I make children cry

Friday was my last day at 试验小学

The school knew that I was a "one termer" and that I was going home in the fall. I know they knew this because my boss did his damnedest to convince them that it was not a good idea to select me as their teacher. I was already promised to another school, and there were younger, prettier, more available teachers. Teachers that weren't going home in the fall, too.

But 试验小学 had the money and I was the teacher they wanted. So I went.

I had long assumed that at some point, the knowledge that I wasn't coming back had leaked out of the principal's office and into the parents and therefore the students.

No.
The first class I told was my fourth grade. I told them this was the last day of English class. They were a little sad about that. Then they asked if I would be back in September.

"No," said my T.A. "returning home." The fourth graders were a little upset. "Going home? But teacher you live in China." They called me their friend and promised to visit me over the summer before I leave. I gave them my email address.

My second graders were more blasé. The second graders and I, we got on okay but they just weren't that good at or interested in English. What they were interested in was kicking each other and running around. So I tended to have a more adversarial relationship with them.

"Oh," they said, "bye teacher."

Then there were the first graders. I was pretty proud of the first graders. They were a lot smarter than the second graders. Cute, smart and mischievous, they gave me a lot of headaches and they absolutely wore out their T.As. But they were just so damn adorable.

I told class nine, grade one at the beginning of class. Their little eyes got sad. I gave them some candy, announced who got the best test scores and played a final game with them. A game to try to get them to remember how to write their English names.

Then it was time to go to my other first graders, class ten. Some of the kids ran up and grabbed a hold of me. Some started crying. I began to feel very bad. One little boy, Saul, was very upset. After I sad goodbye few times and pried a few children off of me I made my way to class ten. Saul held on to my hand and walked over with me to class ten, crying the whole way. Melvin, a smart little boy from class ten met us in the hallway. He looked at Saul and asked what was going on. Saul told him.

When we got to class ten, I gave Saul my signature and sent him on his way. That seemed to make him feel better. But then word got around the room. When I looked up, about twenty first graders were crying. Wow, I thought, that's a lot of crying children. I've never made that many children cry before. (The previous record was three - I took away their pogs).

So I gave them candy. That made things better, like it does for every first grader in every nation. Children differ more from one grade to the next than they do from one country to another.

Candy having suitably soothed them, we played some games and soon it was time to go. Then it started all over again. This time almost every child in class ten was crying. My T.A. and I both felt like joining them, seeing all those unhappy kids. There were two exceptions: Evelyn, who for some reason thought this was all hilarious and Oliver, who hadn't the foggiest idea what was going on.

Over the course of the term I had found Oliver quite resistant to instructions in any language. I guess his classmates had similar difficulties in communicating with him.

Oliver was bounding around happily until he noticed that something was wrong. He walked up to me with a look of profound confusion. "What's going on?" he asked. Then everyone explained to him at once. Oliver started crying too.

Poor Oliver. Doomed to forever be the last to know.