Private students

One of the first few weeks I was here I picked up a private student. I've had several other offers but every time I try to arrange something with them, it always fell through. Luckily this girl hasn't.

Her name is Myeong Yeon, and she is a 1st grade middle school student (Our 7th grade. She will be in 8th grade in March). She is one of the most darling girls in the world, and she’s come a long way in 3 months as well. We have 1 hour lessons once a week on Thursdays where I had originally planned on teaching her conversational English mixed in with a little bit of reading comprehension.

Her mother altered that plan and wanted me to focus on reading and pronunciation from this awful pre-teen book. She had no concern about comprehension as long as her pronunciation was right. Well, thank goodness I'm the teacher and can modify things to make them appear as if I am accomplishing the goal her mother wants.

During out lessons we learn new vocabulary and work on comprehension within a reading and pronunciation framework. I wish it didn't have to be from this awful pre-teen book though.

In addition, her mother is a nut-job. She confiscated her daughter's cell phone for a bizarre reason, leaving me without a means of communication with Myeong Yeon. This resulted in her blowing off a lesson because she couldn’t call me because she didn’t have my phone number. Her mother refuses to pay for it as well saying “she wasn’t there, so why do I need to pay you?” I don't want to make her daughter suffer, so I just let it slide.

Today, Myeong Yeon comes running into my apartment after 2 weeks of no lessons due to finals, and the first thing she says is, "Lauren! I've missed you so much!" She shows me a brochure for this movie she went to go see with her favorite actor. I could tell that she worked on how to explain the movie to me, primarily because she was slowly speaking the new words that she is trying to add to her vocabulary, and looking at me ensuring that they were correct. We discuss the movie and the actors for a few minutes, and then she goes into her backpack and pulls out her English final exam. She hands me the paper with a small smile on her face. I look down the page and see no 'X' marks. I just see each problem with a big 'O' around it. I look back at her;

"A circle means it's right?"
"Yes..."
"I see all circles..."
"Yes..."
"You got a perfect on your English exam? You're awesome. I'm so proud of you!"

She had the biggest smile on her face and she grabbed my hand with this look of absolute satisfaction. I'm not sure how much praise she gets at home, but this girl deserves a little bit more of it. She told me about how she was crying this past week from stress over her exams. A 13-year-old girl should not be crying over stress of studying. I'm sorry but that's wrong. This poor girl studies harder than I probably ever have in my life (with maybe the exception of my music history and music theory finals … and maybe my senior recital.) But students here start doing that at age 13 and go all the way through high school and college in a similar manner! They don't have a life and they don't ever have time to be kids. I find some major fault in this system.

Whenever Myeong Yeon walks in my door, I turn on the doting aunt switch. I take out food for her to eat, we talk about what is going on in her life, and you can tell she just relaxes for an hour. She tells me stories from school, I tell her stories from when I was a student, and we laugh. You can help kids learn better when they feel safe. If the environment is not safe, the learning process is harder because information doesn't stick. This holds especially true when they're in middle school -- there is too much self discovery during these years.

The more I think about it, the harder I realize it is going to be leaving my students in a few weeks. I get teary-eyed thinking about it. Right when I am finally getting to see how huge the personalities of my students are, when they are finally showing me their quirky sides, and when they’re finally begin to open up and tell me about their lives, I need to go.

I find something about this situation slightly unfair, and I think it's unfair on both sides of the coin.