Lesson One

Today was an important day for me as a teacher. I have learned something invaluable: don`t read something, or teach something that is very emotional for you.

I had to hang with L-San today at the library. She has roped me into it as a last-ditch effort to get me to spend time with her. The plan is to read books in English to children, although she has plans all day. I left halfway through, much to her displeasure, because I had other business to attend to. She has, however, called my boss and asked him to fill any slots left in my schedule with her plans. I negotiated it down to one more day of reading to kids...which, God willing, will not spill over into any kind of hang-out time with the L-San. Time will, of course, tell.

But, back to lesson one. I picked out The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. As a young boy, this particular book taught me the bittersweet pleasure of unrequited love, and the million different shades of suicide that selfless love can lead to. It has done more for me in understanding real world relationships than the Berenstein Bears can shake a stick at.

Anyway, none of these poor kids could follow what I was saying anyway. My voice began to shake as the boy asked for money and sold the apples. My hands began to shake when he used the branches to build a house. I had to cough intermittently to keep my composure once he cut the tree down to build his boat. And when the old man sits on the stump, I barely uttered the words `The tree was happy. The end.`

Now, hopefully, the kids don`t think that I`m a weiner cry-baby. Hopefully they just think I get nervous while publicly speaking (I do). I suppose I could fret over it, or worry, but it was too touching a moment for me to not experience, and now it seems to funny to worry over.

If I can laugh at myself and almost simultaneously cry, I think I`m ready to be a teacher.