I do not believe sometimes that I became a teacher, as I never intended to work in this profession. No one in my family is a teacher except my mother is B.ED, but she never get to work in this profession, since she chose to look after the family rather than making some bucks through her career. Well, I am experiencing new things almost every day in my teaching career. Working in a foreign land with little one’s is astonishing. I would like to share some of these beautiful moments through short and long stories in following paragraphs.
Author: RITIZ DEWAN {ESL Teacher, BA}
Kids Story with Moral – DAVID
Photo credit: gbh from morguefile.com
DAVID
“Love and care all we need to give”
He was naughty. He was lively and not to mention a headache for teachers in kindergarten, especially for the ones where he was staying all day long. It does not matter to him if others are bothered or not about his naughtiness. All he wanted is attention from teachers and it seems he was curious about things. He was not just curious about things but people around him and everything tangible around him. I mean for a kindergartener this was overly excited and out of control kid, who was a challenge for the master teachers in Montessori classrooms.
It was in September 2012 when I met David first time in kindergarten. He was chubby looking and full of energy when I met him first in the classroom on the first floor. He was healthy for a Chinese kid, as most of the Chinese students are slim and fit. I noticed he was interested in me, since I look different as a foreigner. He may have seen foreigner first time in his life. Other reason could be I speak different language, which is obviously English. He came to hug me and tried to push me, pull me towards and away from him. I guess that was his way of showing love. I never minded anything students try to do with me while teaching in a kindergarten in the past, and still I am very patient with my students, regardless of their age.
Nevertheless, David started coming to my English lessons along with his entire class and Master Montessori (Chinese) teacher. We all try to settle down and chat with each other in English or Chinese, which I could not understand but I try to node my head and smile so that I can build trust among us. On the contrary, David tried some tricks unknowingly or knowingly to disturb the class according to Chinese teachers, whereas, according to me he wanted extra attention and care. He was conveying his message that I am here and make sure you do not miss my name and my presence. As we move on with lessons, he always tries his best to remember the words and pictures I showed them in lesson. However, if I skip him and ask someone else, he tries to make sure with his naughty behaviour that I have made a mistake. After I realised that I have skipped him accidently I started noticing this child cannot be ignored even unintentionally. He needs extra attention from me.
Well as the days passed by, David’s naughtiness kept climbing the ladder. Most of the time I noticed after the morning prayer, he was still outside the door with his master teacher, who was lecturing and asking him to behave in Chinese. I always notice him and sometimes even smiled at him while he is in process of listening to his master teacher. He smiles at me and always calls my name with excitement. As he smiles his two little Chinese eyes seems fully closed, as if he was asleep. Further, I noticed his master teacher is impatient with him; she seems nice but obviously due to lack of exposure to the outer world could have influenced her understanding of kid’s cognitive function. That was just my assumption, until I found slowly that this teacher has tried almost everything in her armoury to handle David.
It is not easy to teach these little kids especially if the teacher is not that experienced either and has worked in small towns in China. On the contrary, I had decided to keep paying extra attention and take all the little naughty things David was doing in English classes. This worked perfectly for me actually, slowly he started realising that I care about him, I love him, and his tricks would not work around me. I gave him time and space to improve. I allowed him to sit beside me or even sometimes on my chair, which was same size as theirs. I also came up with new techniques, such as; I say something or some words in his ears slowly in English and ask him to share it with students in class. He happily accepted my offer to be a young teacher for his peers. He listens to me carefully and imitates the same words and pronunciation. Therefore, slowly in a short time I figured out how to handle him with patience, love and empathy. He realised too that I am his true friend and teacher who understands him. In our student and teacher relationship, we understood each other pretty well, even though there was a communication barrier, since I could not speak Chinese and he was learning English from me on almost every day. He started hugging me almost every time he sees me in or outside school walls.
I also noticed his Chinese Master teacher has started realising how to handle this kid, but I noticed she was aggressive in her approach, which was not helping her at all. I could not tell her directly what to do, since we had a language barrier. Therefore, I chose to speak to one of my colleague indirectly giving her my suggestions without naming the master teacher that how we can try to handle David. Few months later, I found that David was now no more studying in a same class. He has shifted to an International class, which was managed by the more experienced colleague of mine, who was also an ESL teacher. Moreover, her assistant who was bilingual had better understanding of kids needs. I was relieved and somewhat excited for David. However, I was also worried for the whole class and the atmosphere. This prompted me to directly speak to my another Foreign colleague who was in charge of international class to advice her on David’s needs and my own experience with him. I believed that helped and since then his behaviour and class attention was dramatically improved.
In addition, he was one of the most lovable students in the kindergarten. Even my manager who was from Taiwan loved him and shared his views on him that he will be a famous person in the future, due to his lively and outspoken personality. That is why I have already secured few photographs with my former student David. Anyways, he left the Kindergarten few months back and now he has gone to North China with his family for further studies. I miss his mischief’s and naughty character sometimes in Kindergarten, even though there are other kids but David’s lack of presence in Kindergarten and in my English classes does makes me feel that I have lost my close friend. It does makes a difference for a teacher, who has contributed and made a difference in student’s life, although we teacher’s usually has never tried to show these feelings of emotions and love most of the time in front of our lovable students. I can now only hope that one day I can again meet David when he will be a successful person in his life. Until then, I will keep trying to deliver and share my love and knowledge with my students.
Thankyou
RITIZ {ESL Teacher, BA}, CHINA
{NRI, NON-RESIDENT INDIAN}
31/07/13
