The Teacher 2

I've mentioned before that I seem to enjoy teaching, to various degrees. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, since I never really imagined myself as a teacher. It's not exactly like I had visions of myself at a chalkboard with chalk in hand as a little boy. However, I've done various activities that have involved teaching people things over the years, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It's actually kind of fun most of the time.

As with everything on this blog, though, it certainly leads to its share of laughs. For starters, I have a rule: "if you've got jokes, so do I." I've mentioned it briefly before (namely, in that blog post I linked at the beginning), but it leads to a surprising amount of banter with students. For the most part, it just sort of happens. Still, a couple of memorable examples come to mind:

• I always introduce myself to the class during the first session, but I don't give them my full life story. I tell them who I am, where I went to school, why I'm there, that I actually like math, and so on. The basic idea is that I give them an idea of where I'm coming from, and what they can expect from me. I don't, however, tell them where I was born, the name of my first girlfriend, or my fastest mile time. Those things just don't seem as pertinent.
  
  Also, remember that my skin tone makes me look like I could be from a bunch of different places. That means that the students occasionally make incorrect assumptions about me. For example, they might assume that I don't speak Spanish, and they might idly chat away in Spanish during class. The last time that happened, I just let them talk for a while. They weren't saying anything insulting, but they were kind of goofing off and just generally messing around.
  
  However, at some point, I figured enough was enough, so I told them, "saben que les puedo entender?" (translation: "do you realize that I understand what you're saying?") The majority of the class happened to speak Spanish, so they roared in surprise. Class was more or less shot for a few minutes after that. There was also quite a bit of laughter. Secondly, I remember the look on one of the students' faces. She wasn't even one of the ones that had been jawing away, but you should have seen the open-mouthed look of surprise on her face. I don't think I'll ever forget that look. In fact, that is the mental image that comes to mind when I hear the term, "jaw dropped to the floor."
  
• The second example was in English, but followed the same basic pattern. There were a few students who were apparently bored, so they stopped paying attention. I could tell that they were chatting about something else, but I let it go. Of course, that's only acceptable for so long. Eventually, I decided I should get them back on track. That led to the following:
  
  Me: "So who can tell me how to solve this one?"
  (silence)
  Me: "How about someone from that corner over there?"
  Bored Student: "Uh, um, what?"
  Me: "Can you help solve the problem?"
  Bored Student: "Which one?"
  Me: "The only one on the board"
  *cue much laughter*
  Bored Student: "Oh, um ... pssst, [Other Student] ..."
  Other Student: "Don't look at me, you're the one who wasn't paying attention. This one's on you"
  *cue even more laughter*
  
  Remember, these are grown adults, so it's not like I was picking on a little kid. And that other student hammered home the point without any prompting for me. It was a little too perfect. We settled back down shortly thereafter, but I did notice that, suddenly, the students in that corner made sure to keep at least one eye on the lesson for the day.

  The funniest part of all of this wasn't even during the actual incidents. No, that came months later when I was recounting these stories to old friends. I was having dinner at a buddy's house, and his wife happened to be a teacher. She completely understood those moments, and she had a chuckle about some of it. The husband, however, commented that he didn't think he could have handled the situation. Paraphrased slightly, the conversation went a little like this:

Him: "Yeah, I just don't think I have that skill set"

Me: "I don't know, I think general presentation skills translate over somewhat"

Him: "Not convinced"

Me: "Trust me, you can learn it. I've just had a little more practice"
(his wife nods along)
Him: "You know what? You take a compliment almost as badly as my wife. Geez. Okay, fine, I agree. It takes no skill whatsoever"

  I'm not even sure if he finished his sentence before I started laughing. Point taken, but more importantly, I realized that I was now getting made fun of for the very same incident. Everything had now come full circle in the great circle of smartassery. All of which leads me back to the entire premise of this post: this teaching thing sure is amusing sometimes.