That Too Has Passed   2004-10-18

Some days the air seems to smell fresher.
Some days the sun seems to shine stronger.
Some days the water seems to taste sweeter.

Today is one of those days. Today is the day someone stopped beating a hammer against our heads. Forever.

Towards the end of summer I was approached by a friend I'd met at Kojen with an offer of employment for Marlene and I at a private elementary school. The offer sounded great: excellent pay, a reasonable amount of teaching hours, a fairly convenient location, and the possibility of transitioning from part-time to full-time work if everything worked out. We nibbled at the bait for a few days and then swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

Teaching at   Kojen   during the summer can be intense. A lot of students on summer "holiday" are busy studying at a cram school of some kind. They're mostly studying math or one of the sciences, but the long, summer days mean they can also squeeze in a few hours of English, too. So, Kojen swings open the front doors and the students come flooding in. They pour through the doors, down the halls, and into small, uncomfortable wooden desks for a few hours of present perfect, past particple, and object pronoun practice. Yay! Hooray for English!

The hours add up quickly and before you know it your last six meals have come from 7-11. There's no time to stop. Everytime you go to sit down and catch your breath the Charles Ives bells mash together a few nursery rhymes and summon you back to the whiteboard. It's exhausting, but it's also a bit of a rush once you're in the groove.

Well, when summer's over and regular school is back in session the hours start to dry up at the cram schools. Those on the bottom rung, like Marlene and me, tend to get the fewest hours. So, when I was approached with an offer of extra work at the elementary school at the end of summer I was delighted. More work equals more money, which equals less time in Taiwan. It's a magical equation. The last day of the summer session at Kojen was August 28 and the new semester at the elementary school started on August 31. The timing couldn't have been better.

Our experience at the elementary school couldn't have been worse.

It's a bit of a long story and it's a little too fresh to dip into right now, but suffice it so say we'll both be carrying some indelible memories to the grave.

Personally, I will never be able to erase the following:

Setting: A dimly lit science room that doubles as an English classroom. No desks in the room, just a series of workbenches designed to hide food, toys, and other objects from a teacher's prying eyes. As with most science rooms it has its fair share of distractions: 'Mr. Skeleton', bunsen burners, sacks of animal and plant food for the in-house menagerie housed upstairs, terrariums, books, sinks, etc. It's heaven if you're a kid and hell if you're an English teacher whose name is Pig.

It's located on the ground floor along with the supply room, photocopy room, storage room, and other likewise unattended rooms. Doing time in the science room is a solo tour of duty; there're no adults within shouting distance. Once you start storming enemy territory (perceived free time) there's no turning back until the bell tolls. You know it, and more importantly, the kids know it.

One day, while introducing, Digger, Ted, and Annie (characters in a textbook) to my class of thirteen orphan students (and I use the term "students" loosely) clinically diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, I glanced up from the page to find all thirteen of them standing on top of the workbenches A split second before they'd been more or less sitting. Somehow they'd orchestrated another coup right under my nose. I reached for my ever present whistle and gave them the one loud, warning blast. Nothing but insolent stares in response.

What to do? Maybe they didn't hear the warning blast. I gave another firm, "enough with the monkey business now let's get down to the business of learning some English" blast. Nothing again. No movement, just 26 enemy eyes staring down the barrel of my whistle at me.

As I stood there with the whistle on my lips time slowly ground down to a halt. There was a deadly silence in the room - the calm before the storm. It felt like there was a giant, coiled spring in the room just waiting to erupt in a fury of blind madness. Then it hit me, "It's a stand off." And I thought to myself, "I think I'm actually getting mad. Not just frustrated, but m-a-d mad. I hate this. I hate these kids. I HATE these kids. I HATE THESE KIDS."

In a measured, even tone I told them to sit down. It wasn't a request - it was a polite, but firm command. Nothing. I slowly walked over to the nearest workbench. Like a lion stalking his prey I didn't want to spook them. The girl on the nearest workbench was the youngest and smallest girl in the class. I thought I'd start with her.

Suddenly the room erupted.

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