A brief incident that I thought was too funny not to share today. I have been having – shall we say – a bit of difficulty with one of my classes at the school where I’m teaching. I thought I was hired to help these girls with homework as a supplement to their class. Well, apparently I was hired to be their sole teacher. These are eighth grade girls who have been taking English since third grade and still can’t say, “Hi, how are you” or “My name is Yifat” in English. I am NOT making this up. They are severly learning disabled and somewhat emotionally impaired. Needless to say, I’m having a ball.

So, today I had finally had it with one of the girls. She makes the other girls feel shy and uncomfortable when they try to speak English, she sings all the time during class, and generally drives me crazy. I needed to do something. How, exactly, does one look dignified and demand that a student listen or leave the room without the vocabulary to do so. It was quite an experience. Well, she and I got into an argument, with the other girls trying to correct my Hebrew while I spewed out my venum. Finally, I sat back and started to laugh. She was hurling all sorts of epithets my way – but I didn’t understand a single thing that she was saying. It was actually quite humorous. Poor girl. She didn’t realize that she couldn’t actually insult me if I had no idea what the insults were! And so, I sat there, trying not to show her that I was laughing or that I was clueless – I had to look offended after all or blow my cover. Did I win? Who knows…there are still eight months left before I can collapse!