Pop Quiz!

Here's a multiple choice question for you:

What should one do when a homeless man wanders into one's classroom in the middle of a lesson and asks one's students for money?

Should one:

A) Politely but firmly ask the man to leave and then immediately inform the other teachers of the situation.

B) Shout "Get out! Get out now!" and then try to regain one's composure in front of one's students.

C) Do nothing and sit in a confused, comatose-like state while one's students chat with the strange man until he eventually leaves of his own accord.

According to the "Teacher's Handbook," Rule 239, the correct response would be A, though B is also an acceptable, if slightly frowned upon, method. 

I, however, went with option C, much to my chagrin. In my meager defense, I wasn't immediately aware that the person who had so suddenly burst into my classroom was there to beg for money from my nine-year-old students. This is just another one of those fun little potholes you run into when you don't speak much of the language of the country in which you live and work. I was startled by his abrupt presence, but my first thought was that perhaps he was the grandfather of one of my students. This thought process was only reinforced by the fact that when some of my students first saw the man, they pointed and said the word "grandfather." 

Forgetting that these were very low-level English speakers to whom any old man might be "grandfather," I let them talk to him in Korean for a minute or two. He gestured towards me a lot and said "something, something, something, foreign teacher, something, something, something." I nodded and replied, "mo-lie-yo," which means "I don't understand" in Korean. It was only when he held out his hands and bounced them up and down a bit like he was playing invisible hot potato that I realized why he was there. Still unable to ask him to leave in a way that he would understand, I had to rely on my young students to tell him that no, they did not have any change to give him, at which point he ambled out the door. 

By chance, we had just been reviewing a unit on "Who's he?," and, still quite alarmed, I used the opportunity to practice the lesson. "Who's he?" I asked and pointed in the direction of the door. Nari, with the sort of smile on her face that people get when they are frightened and don't know how to react, responded, "I don't know!" This was not surprising, as the only vocabulary options the book had given her were "doctor," "taxi driver," "teacher," and "factory worker." "Hmm," I said. "Hmmmm." Sally squealed, "I'm scared!" I did my best to reassure them while still feeling bewildered by what had just happened. Probably with a similar sort of smile on my face. 

Sometimes I am an inadequate teacher.