A student complained about me.....
Well, we're not actually sure if it was a complaint, actually....
Nova students are known for their complaining. Now, I don't see anything wrong with it--they are paying a heck of a lot of money to have some strange white person speak their native language to them for 40 minutes--it's just amusing how it comes out on our end. It's often hard to drag yourself into the next lesson when the bell rings, so often you linger. It's such a hard issue....hmmm. We don't feel appreciated enough by Nova, so we don't run to the room. Sometimes we may have a difficult student, it may be our "monday", or it may be our last lesson of the day. I truely enjoy the company of several students, though, and want to spend time with them. They're paying so much, too, for you to waste any of their 40 minutes. This is their most frequent complaint, I'm told. However, it's probably just some anal-retentiveness of one of the managers coming out...as there are some who go to their lessons a full 8 minutes before the lesson begins.
Lots of students say nice things about us. The staff have come to me several times telling me that this or that student had such a nice thing to say about me. By the way, the students who do say these things often are sooo sweet and sincere....they're great people. Lots of times it's just about your voice, or smile, or appearance in general. Other times, they tell you that you're their favorite teacher. Oh, my favorite is, a student once told me, "I'm crazy about you!" I had to explain exactly what he had said to him....heehee it was funny. He had just read it somewhere just before the lesson.
We lowly non-managerial teachers don't usually share all these things students say personally, with our managers. They're so--well, I believe I've told you all about them--two of my three are just poo (yes, that's the best way to describe them). Also, the managers rarely find out if anyone said anything good about you, 'cause they treat the staff so poorly, the staff wants to spend as little time with them as possible--even if it would help a teacher. Whenever I do hear something from a student, I always try to pass it on to the teacher it was about--I also try to have a manager present when I say it.
Well, my manager sat me down today for the second time (time that is reserved to talk about my probation observation--an observation by him of me teaching! it's nice not to have to teach a lesson that period, but I hardly enjoyed my company) to talk about my observation, and told me--whoops, I forgot the observation form, so we'll have to reserve another period some other time. Whatever....anyway, the funny thing is, he began by telling me, "there's obviously going to be no problem with you getting off probabtion with high marks, students seem to really enjoy your lessons. I think they mostly enjoy your manner. There have been many students who have praised you. There was one comment, though, that we're not sure about.... It's sort of crypted--we weren't sure if it was a complaint, a compliment, comment, or just the staff's mistaken translation." Then after he'd prefaced it all with his mile long perception of the statement, he said, "a student said you were, 'scary'. Now, I don't know if they were just intimidated because you're tall or...blahblahblah." Heehee....so, later when I was relaying this story to one of my friends, she was like, "there is no student, the 'student' is him! he has a problem with your height, and made himself believe that it was the student that mentioned something."
Whatever the cause or meaning of this, it's still really funny. I totally cracked up when he told me that....I think maybe he expected a more professional or maybe even disheartened response....and laughed even more when my friend and I were discussing it later.
Well, that's it for now....talk to y'all kids later....
Nova students are known for their complaining. Now, I don't see anything wrong with it--they are paying a heck of a lot of money to have some strange white person speak their native language to them for 40 minutes--it's just amusing how it comes out on our end. It's often hard to drag yourself into the next lesson when the bell rings, so often you linger. It's such a hard issue....hmmm. We don't feel appreciated enough by Nova, so we don't run to the room. Sometimes we may have a difficult student, it may be our "monday", or it may be our last lesson of the day. I truely enjoy the company of several students, though, and want to spend time with them. They're paying so much, too, for you to waste any of their 40 minutes. This is their most frequent complaint, I'm told. However, it's probably just some anal-retentiveness of one of the managers coming out...as there are some who go to their lessons a full 8 minutes before the lesson begins.
Lots of students say nice things about us. The staff have come to me several times telling me that this or that student had such a nice thing to say about me. By the way, the students who do say these things often are sooo sweet and sincere....they're great people. Lots of times it's just about your voice, or smile, or appearance in general. Other times, they tell you that you're their favorite teacher. Oh, my favorite is, a student once told me, "I'm crazy about you!" I had to explain exactly what he had said to him....heehee it was funny. He had just read it somewhere just before the lesson.
We lowly non-managerial teachers don't usually share all these things students say personally, with our managers. They're so--well, I believe I've told you all about them--two of my three are just poo (yes, that's the best way to describe them). Also, the managers rarely find out if anyone said anything good about you, 'cause they treat the staff so poorly, the staff wants to spend as little time with them as possible--even if it would help a teacher. Whenever I do hear something from a student, I always try to pass it on to the teacher it was about--I also try to have a manager present when I say it.
Well, my manager sat me down today for the second time (time that is reserved to talk about my probation observation--an observation by him of me teaching! it's nice not to have to teach a lesson that period, but I hardly enjoyed my company) to talk about my observation, and told me--whoops, I forgot the observation form, so we'll have to reserve another period some other time. Whatever....anyway, the funny thing is, he began by telling me, "there's obviously going to be no problem with you getting off probabtion with high marks, students seem to really enjoy your lessons. I think they mostly enjoy your manner. There have been many students who have praised you. There was one comment, though, that we're not sure about.... It's sort of crypted--we weren't sure if it was a complaint, a compliment, comment, or just the staff's mistaken translation." Then after he'd prefaced it all with his mile long perception of the statement, he said, "a student said you were, 'scary'. Now, I don't know if they were just intimidated because you're tall or...blahblahblah." Heehee....so, later when I was relaying this story to one of my friends, she was like, "there is no student, the 'student' is him! he has a problem with your height, and made himself believe that it was the student that mentioned something."
Whatever the cause or meaning of this, it's still really funny. I totally cracked up when he told me that....I think maybe he expected a more professional or maybe even disheartened response....and laughed even more when my friend and I were discussing it later.
Well, that's it for now....talk to y'all kids later....
posted by MarisaPaulCharlie | 7:16 PM
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