Job Discussion Forums

[nomadder]

How about some interesting stories about things that have happened in class-humorous, shocking, strange, etc.

I remember once I was teaching a kindergarten class which, for the first few weeks, only had one 5 year old boy. Suddenly a serious girl joined the class. The competition was on apparently, unbeknownst to me. During the physical activity phase the boy was showing obvious signs of needing the toilet but when questioned he said no. Later there was a puddle where he'd been standing. I was shocked.

I found out later that he didn't want to let the girl get ahead of him in any way and so he wouldn't leave the classroom. I had no idea kids could be so competitive at that age.

PS. She did go on to be the star pupil of that class. She was also the only kid in that age group who never cried.

[khmerhit]

Good thread!

I was once standing at the board when I abruptly became nauseous and threw up copiously all over the floor, after a lunch of Vietnamese crab soup. You should have seen the students' faces. It had nothing to do with drinking, either!

Sometimes a fan would fall off the wall. You had to watch that. Usually the basket would fall off first, giving the ss some warning as the blades took flight! No joke! I took to checking the fixtures after that. the owners didnt much care to spend any money on repairs.

Let's see, a Pakistani colleague owed some money to some Nigerian guys. You don't want to mess with Nigerians in Asia, they're probably there for a reason. Anyway, they came into the office and slapped him around right in front of the secretary. She didn't give a shit, because she had live thru a genocide and a military coup, not to mention warfare and starvation. they did their thing and departed. He doubtless deserved it.

Let's see, I'll try to think of some more.

Come to Cambodia

[Roger]

I had an unusual problem remembering where my classes were. There were five floors, and I was teaching on three different floors,with the students moving from their own classroom to another one on certain days, and to the auditorium on yet another day.
Plus I had two other classes that i only taught once and twice a week respectively.
So, when I was seen for the fifth or so time wandering around deserted corridors and up the stairs, then down again, the monitor of that class informed me she would in future appoint two students to fetch me each time.
One day, the students failed to come to my office, and I felt confident enough to pick my way to their class... only to find a deserted classroom.
They had gone on a trip, not informing me, nor even the other teachers.
Later, the monitor told me "if we don't fetch you, it means you are free".
I rarely had more congenial 'bosses'.

[Capergirl]

Jeonju, South Korea, winter of '97/98.

I was teaching a private school class of junior high kids. There was a propane heater in the middle of the class, as the building was not heated and it was quite cold. My students - little b#@tards that they were - made paper airplanes while I was writing on the board and stuck them in the propane heater until they caught fire. I turned around to see several flaming airplanes coming at me. When I finally stopped yelling at them for that, I gave them a writing activity to do. As I walked down the aisle, checking their work, one student followed behind me with the propane heater, trying to catch my clothing on fire.

The really strange thing is that there were cameras in these classrooms, so the director could see what was going on. However, no one ever monitored the cameras. The students were obviously aware of this. Needless to say, my time at that particular school was very short.

[Gordon]

I had a private student in Korea many years ago. He was a sweet kid, about 8 and I used to teach him sitting on the floor of his bedroom. It was the end of a long day (7 private classes back to back) and I got him to read a storybook to me. I was a little sleepy (OK a lot) and the next thing I knew he was shaking me and saying "are you sleeping"? With drool on the side of my face, I quickly denied it and my first thoughts were "don't tell your mom, don't tell your mom". The next lesson, his Mom handed me a cup of coffee before I even took my shoes off and I thought, "he told her".

[shmooj]

Facing me across the table was a fairly well dressed elegant Japanese woman in her late fifties I'd been teaching her in a group class with a man and a couple of other ladies for a year or so. The conversation turned to verbs involving different ways of touching e.g. punch, slap, pinch etc. Eventually we got to the word "pat" and I tried to illustrate this.

Try as I may, she just couldn't get it. She kept repeating the word to herself under her breath when suddenly she lit up. "Oh!" she said placing her hands firmly on her br**sts, "You mean these!"

I almost fell off the floor.

Here were three students and a teacher astonished, flabbers gasted, staring horrified at this woman caressing her... well... you know....

Seeing she'd drawn a crowd, she went on "... because they're so small you see..." (the penny still hadn't dropped) "...so I wear pads."

Needless to say it took us a while to recover from that one

[leeroy]

I recall teaching 2nd conditionals back when I was even more young and naive than I am now...

I think it was in the presentation stage that was putting a few hypothetical situations to some students. I asked one girl if she would marry a handsome, kind guy - who only had one arm.

The whole class went deathly silent. I couldn't figure it out, carried on a bit longer, and moved onto another lesson stage.

At that point another student came up to me and discretely passed me a note. On it read...

"Teacher. The girl you asked only has one arm. The other one is plastic."

Shiiiiiiiiiiit.

Sure enough, the girl I had asked about marrying a one-armed guy only had one arm, the prosthetic one was carefully hidden under the table. Despite my prayers, Scotty did not 'beam me up'.

I took her to one side at the end of class, fell to my knees and begged for forgiveness. (Well, not exactly, but you get the picture!). She was very good-humoured about the whole issue, but I learnt a very important lesson...

"Always check that before you pose a hypothetical situation regarding the (non-)existence of limbs that the student in question has a full set."

[nomadder]

Very interesting!. It's good to compare stories. Capergirl I 'd heard that Korean students could be bad but wow! That's sounds dangerous. Glad you got out.

[khmerhit]

[denise]

Leeroy--


Daaaaaaaamn!!! What a lesson!

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