Friday, October 24, 2008

Let Go My Ego!

A student of mine was looking at her notes from World Religions class a few days ago and saying the words of the Christian Lord’s Prayer. In a studied manner, the student uttered the words “deliver us from ego” rather than “deliver us from evil.” As I corrected her, I also thought that her prayer was pretty good! And of course, it reminded me of a few things…

For one thing, if you were watching TV commercials in the 1970s you would remember siblings fighting as something popped up from the toaster and they screamed, “Leggo my Eggo!” Toaster waffles had just been introduced and now a catch-phrase was born—especially for siblings looking for ways to pick fights with other siblings. “Leggo my Eggo!”

Let go my ego!

As a teacher you don’t have to work too hard to let go of your ego—that process is usually facilitated by a bratty adolescent who either wants to put your in your place, or is just having a bad day (maybe both, but my friend Anne always assures me, “even when it is meant against you, they don’t really mean it, even when they mean it.”)

You may think you just delivered the most scintillating lecture on the rise of Athenian democracy, or guided a provocative discussion on Plato’s concept of the philosopher-king, but at the end of the period, as you are mentally patting yourself on the back for your scholarly calisthenics, someone asks, “ Do we really have to have class tomorrow?” or “Are you serious that if I didn’t do the Journal Sheet I will get a zero?” or you hear the cloistered comment, “He really seems to like the Greeks. Whatever.”

And yet, this is one of the most fascinating things about teaching secondary school—navigating through the egos of teen-agers, parents, colleagues, and administrators. Maybe any business or administrative or service organization is like this, but it can keep you humble in some interesting ways.

I constantly enjoy remembering that there is still so much to learn—about many things. I know that these year’s blog entries aren’t as full of the wonder and the naivete that last year so naturally provided—I know my way around many Jordanian customs, roads, menus, or quirky habits (ahhh, let’s remember they are only quirky to those who are foreigners perhaps!) now. But last week I had an interesting experience reminding me that there is still much to learn. I had gone over to a Jordanian colleague’s house to fetch her for a dinner engagement with our departing friend Renee. This colleague has a playful young son who simply enjoys being a boy. My friend and I were talking, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her son, and I thought he was sneaking up to me. Now Halloween is coming up, and last year many of the KA families got an exciting introduction to the ghosts and goblins and trick-or-treat feel of American Halloween. Out of the corner of my eye I thought he was coming over as a ghost to spook me. I like to play around with a good scare, so I skulked down a little, wheeled around, and said in a good Halloween voice: “Hey, who’s there???” When I turned, I indeed saw her young son in a white, well, something, to me, it looked like a ghost costume, and my friend calmly said, “Oh, he’s praying.” Silence. How soon would this moment pass?! Fortunately, thankfully, neither my friend nor the son acted horrified and offended that I mistook his prayers for a Halloween-esque prank. But oh, oh, what a long moment of, whoops, there goes the ego again! Hey, there is still so much to learn about daily life, what you wear for prayers, and that not every pre-teen is aiming for a Halloween trick in the month of October.

I had to deal with someone’s bruised ego this week, but it was more than just a bruised ego. One of the most wonderful students I know was very sullen last weekend, and finally I got the story that he had been in the dining hall, and a teacher was justifiably angry that many trays had been left at the tables after dinner. The teacher wanted some help, solicited the aid of this particular student, and the student translated an Arab proverb that means something like, “if you want to do something well, do it yourself.”

At the end of a long day a teacher’s nerves can get strained, to say the least. But the teacher probably took this comment as insolence and a cavalier attitude towards helping out. As adults will do, he made the cutting remark, “that is the most disrespectful thing I have heard yet in Jordan.” We adults often exhale and make comments like that, it’s true, and it is often from an exhausting day of watching and monitoring and guiding and shaping. We often make those comments and then we go on with our plans and lessons and leisure.

But this student took that comment to heart and wondered if he was worthy to stay at KA. He reasoned that it was a disrespectful comment, and that he was so bad that he had shamed himself and his family. We had an interesting discussion about class and history and inter-cultural translations and hurt feelings. Eventually I asked the teacher over—a good friend, by the way, and a committed educator—and we talked about the power of words: the power of that young man’s recitation of a familiar Arab proverb, and the power of misinterpretation. I hope the hurt egos are healing.

I am in the middle of an odd power-war of egos myself. This is the kind of thing that email does not help, and only exacerbates and enervates. When my father was in town I asked if it was appropriate to request one of the drivers (my friend Sam, actually) to take my dad around Amman one day during mid-term exams. Well, my request turned into the kind of email volley that just gets more and more ridiculous with the mock-formalities and the accusations and the proclamations. I was accused of “insisting and demanding” and the ‘how dare yous’ mounted. No matter how well you try, someone will always find a reason to dislike you, but in these emails (and oh the sneer of the typed “cc” just adds to the situation!) I wanted to show where the person was wrong, the motives were lost in translation, and then the impulse is either to prove the person wrong, or just let it go. Just let it go…I’m working on that!

I suppose this is also the time to relay the news that Ishtar is no more. Ishtar, the name given to my 2009 Ford Focus by a clever junior world historian, got wrecked the other day. Since no one got hurt, I suppose I can relay the news of Ishtar’s demise with a sense of humor.

I shared the lease of said 2009 Ford Focus with a young colleague (hear the emphasis on the word young?). I got a call during lunch the other day that she had wrecked the car. After I ascertained the report that she was physically fine I asked about the accident. She had had the accident on campus before leaving school grounds. She had gotten something in her eye, and she ended up in this cavernous ditch on the other side of the road, even taking out two light poles before she ended up nearly flipped over.

Whatcha gonna do???

The police determined the car was totaled, and now I am waiting to find out about the car situation. Fortunately, thankfully, we are fully insured by the school—but as of now, all those plans of souping (souping? I swear I have never used that I-guess-1950s-anachronistic verb!) around Jordan are on hold.

Two other semi-related classroom stories I find different kind of funny on the continuum of funny. A student came to me the other day—a student I had interviewed as a prospective student—and proudly exclaimed, “My teacher called me smart today!” I wondered if it had been a stellar mid-term exam, or an exceptionally insightful comment, so I inquired as to the context. “Well, she looked kind of funny at me, but said, ‘You Bashar are such a smart-aleck!” Another moment lost in translation…I put my arm around him and deflated that balloon as I explained the comment, and tried to explain the ‘funny’ look he had gotten.

Faisal, one of the sharpest and most charming students I know, about 10 days ago, asked in class, “Are we having a mid-term exam in this class?” The class looked ready to laugh, and I looked ready to smile, when we all realized he was serious. For the previous 8 days I had mentioned the upcoming mid-term exam every single day; the announcement and explanation had been written on weekly assignment sheets, and it was written on one of the boards in the classroom—how could he not know?? But he didn’t. I’m not sure where that falls on the continuum of funny, but it must have a place somewhere.

Oh, lord, deliver me! Deliver me!

1 comment:

Me and My Son said...

I once quipped at Myles "No body likes a smart alec." His response was "But doesn't that mean I'm smart?" I had no retort.