Overview:
An American teacher reflects on his challenging summer in Beijing, where a student named Jerry taught him that being a true Laoshī means.
Arrival in Beijing: Teaching Without a Map
Day one in China proved to be tougher than I expected. Commissioned to teach a class of first-graders English in the capital city, Beijing, I planned my teaching methods based on my years of experience in America. I created lessons “flawlessly” devoted to teaching Chinese kids English, even though I couldn’t speak their language. The kids called us teacher or Laoshī in Mandarin—the one word I didn’t forget from my time there. But really, it was our ‘teaching assistants’ who were the true teachers.
They could speak Mandarin as well as flawless English, and my TA Linda, clearly realized she was responsible not only for a classroom of six-year-olds but also for some clueless, gangly-armed American man. I was barely an assistant compared to her. She was bilingual and brilliant, with hopes to one day become a medical doctor. She was patient and kind. Throughout our time in Beijing, she’d consistently served as my guide and translator. She was probably embarrassed frequently by my cluelessness.
I made up for my lack of intelligence by serving as the classroom entertainment. I dazzled my classroom with decorations, captivating the young minds of boys and girls. For the most part, I felt successful after a long first day. Many kids spoke English well, and all of them giggled at my goofy gestures. I performed during teaching time. I was a hit, beloved by most after just a couple of hours. Or perhaps I was the butt of their joke. Either way, the small students were smiling and laughing throughout the entire first day, whether it was with me or at me.
Meet Jerry: Chaos in a Chubby Cheeked Package
But there was one little boy who proved a challenge to my ability and my sanity. His name was Jerry. This boy was larger than the rest with a chubby face and a piercing voice that was recognizable from anywhere it could be heard. When he smiled, usually mischievously, a gaping hole appeared where his two front teeth should be and sweat glistened down his head routinely as if he had completed a marathon minutes before coming to class. Beijing in the summer is a hot place. For a Chinese boy, Jerry knew English better than many of the kids in class. “Teacher, Teacher,” he would say ten times a day, trying to catch my attention for no real reason. He sounded as though he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, coughing and hacking when he spoke too often. During my days in the classroom, Jerry always seemed to be losing his voice.
I labeled him as the troublemaker almost immediately because, as he came in the room with the other boys and girls for the first time, he flung his pack at the desk with his nametag and ripped a toy penguin—our class mascot—from the wall to play with. I tried to tell him the stuffed animal was merely a decoration. He didn’t care. When another boy tried to grab the penguin from his hands, he nailed the kid square in the face with the toy. The other boy wailed. The penguin was meant as wall décor, not as a weapon. But I was just thankful that he didn’t slap the kid with his actual hands.
I broke up the squabble between the two boys and commanded the class to find their seats. They remained clustered around the stuffed penguin as if they didn’t understand my “command.” Linda, my TA, barked orders at them in Chinese, sending most of the class to their seats. Jerry’s victim was still wailing at the front of the room. So, Linda took the poor kid outside to calm him. Amid the chaos, Jerry stood as if he ranked above the basic rules given to him by a mediocre white male from America. Fair enough. And maybe he was smart for it, but I realized then that my TA would be the one who had to deal with the brunt of his bad behavior. I felt slightly sorry for her at that moment.
After she brought the wailing boy back to the room, Linda knelt beside Jerry as I introduced myself to the class. She pleaded with the boy to sit down at least for a few moments. Occasionally, he’d consider the pleas of the TA before returning to his world where none of us could reside. While the other boys and girls at least pretended to listen to my southern twang-filled English, Jerry twirled in circles, singing songs to himself with no concern whatsoever. By the end of the day, both Linda and I were worn thin by the constant demand Jerry required. She was already sick of him. Secretly, I determined to break through to this little boy during my brief stint in Beijing, even at the expense of losing the rest of the class.
Lost in Translation: Discipline, Heat, and Missteps
On day two, Jerry ran away. The day sweltered with heat and humidity that rivaled the summer days of my childhood in Texas. In a lot of ways, the Beijing heat eclipsed what I knew back in Texas, mainly due to the layers of smog that blotted out the sun. As my class practiced soccer drills on a turf field, the sun baked through the gray smog, which covered the field like a suffocating blanket. Who thought it was a good idea to run drills on a turf field at midday? The clueless American visitors, of course.
Coach Ed, as we called him, barked orders at the four classes of first graders as they ran giddily across the field. They didn’t want to run drills. They wanted to play, and who could blame them? But because Coach Ed wanted order, he sent the TAs and teachers huffing and puffing across the field to gather up the kids who weren’t following the drills. The humidity was inescapable. It seeped through my clothes and soaked my brow only minutes after being outside. Together, heat and humidity entrapped me in a boiling mess that wore down my patience quickly.
It was a miserable July day, and no one wanted to remain outdoors for long. Even the kids seemed confused as to why we had them running around outdoors. Jerry, the most energetic rebel to Coach Ed’s order, sucked down the water in his bottle and whined to return indoors to no avail. I understood his pain but could do nothing about it as I instructed my class on the fundamentals of soccer, a sport I knew nothing about. Sweat poured down the children’s face as they chased balls across the turf field. While the boys and girls practiced their dribbling skills, Linda approached with an anxious look on her face.
“Jack, I think that Jerry has run away,” she said. “He wanted to go inside because it is hot.”
“Well,” I replied. “Could you go get him?” The other kids in my class were already causing enough problems today and I did not have the patience to deal with a runaway.
“I’m watching over the class right now. I can’t go get him,” she answered. It was obvious that Linda didn’t want to handle Jerry either. I didn’t blame her; he was a little terror who could crush the spirit of any who dared cross his path. Plus, she had dealt with him far more than I had. She needed a break.
“Okay, I’ll go find him. You watch over the others,” I said, jogging back into the school in search of the runaway child. After a day with Jerry, I discovered his odd interest in the water fountain at the end of the school hallway. He asked to get water once every hour, and he returned from his hallway errand sopping wet from water. He used the fountain as more of a bathtub than as a drinking faucet. Once he returned from his bath, he would empty his bottle of water onto his desk, creating a shallow pool for his papers and pencils. No matter how many times I said stop, he continued to soak himself and his desk with fountain water, creating a mess that he refused to clean up. Knowing his fascination with the fountain, I searched for him there first. As I rounded the corner, I found Jerry standing on top of the water fountain with a huge smile on his face. He was drenched from both sweat and water with his bottle in his hand, proud of his successful escape from the soccer fields.
“Okay Jerry, it’s time to go back outside,” I said, grabbing his hand to help him off the fountain. He looked up at me, trying to comprehend the words I spoke to him.
“No,” he said, defiantly plopping down on the ground beside my feet. I didn’t know what to do at this point. I wasn’t even sure he knew what I was saying. Oftentimes, he would pretend he couldn’t understand my English—a smart move. After all, why should he be following the rules of some strange white guy? By now, I knew Jerry was practically fluent in the language, and it didn’t take long for me to realize he was playing dumb most times. I tugged at his hand, pulling him upright onto his legs but he went limp, refusing to stand on his own power.
“Come on, Jerry,” I said, growing frustrated minute by minute at this kid’s incredible stubbornness. Also, I was drenched in sweat, which only further soured my mood. All hope of beckoning him outdoors was a failure. Instead, the two of us walked, hand-in-hand, back to our room where we waited for the rest of our class to return.
The Struggle to Connect: Teaching vs. Reaching
In week two, Jerry fought another boy during recess. By now, I have grown more comfortable in the spotlight as a teacher. I knew what to expect from each child and how to best appease them, if not teach them English. Some of the boys caused problems that Linda and I tackled before things escalated. However, my experiments with Jerry varied. Some days, he was an excellent student, answering questions, following instructions, and obeying rules. He was brilliant. Other days, he was a nightmare to handle, ignoring my lessons, disobeying my rules, and cussing out other kids in Mandarin. Even in these moments, he was still a bright little kid, if he often meant to others.
He was only six years old. Finally, it all blew up at recess when another boy named Daniel attacked Jerry. While playing a game of tag, Jerry intentionally tripped Daniel and spat in his face for no apparent reason. Perhaps the two held personal grudges against each other. I wouldn’t know. Daniel sat on the ground with rage building up inside him as Jerry skipped around him in circles, snickering gleefully at his victim. Other kids also gathered to laugh at Daniel’s misfortune and reddened face. Angered by Jerry’s taunts, Daniel charged, flinging his clenched fists forward to punch his bully’s defiant face. Rather than bruising Jerry’s face, the small fists bruised my stomach as I intervened between the two.
I wrapped my arms around Daniel, who trembled with rage while Jerry laughed maniacally, pointing at the boy and encouraging laughter to break out among the rest of the class. Linda gripped Jerry’s arm, leading him away to the vice principal’s office. As they left, he glanced over his back shoulder with an odd grin across his pudgy face. He didn’t seem upset. On the contrary, he was still taunting Daniel ruthlessly. I released Daniel from my embrace and sent him to the office, tears streaming down his cheeks as he walked slowly to the punishment that awaited him.
Later in the day, as I taught my class about common American foods, Jerry and Daniel appeared in the doorway. The two boys conveyed two very different expressions. Jerry appeared triumphant at his return with his chest puffed up in valor as he strode in front of his wide-eyed class. Daniel, however, skulked to his seat, sniffling uncontrollably while his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Clearly, discipline worked for at least one of the kids. It didn’t help that whoever was tasked with disciplining Jerry had instead gifted him with a large bottle of yellow Gatorade. He sucked on the juice proudly for the rest of the day while all the other kids stared blankly at their bottles of warm fountain water.
As the week progressed, so did Jerry’s misbehaviors. We developed a strange relationship over time, one that was strictly based on Jerry’s feelings towards me. Some days, he showered me with hugs and compliments in English; other days, he despised my very being and acted out just to spite me. When I taught the class about family, I taught them about the English word “love.”
“I love my mom because of all that she does for me,” I explained to the six-year-olds. Most of their faces were blank, but Jerry’s lit up with a smile, exposing his missing front teeth.
“Teacher, I love you,” he said in his typical smoker’s voice. Though he clearly had an ulterior motive, his comment still encouraged me because I knew that my patience in him was achieving some results. That, or he just knew what to say and when to say it. Two hours later, I seized an orange peel he was using as a device for slapping other kids and tossed it in the trash. For the rest of the day, he glared at me from his desk and ignored all of the questions I asked. He even attempted to raid the trash to find his orange peel twice throughout that day. That was his orange peel, and my taking it was a serious transgression that was not easily forgiven. At the end of the day, Jerry stuck his tongue out at me as he exited the classroom.
This was the nature of our relationship. Sometimes, Jerry deemed us to be the closest of friends, hugging my torso and refusing to let go. In these moments, he’d even display his impressive intelligence in class. But our friendship could transform into an opposition by the smallest of actions. We became enemies, battling against one another for control of the classroom. I always lost. Linda and I tried everything to keep the boy in line with the rest of the class. We would send him to face the corner while the others participated in exciting activities; we would banish him into the hallway to be scolded by one of us, and we often abolished his snack time. But none of them succeeded. In retrospect, they were cruel punishments. This was supposed to be a summer camp after all.
Sure enough, such discipline usually had the adverse effect. When we sent him to the corner, he vandalized his desk with crayons and markers. When we threw him outside, he ran down the hall to free himself. And, when we took his snack time from him, other kids sneaked him bits and crumbs of their own foods. If Jerry was a rebel, then he had comrades in arms in his classmates. When our discipline failed, we called in the vice principal, hoping her chastising words would motivate him to improve his behavior. But rather than returning from her office with a tear-stained face and reddened eyes, he skipped to his seat happily with a Kit Kat bar gifted to him from the so-called disciplinarian. He was the king of the classroom. Even though his stubborn will frustrated me, I still admired his free spirit.
Day after day, moment by moment, I worried that Jerry would top his performance with another, wilder act than the one before. First, he’d drench his desk in water; next, he’d dump yogurt on another kid’s head. Then, after cooling down from his morning performance, he’d rip the pages out of my books and pull a girl’s hair as a flavorful opener to his finale, which always entailed an escape from the classroom. My TA, Linda, nearly broke down in frustration at various moments in her dealings with Jerry and became more passive towards him as the weeks progressed. She was tired of dealing with him, and she deliberately ignored his misbehavior in class. This left me as the sole opponent to Jerry’s mischief. I counted down the days until I was free from this six-year-old.
A Turning Point: Regret in the Spotlight
Last day of class, all the children’s parents arrived for the student showcase later that day. Me and my fellow teachers beamed with happiness. Our English camp was ending, for better or worse. We would be flying back to America within the next week. Many of us were homesick, tired of the mental exhaustion of teaching children from sun-up to sun-down, and weary of another meal from the school cafeteria.
Earlier in the day, I unleashed my wrath on Jerry, built up over weeks of frustration. Linda was handing out Jolly Rancher candies for all the kids to snack on before their showcase. There’s nothing like a sugar rush before sending the kids off to their parents at the end of the day. Jerry’s temper flared when he realized that there were no more red candies to eat. He kicked his chair, sending it sliding across the room, and he flipped his desk over, spilling his water bottle on the floor. Enraged by Jerry’s outburst, I stood above him with my index finger pointed at his chest.
“Get out of my class,” I said, seething with fury at Jerry for the final time. He ran through the doorway, pouting with tears dripping off his chin. The other students sat in their seats, wide-eyed at the spectacle. Down the hallway Jerry went, and neither I nor Linda stopped him. I didn’t care if he returned to class this time. In fact, I preferred that he didn’t. Jerry was a terrible kid. I tried for weeks to break through to him, but he continued to abuse my patience and kindness. There’s only so much one person can handle, and Jerry had finally reached that point with me. I returned to my classroom with a sea of young eyes staring at me in surprise by my vicious, cruel, and totally unfair treatment of Jerry.
Shame loomed within me, sending my gaze from the student’s eyes to the cold ground wet with the water Jerry spilled. I considered sprinting down the hall, catching the young boy, and asking for his forgiveness, but I decided against it. Instead, I marched my class of first graders to the school theater where their parents sat with their smartphones out, ready for their child’s performance. I wondered if Jerry’s parents sat in the crowd, awaiting to see him sing along to “The Ants Go Marching” like all the other boys and girls. They’d certainly be disappointed that he wasn’t performing, perhaps even outraged at my poor treatment of their son.
My class filled the stage in a single-file line, facing the audience of proud parents and bored children. We marched about the stage as we sang our song about ants marching like soldiers to the audience’s delight. Yet, as cheers and claps echoed throughout the auditorium, all I could think about was Jerry sitting on a staircase alone in the school, holding his head in his hands and sobbing uncontrollably. After our performance, I sat beside Linda in the audience.
“We have to find Jerry,” I said.
“Why? He’s somewhere in the school. Don’t worry,” she replied.
“But won’t his parents be upset if we don’t have him in class when they arrive to pick him up? We already didn’t include him in our show.”
“His parents aren’t here. They won’t pick him up until nighttime.”
Taken aback by Linda’s comment, everything grew clearer as I contemplated the moments of utter frustration this little boy caused me. My throat tightened up, and regret filled my senses as I recalled my angry outburst towards him. Clarity hit me in the same way Jerry had so often hit other children in my class. I knew he needed kindness, patience, and love. Who didn’t? I had failed at offering him that, even though I hardly knew him. Perhaps Linda’s attempt to give the kid some space was the smartest thing we could do. To a first grader, performing in front of parents was a big deal. But perhaps Jerry wasn’t upset that his parents were missing the end-of-camp pageant. After all, he didn’t seem overly invested in school-related functions. He could’ve been upset for any number of reasons, and all of them would’ve been valid, no matter how small they seemed.
But I only realized this after the damage was already done. And maybe his parents were also devastated that they couldn’t make it to their son’s show. Perhaps they had tried to come today, but, for whatever reason, just couldn’t make it work. I wanted to blame them for Jerry’s misbehavior, but that wasn’t fair either. Parenting is a level of hard work that I couldn’t possibly comprehend. For all I knew, Jerry’s parents were heartbroken for missing their child’s big English camp pageant. Or maybe they weren’t.
None of my speculation really mattered. I would never see the kid again because of my own selfishness. In losing him, I had lost respect for myself. My face reddened in shame as the students around me intently watched the next batch of first graders sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” I sat through all the other class performances in a daze.
A Quiet Goodbye: Forgiveness in a High-Five
After the show, I led my class back to the room so that their parents could pick them up for the last time. As I entered the classroom, I noticed Jerry sitting in my desk, not his own, with a coloring book. He was doodling outside the lines, of course. Streaks of orange almost completely blotted out the figure of Lilo and Stitch on the page. I jolted backwards, causing all the students behind me to pile into each other as they hummed the “Ants Go Marching” tune.
“Jerry,” I said, approaching him slowly so as not to upset him. He glanced up from his doodling for a moment, looked at me, and returned to his work in a serious manner. He had an orange crayon in his hand that he had blunted from his coloring. He resented me. I could tell by blank appearance in his eyes. I inched nearer to him as he colored, “Jerry, I’m sorry—”
“Teacher, high-five?” He asked, lifting his palm towards me. I lifted my hand and pressed it against his. Jerry’s small fingers rested within my palm. Then, he pulled back suddenly and slammed his stubby palm into mine with a loud crack. I yanked my hand away, holding it with my other in pain. I shook the pain out of my hand and whistled, impressed by the boy’s power. Not only was the kid smart, but he was also strong. Jerry chuckled and went back to his intense coloring without another word. For a moment, I stood above him, wondering if I should apologize. Yet, the high-five we shared seemed to be enough for the little boy. I caused him some pain, and he returned the favor through the forceful high-five. We were even; we were friends again. Or we had at least reconciled, which was more than I deserved. Jerry was forgiving.
Parents arrived at the doorway to our classroom to pick up their children. I greeted them, expressed my gratitude for having their child in class, and even posed for some pictures with the students. I said my goodbyes to all of them and their parents one by one, but Jerry’s parents never came. When the clock struck 3:15, Jerry gathered his supplies, threw his backpack across his shoulders, and walked out the door.
“Goodbye, Jerry,” I said. He stopped at the doorway and gazed towards me.
“Bye, teacher,” he replied and strolled out the door, down the hallway, and out of my life.
Jack Love currently works as a Graduate Assistant in the English Department at Texas A&M University, where he teaches literature and writing. He has worked as a high school tutor, a college writing consultant, an elementary school teacher, and a college writing instructor. Beyond teaching and tutoring, Jack has also published creative writing and critical essays on several topics.
