Class Clown

If there is something in my life that I must have on a daily basis, it would have to be humor. I could live without the coffee, a shower, or socks but I know that a day is not complete if I haven't laughed or found something to be funny. Trust me, chocolate is pretty high up there too, but laughing causes the same effects. There is something special about laughing with a group of people who are different from you, laughing with a group of people when there is a huge communication barrier.

Every class has a "class clown". A show-off, a trouble-maker, a kid who likes to stir the pot. For class Summer Dream, Matthew played that role rather well. I can't tell you what his family is like, or about his childhood, but I can tell you about his lifelong ambition: to become a famous singer. Matthew was by far one of my most enthusiastic students, the most into the songs that we sang, and the most persistent when it came to carrying the Summer Dream banner. He's this kid that you just have to love.

There is a flower petal stuck to my head. Matthew put it there.

My earliest memory of Matthew would be on day four of teaching. I was starting to get into a routine in the classroom and beginning to feel confident in what I was doing. I developed this habit of "Teach Teacher" at the end of class that the kids absolutely adored. It allowed them the opportunity for them to teach me Chinese, to give back for the hours of English I was teaching them. I had learned all sorts of phrases (little did I realize the ridiculous accent that the people of LongDe spoke with---my little Chinese is pretty much worthless in all other places in China). I also developed a habit of allowing students to reflect on the day (in English) and allowed them an opportunity to pretty much say whatever they wanted (as long as it was in English). Day four came around and Matthew volunteered to speak. He stood at his desk, head down, reading a piece of paper on his desk. In front of the whole class, he proclaimed his love for Miss Kayla and for summer camp, spoke about how much he is learning and how he never wants it to end. To top it all off, Matthew finished his reflection with a tear. Ever not know what to do in a situation? I honestly can't remember how I reacted or what I said, but I do know that it was the talk of the teachers office that day after school.

Mateo leadin' the way with his cool moves and love for dancing.

From that point on Matthew (or as I had a habit of calling him Mateo) became quite the little bugger, in a good way. His energy was unreal and he was always trying to show off when we played sports in the afternoon. He was a leader in his own way, the cool kid. If Mateo gave it a try, everyone else would too. One of my favorite times in the classroom was when I got to play music. They had a cable that would allow me to connect and play my ipod through an ancient TV in the classroom. Every day, the kids received a 15 minute break to go play with Miss (Kristina) Bennett, and I would take that time to regroup, clean up the class, play a few tunes and dance around the classroom. Mind you, we were in China at the end of the World Cup 2010 so all the kids wanted to talk about was sports. I (in complete honesty) had lost all interest in the World Cup since all of the teams I wanted to win were eliminated in the first round. Nonetheless, I had been jammin away in my own classroom when Mathew came bursting through the door, sweaty and out of breath. He immediately flashed this ginormous smile and started dancin' on stools. As the rest of the class followed I realized that they too had positive reactions to the music that was being played. From that point on, I tried to incorporate "Wavin' Flag" into as many activities as I could.

Mateo was your average, aggressive boy. We would play games of "flyswatter" and somehow Mateo's competition would always end up on the ground. He was always the sweatiest kid at the end of the day, and always the one to be the center of attention. There was one class day when Mateo didn't show up. Though I thought it was odd, I knew that there was always a kid or two missing from class. Fifteen minutes into my lesson, Miss (Danielle) Liu bursts into my door and asks about the whereabouts of some of my boys because a handful of hers were missing. Ironically, seconds later Mateo and one other student came gliding into the classroom door, trying their best to sneak in. Covered in sweat, one carrying a basketball in his hand, there was no doubt why they had been late to class. Miss Liu ran to her class to grab her boys that had also joined in on the fun. "Miss Kayla, these boys are very late. What must we make them do so that they will never be late again? I think we should make them all perform 'happy birthday' for the classes." And that they did. Sheepishly and stumbling over the words (we had learned it the day before) the basketball boys performed Happy Birthday for class Summer Dream and class All-Star Monkeys (Miss Liu's class).

Summer Dream proud of their Christmas Tree. Of course Mateo is holding it.

In the curriculum that we were teaching a "secret word" game would sometimes be an option for class.This quickly became one of my favorite activities to teach because I could be as crazy as I wanted and the students would have to reciprocate. The gist is that every student would draw a piece of paper with a 'secret word' on it (there are maybe like, 10 words). They would then have to read the given passage and highlight/underline every time their word is used. I then, as the teacher would read the passage aloud and every time I read one of their secret words they would have to make a sound. Now, I'm not talking like a pipsqueak noise. I'm talking like a full belly gut grunt. Think Tim Allen in Home Improvement, and then double that. Anyways, the kids would have to identify all the words and then make a sentence out of all the secret words. I know, not as cool as the full belly gut grunt. The best part about it was that I, as the teacher, could stop and continue to repeat their word if their grunt wasn't up to par. On either the last or second to last day, we played this secret word game in my class. I don't think I have ever had so much fun in my life. The two paragraph reading passage took us a good half hour to get through because I kept pushing my students for better full belly gut grunts. I have never seen my kids laugh so much either. Right from the beginning their grunts were not what I expected, so i didn't move on until I was pleased. Oh the poor shy quiet ones, I made them come out of their shell that day. I might have been out of control, getting in a few of their faces like a drill sargent (only to the ones who I knew could take it. I'd end up getting two inches from their face and we'd both start cracking up).  Anyways, there was many a time that the grunt wasn't satisfying, or that a person would miss their word (I obtain the answer key so I know these things. Ahhh, the power of teachers). There came a point nearing the end that the kids were really into it, my side was hurting from laughing so hard, and we were just having fun as a class. Matthew and Kristy (who I'll talk about next time) were paired together with the secret word "a". I, knowing that it was coming up, made eye contact with the two of them while reading the given passage. I watched as Matthew, in his oober excitement to please me with his full belly grunt, leaped up before it was time to speak. Only, half of him leaped up. His torso and upper body were so ready, but his legs must not have gotten the mental 'go' because they stayed put. This resulted in an unbalance of weight for his poor tiny stool, which quickly collapsed behind him, Mateos body soon following. Now mind you, I was the only one seeing this because Mateo was in the very back of the classroom. The following crash scared the tar-nation out of the rest of the class.

And this, my friends, poses a moral debate. Someone is potentially injured. Do you laugh? I can tell you this, I certainly did, after I realized that Matthew was laughing too. 

There was one point where we held a "LongDe talent show" for all the students. We as the teachers put together a skit and performed. I guarantee they only understood half of what we were saying, but nonetheless I have never laughed so hard in assembling a skit. Great teamwork, LongDe teachers. The amount of students we got to participate in the LongDe talent show were slim to none. However, Mateo, destined to become a famous singer, got over his stage freight to perform for the school some Chinese pop song. Yea, it was pretty adorable.

LongDe was a small city. LongDe was a street. All the peoples within a 20 mile radius knew where we were living for our time there. Our final day, after our sob fest at the closing ceremony, a fair number of our students showed up at our place to say goodbye one last time and to help us pack our things (they were so sweet). There were two students from my class, one of whom was Mateo. Good 'ole Mateo who broke all cultural barriers to give me a goodbye hug and cry in my arms. I mean, I returned the favor too. The bus driver must have thought we were nuts because the first hour or so of that bus ride, all one could hear was wails and sobs and sniffles. We waved out the window what seemed like time in slow motion. Hearts torn in two for a passion for our students and a desire for a cheeseburger. I'd take the students any day. Mateo provided for me one final memory of LongDe. As the crowd of students and administrators clustered beside the bus, they too waved and shed tears as we began to pull away. In a movie-moment, one broke free and one followed us, chasing after the bus keeping up until we reached the city limits. He ran and waved and smiled and wiped away tears, all while managing to dodge traffic in efforts to keep up with us. Watching this made the tears burn even hotter. That boy was Mateo.

-康妮