Bob Student is Trashy

My students regularly provide me with material via their unintentionally hilarious utterances. Broken English is expected; without it, they’d have no use for me here. I like to think that mocking my students for their broken English is below me; I also like to think that I have unshakable self belief. Denial, denial, denial. Should one of my older students make a seriously unfortunate English blunder, I refrain from smirking and make a point of explaining the difference between what they meant to say and what they actually said. Given my inability to have emotions without wearing them on my face, this is harder than it ought to be. When one of my younger students makes a grossly inappropriate blunder I simply correct them and hope for the best. There really isn’t good way to tell an 8 year old why they shouldn’t replace the “Tell” in the “Tell Me” song with “Finger”, is there? A truly horrifying two minutes of my life that was. Thankfully, Bob Student’s English blunder last week wasn’t quite that awkward.

While in Itaewon last weekend, I bought an inordinate amount of Real Gum; that is, mint flavoured American gum. Korean gum isn’t awful; it’s just not as minty as what I prefer to snap. My students went completely gaga last time I brought in Real Gum for them. Their excitement was soon quashed by sour faces upon tasting a mint much stronger than what they’re used to. They would wave their hands in front of their mouths and say “teacher, hot!” I would smile, nod, and agree. There are few things that I enjoy watching more than other people making foul faces in response to things that I give them, so I decided to share the Real Gum love and pass some around in one of my evening classes. After humouring them throughout their chorus of, “ooh, teacher! So hot!” I tried to proceed with the lesson plan. Failure ensued.

As I was beginning to discuss the objectives for that day’s lesson, Bob Student decided that it would be a good time for him to speak. He was wrong. My response to this is usually to make a face at him then put a check mark beside his name on the board and threaten to remove him from class if he doesn’t learn how to be quiet when I’m speaking. Barbie Teacher hates to repeat herself! Sometimes I’m too tired to go through all the motions and resort to blowing a whistle at him instead. I returned from lunch break one day a few weeks back with the best 20 cent purchase of my life: a beautiful, blue whistle. My coworkers were extremely confused when I ran into the staff room to blow it at them; they had thus far failed to notice that my immaturity is off the charts. Blowing the whistle more or less has the same effect as putting a check beside their name, but is significantly more amusing for me. On this day I opted for the face-and-check method, largely because I was too lazy to sift through my purse for my whistle.

Before I could properly scold him for interrupting me, Bob Student waved his hand at me to indicate that he had garbage to dispose of. In other words, I had provided the entire class with gum and then went to scold one of them when they wished to get rid of their garbage in an orderly fashion. This never happens. Bob Student should have received a reward for the most unlikely behaviour by a Barbie Student. Ever. The children generally take whatever candy I give them, immediately pop it in their mouths and then throw their wrapper on the desk or the floor behind them. Manners; they’re a lost art.

Bob Student looked at me innocuously with his ball of gum wrapper and said, “Teacher, I’m trashy”. Double take. “Bob Student, you’re what?” “Teacher, I’m trashy”, he repeated, waving his garbage. I was tempted to have fun with this like I did with the Short Bus conversation from last week, but for once, professionalism won out. I spent the next 30 seconds explaining the correct way to ask me where the garbage is, and another 5 after that explaining why Bob Student shouldn’t run around in circles telling people that he’s trashy. If it’s true, they’ll already know.