Happy, gotcha!

Since happiness is something that comes and goes without asking, I'm rarely aware of any blissful moment in my English classes. I never ask myself if I'm happy teaching, it's just my job, it pays my bills and I try to do my best. Enjoyment is simply not in the contract. But today I stopped for a second, wondering what one of my students was seeing in me and asking myself if he wasn't right after all.

I've got to give a little background first. At the beginning I was quite reluctant to teach a class of 5 year-old boys at 5 pm. Not that I have anything against number 5, a part from the fact that I can't stand Channel n.5. It was because that class was a bunch of restless hockey players who are buddies in the same team and everywhere else. It was because they had driven another teacher mad and their register was full of notes about kicking and biting. I had been given a mission: taking them back on track, no matter the violent fights, no matter the fact that the director's son is in there too. Just keeping them safe while I spoke some English to them would have been enough.

When I first set foot in there, it was in the middle of November, halfway through the term. Their books were anywhere but in their folders. What's worst, their first term booklet had already been finished, the activity book too, and they still didn't have a clue about the animals in the zoo or the basic emotions. I couldn't touch the second booklet and even the resource pack was useless. The cd-rom was pitiable.

I forgot about the teacher's book and I completely relied on my (survival) instinct to build a routine and something vaguely resembling a discipline. Gradually they have got used to a score system in which they get a star everytime they do something well, be it an exercise or simply helping out in class. They have got used to losing stars whenever they misbehave. Now they obsessively compare their scores even if they can barely count up to 10.

They have got used to leaving their bags and their coats in a corner as soon as they arrive. They know that they are going to play 2 games, chase and memory, maybe sing a song, read a couple of pages from a book, write or draw on a couple of worsheets and that's it. They know their routine and that makes them feel immensely confident. They know what to expect and what I expect of them.
It's amazing the way we rely on routines to give us a sense of comfort from a very early age, only to try and escape from them when we get older.

At the beginning of the class they sit down at a little table and wait until I call everyone's name asking: "Are you here?" They soon started replying: "Yes, I'm here!". Recently they have added me too at the end of the list, which I find rather sweet, and they are also learning to ask me: "Lisa, are you here?" and they immediately answer: "Noooooo!" before I can say anything for myself. But something tells me they don't really mean it.

The second thing we always do is playing a chase game in which they have to touch the flashcard I call out before I catch them. "Lisa says I like tigers" and I roar running after them, who scatter in search of the right picture on the wall. "Lisa says I'm under the roof" and one day some kids remembered that the week before we had pretended the table was a house and then they decided they could as well hide underneath instead of touching a flat flashcard.

Then the strangest thing happened. "Lisa says I'm happy" and one kid today thought that he could as well go for the real thing and jumped to touch my face.

At first I didn't understand, I assumed he needed attention, I laughed and I tried to shake him off. But then I understood. He was repeating "happy" and pointing at my face. He meant to say I looked happy to him.

And then I realised I was really feeling happy, not just drilling the word into their little heads, not just pretending and putting up a face. Something clicked and I started laughing at myself, stroking the jumping child's head.
In spite of my assuring to everyone who wants to listen that I can't stand children, in spite of my aspiring to a thousand other jobs rather than teaching , in spite of my having become a teacher by mistake, working for an unknown school in an unknown village, in spite of everything, the kid was right.

Right there I was happy, I was having a good time playing chase with a buch of restless hockey players. Gosh, I discovered I could be a happy teacher!