I teach an after-school English tutoring class on Mondays and Wednesdays at the school where I work. One of my students is Andrés. He's a horrible student, but for some reason, I like him. Until yesterday, that is. I was walking onto campus, and as usual, he was waiting outside. He was already being obnoxious and throwing small pieces of chalk. God knows why these kids love stealing chalk, but they do. As I was walking up to him, he decided to throw a piece of chalk straight at me. Not cool. My first reaction was to yell, "What the fuck?!" And I did. Luckily, only
Lily understood. I asked him what was wrong with him, but all he could do was laugh. That pissed me off. Now, I'm not a professional teacher, I didn't study any kind of teaching methodologies, nor do I have the authority to discipline the students, so I didn't know what to do. I decided to just let him know that he was out of line, that he had no respect for me even though we get along very well, and that he just fucked himself over. That last part wasn't said as harshly, but I think he understood. He normally wants to be in my section of the class, but I told him no and ignored him for the rest of the period. It's tough to want to tell someone a lot of things but to be held back by a language barrier. When I'm upset, I have a tough time expressing myself in Spanish.
I was thinking that I'd now no longer be able to joke around with him like I used to because, come on, he was out of line. In today's class he kept trying to get my attention and talk to me--like we usually do while the real teacher is teaching--but I kept telling him to be quiet. That's how the morning ended. In the afternoon, when I have him for P.E., though, he quietly came up to me and said, "I need to talk to you privately, please." He then apologized: "I'm sorry for throwing chalk at you yesterday. I was not respecting you and I hope you will accept my apology." Because I don't expect a fourteen-year-old to be mature enough to do something like that, I told him that I accepted his apology, and he shook my hand. He seemed sincere to me. Then he asked me to be his partner while the class practiced volleyball in pairs. I decided to do it even though I suck at volleyball.
Anyway, working with these kids is so strange at times. They can be so disrespectful one minute but then win your heart the next. Don't get me wrong--there are those you always dread seeing and those that you always love seeing. The ones in between, though, are always complicated. Granted, this is coming from someone without any previous teaching experience or studies, so take it for what it is. I do find it odd, though, that a lot of "bad kids" take a liking to me. I don't know why it is, but most of the troublemakers will usually shut up if I tell them to but will completely ignore the teacher if he or she does the same. Today, one kid who was expelled a month ago (Raúl, the guy who always asked me if I smoked marijuana), came back on campus to visit and sought me out so that he could shake my hand and say hello. Maybe it's just that I'm young or that I'm American or something. I don't know. I just know that if I were their age, they'd more than likely kick my ass for being a nerd. Strange.
