Students dance to a grammar song.

Before meeting my students,

I attended training for two weeks. The owner employed specific methods to teach subjects such as vocabulary, grammar, phonics, reading and writing. He observed me teach in person. He filmed my classes for a month to make sure I executed his method properly. However, regardless of all of the preparation, nothing ever went completely to plan.

Students play a game during a break.

I looked out at a sea of eight year old faces.

Taking a deep breath, I asked them the question I had rehearsed during my training.

“Students, how do you pronounce this vowel?” I wrote the word “cat” with the letter “a” in a different color.

In return, I heard a chorus of “aye”, “ahh”, “uh”.

“Short a sounds like aa—aa—aa,” I said, motioning for them to repeat.

There was one boy, whom I will call Andy. Andy dutifully repeated, “Short a sounds like aa—aa—aa,” while bashing his genitals in a rhythmic trance.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The girl clique seated next to him scrunched their faces and pushed their desks further away from him. This reminded me of when I taught brothers A, B, and C, who punched each others’ genitals. I had scolded them and printed a decree denouncing any punching of any kind. Andy, however, pounded his own genitals. I wasn’t sure I could announce a rule for only one student, although it was awkward.

Snoozing before class begins.

One of my classes included an autistic boy.

The administration did not inform me beforehand, and it led to stressful and mismanaged encounters. I did not understand why this boy erupted in emotional outbursts, refused to comply with my requests, and physically ran up on me in the middle of class.

His classmates simultaneously shunned him and included him only to make fun of him. Initially, I reprimanded the other students, but as I observed more closely, I witnessed this boy—whom I will call Daniel—taunt them and offer to do things to get their attention.

For example, Daniel would pull his pants down and moon the class.

Attempting to restore order, I said, “Daniel, pull up your pants on and sit in your chair.” Pointing to the board, I said, “Short a sounds like aa—aa—aa.”

Students relaxing.

I held such empathy for my students;

going to school after a full day of regular school was a monumental task. Also, with two hour lessons, the duration of classes required massive energy. Even adults fidget and tune out after an hour, so it correlated that children would find it exhausting to have to pay attention for that long.

In general, I found Taiwanese students to be more sensitive, stressed, and driven to be competitive. I recognized my own Type A over-achieving tendencies in them. When both boys and girls burst into tears for not getting 100% on their tests, I saw myself at nine years old bawling because getting an A- meant I was close to flunking. My fifth grade teacher was flabbergasted.

While my boss trained me to teach with an authoritarian style, in reality, I diverged from that template. First of all, it isn’t my personality. Secondly, teaching this way didn’t yield that missing ingredient: Joy. For example, he instructed me to begin my classes with a grammar-themed warm-up game. These were the same grammar games my predecessor had rolled out before me, so although I was a new teacher, my games were old and stale. I recognized this in the bored faces of my students, but plowed ahead, treading already-trod, we-don’t-want-to-play-this-anymore grammar games.

One evening before my last class of the night,

as I picked up flashcards to use in the warm up game, something in me snapped. “This isn’t fun Teacher!” my own voice screamed at me. As I surveyed my students, I felt light-headed. Suddenly, I was in the Unknown. I ripped the script to pieces. I found my voice, and this is what it said:

“Students, let’s move our desks to make a big circle.” Instantly, the mood changed. Anticipation instead of tedious resentment filled the air.

I hoisted a red ball and explained that each student would pass the ball as long as they heard the music. Once the music stopped, whoever held the ball had to stand up and correctly complete a grammar sentence.

“Ooh!” my students murmured.

I blasted BTS on my phone, the students passed the ball, giggling, dropping the ball, hoping not to be the one stuck with the ball when I cut out the music. Invariably, when the music stopped, the entire class roared in delight. Sometimes, I mistakenly cut the music on the same student in a row, which garnered even greater glee. One boy danced while answering the grammar challenge. I laughed as hard as my students.

That moment was a break through. Since that spontaneous choice to toss the old game and follow my intuition, I felt a deeper connection to my students. It was worth the gamble.

So sleepy.

By showing my students

that I was open to having fun, they opened up even more. They revealed their quirky, funny personalities. In one class, I asked my students to stagger their desks to prepare to take the spelling quiz. One female student pushed her desk all the way to the front until her desk was glued to mine! This prompted another female student to do the same! This intimate seating arrangement continued after the spelling quiz, as the girls stayed where they were for the rest of our class. It was unconventional, but it did not give them any advantage, so I permitted them to continue to smash their desks against mine.

Another time, a female student raised her phone to take a picture of me. She blurted, “Teacher, you are beautiful!” and giggled. This prompted another female student to take a picture of me, which elicited a chorus of, “Teacher, you are beautiful!” from the class. Then, a male student walked over to me and patted me on the head, as if I were a good little girl!

I knew they enjoyed my class, and it meant the world to me.