Cryin'

In my short time teaching, I have had my share of cryers. Sometimes it seems for no reason they are suddenly crying. One minute I am teaching the short vowel I, and everyone's happy, and when I move to O and turn around, someone is crying. But I had never had a bawler, that is, until today.

I had an especially difficult class today that has been progressively slipping from my grasp. They are tumbling down to the depths of insubordination. I can't get them to do anything. So today I went to class with a new approach: friendliness. It didn't take me long, however, to find out this wasn't going to work. The first sign was that they wouldn't even sit down next to each other.

As much as they dislike me, they hate each other. Brian hates Cosmo, Cosmo hates Jonny, Jonny hates Cosmo, Michael Jr. hates Jonny and everyone hates Brian. This makes seating arrangements in my class of four difficult. Today it came to a head. After saintly help from my Korean teacher and my director I had the class sitting and, to some extent, studying. Then disaster struck.

Brian had been taking jibes at Cosmo all day and now Cosmo was crying. What was I to do? I stood up for Cosmo and told Brian (the bully) that I was going to contact his parents. Tick, Tick, Tick......... BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRINNNNNGGGGG. The bomb went off! I haven't heard whaling like that since I wasn't allowed to see Police Academy 6 in the theatres when I was 9 years old. It was like I just set off a nuclear meltdown; I didn't know what to do! I felt like yelling, "there's no crying in baseball!" I was out of my element.

No harm though, if I have learned anything, it is that kids seem to bounce back pretty quickly from just about anything. It's me that hangs on or holds grudges. I am sure tomorrow they will have forgotten about it and will be back to their old selves: monsters.

"A farmer learns more from a bad harvest than a good one." - Chinese Proverb