. Vivien always wanted to sit next to me, walk next to me, or hold my hand. On one of her assignments, she wrote about wanting to be a writer when she grew up, which only endeared me to her more. I think her quiet, observant, demeanor will help her with that.
Lucille: I loved Lucille! She was so funny, and perfectly suited to be named after Lucille Ball. Very physical, she was good at sports, dancing, and bullying the boys a little. She was close to both the guys and girls in the class, and was much sweeter and affectionate than her rough, outgoing presence made her out to be.
Sophia: Sophia was a bit of a chameleon. She was friends with all of the girls and would slip within each group fairly easily. I never got to know her that well, but she seemed like a listener, the type of person everyone likes to be around because they'd rather hear about you than talk about themselves.
Won Bin: He chose the name Charlie, but I never stopped calling him his Korean name. He just looked like a Won Bin to me. He was pretty much our class mascot -- cute and funny and so short! He always completed his written work fairly well, but every time I talked to him in English, he'd just say, "What?" in Korean. Sometimes, I would intentionally come up to him and talk very rapidly using harder English just to see him get indignant. Everyone gave him a hard time because he was so popular.
Lawrence: Lawrence was slow, cute, and sweet like a teddy bear, and he reminded me of my littlest brother Joe, who I'm very close with. Lawrence was too shy and quiet to talk to me, and I didn't want to embarrass him in front of the other boys, so I kept my distance. But every time he smiled, it reminded me of my little brother and made me incredibly happy.
John: John was smart and athletic and, at first, totally cold to me. The first day of games, I tried to give him a high five, and he refused. He was a bit mercenary. When I bought my class ice cream, he and Won Bin were absent because they never sat with the class and always finished early. John was outraged that I would leave him out, and when I told him I'd treat them next meal, he informed me that he wanted two packs of gum instead. Such a brat! Of course, on the last day, he almost made me cry. He asked me for a high five.
I wasn't the most popular teacher in the camp. Jessie had a fan following of boys who would chant her name at assemblies and write declarations of love for her on my board:
But the popularity Jessie had with the boys I had with my class and a couple groups of girls in other classes. Whenever boys began cheering for Jessica, I knew my class would cheer for me in response. When the teachers did a skit during Camp Idol, my class all put their hand in the heart shape for me, and when I sat down by myself at a party, girls from my class and another swarmed me and started fighting over me.
I hope they remember me, continue learning English, and visit the U.S. someday.
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