From Student to Teacher in 7 Days

I submitted my MA Dissertation on September 1^st and a week later I was already shaking hands with my new employer. “I'm sure we’ll have an excellent collaboration”, he said. “I hope I won’t end up in jail”, I thought. Sigh.

It’s really weird how things turn out sometimes. The majority of my friends and acquaintances are surprised when they hear of my current profession and they look at me with a mixture of horror, confusion and disbelief. "You? A teacher?!"

                                                    

And to be honest I am not less surprised myself. I had never thought that I’d have such an amazing time teaching. To be fair, I’ve only be doing it for a month so who knows how soon I’ll be having a nervous breakdown or be in serious need of pills. After all, I started writing a blog about it, didn't I?

In any case, it’s been quite fun so far. On my first day at work I asked my students “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and one of them replied “A stalker”. Or at least, that's what I heard. He had said “A historian” after all. I was losing it already.

I also find it fascinating when they literally translate words from their native language thinking they make sense in English as well. One of them recently wrote: “I like listening to music but my friend isn't a music fan. He is a sportsperson. Me and my friend John both like ice cream but we both hate skeletons. The only person who finds skeletons funny is my friend Irene. She's a boygirl.” (He meant a tomboy, naturally.)

My favourite ones are my 12 and 13-year-olds. We have already bonded and they feel confident enough to joke around me without giving it much thought. One day that they were driving me nuts I couldn’t help but say: “SHUT... Silence!” A student then uttered: “Miss, express yourself freely...”

On another day, I was erasing the board while the students were going out and suddenly I remembered something and said: “Hm, actually, guys...”

Student: “Guys, RUN before she assigns any more homework!!!”

Young legend you.

And my personal favourite so far was when I was in class one day, looking through my bag before finally finding my books and putting them on the desk.

Student (with an expression of relief but clearly joking): “Phew, I thought you were looking for the ruler!”

I laughed hard.

And that’s pretty much how it goes. They’re trying to learn, I’m trying not to lose it.

An old friend told me last night: “You’re teaching?! Oh… You’re passing on your ideas, your worldview; you’ll turn them into your clones… Poor kids!”

I looked at him amused and surprised.

He then said in all seriousness: “You are aware of the fact that they go home and wank after class, right??”

As long as they don’t do it during my lessons, they can do it all they want.