Saturday, September 12, 2009

This is how teachers get arrested...

and I sooooo know better! Gah.

This afternoon my class finished the lesson a bit early. I was going to make them do a work book page but they started whining for a game. I'm usually okay with this - they're a good class and they do class work when I ask them to. But I wasn't prepared this time, we've kinda over done hang-man and other vocab games.

In another class they'd asked to play a game and the kids taught me the ... I don't even know if it has a name, I never played it when I was a kid. Basically you blindfold one kid and everyone else is supposed to freeze (they never do) so the blindfolded kid can grab someone and guess who it is. Everything was going well - it really is a hilarious game, as long as you're not the one blindfolded. ;) I'd let all the kids play and it was right at 4 o'clock so I told the kids to go home. But they were like "teacher play too!" so I did.

You know, I'm fairly conservative, and tend to err on the side of extreme caution when it comes to touching my students. As in... I don't do it. Period. Earlier in the morning my 5 year old girl was standing next to my chair coloring a picture (she doesn't like to sit down). She kept edging closer and closer to me - in the way that 5 year olds tend to do and at one point tried to climb up in my lap. And just so you know what kind of hard-ass I am - I got up, pulled her chair around and had her sit down again in her own chair. It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to a child sitting in my lap, but at school I want to draw the line between "teacher" and "mom" you know?

So I don't know what I was thinking, but there I was blind-folded and fumbling around the room. At one point I bumped into my desk and fairly fell onto the chair. Lo & behold there was someone *in* the chair! And in the process of getting up & trying to figure out which part of the person was where I think I did some fairly inappropriate groping. Probably not *that* inappropriate... but it was a bit more full-body contact than one would want. When I identified the kid and took off my blindfold the kids were um... scandalized? It's hard to tell - they were laughing... and not using full sentences... but from the miming - gah! It was not teacher-appropriate.

And it was only *after* playing that I remembered a story I heard about a local English teacher getting fired over a student complained about inappropriate touching. Gah! So, yeah - I will *not* be playing that game again.


TAG: Code Fish Sauce

4 comments:

Kaye said...

Live and learn right??? Now you know!

Jeannetto said...

It's funny in Japan they tell us that teachers are expected to be motherly, especially females. So I've had to learn to hug and let students sit on my lap. If I have a 3 year old crying I hold him/her throughout the lesson. But the students are less scandalized by touch here than in the USA, where teacher's cant even really pat a kid's shoulder.

Jeannetto said...

Sorry, my comments are always comparing to Japan :P

Rebel said...

Kaye - yeah, and fortunately I only have two more Saturdays with those kids, so the horror will be short lived.

Jeannette - yeah, I think culture has a bit to do with it here too, Thais are affectionate but never hug - it's mildly scandalous I think. Don't worry about comparing things to Japan - I like hearing how things are in other countries!