Star pupil

[con's fly is open]

Neo Anderson, self-named after the hero of The Matrix, just scored 2nd place in a provincial English contest. To put it into context, Liaoning Province consists of 42 million souls. Neo did us proud.

Background: 2 months in last year, I was doing English Corner at the local mall. A short boy came up and talked to me, not with "Hao ah you?", but with conversational English. The headmaster shut down the show, and for the next week I got grief that this kid made our students look like poo.

I pointed out that the kid was just a prodigy, and the sensible thing to do was invite him to the school; but the headmaster was convinced that the kid's relatives were conspiring to open a rival school.

I went behind his back and connected with the kid. His family took me out to dinner, and I proposed that he come to Haoshi for English instruction.

Long story short: Neo became one of ours. Now he's brought glory to our school (but mainly to himself, of course). I've spent a fair amount of time injecting English and confidence into him, and deserve roughly 1% of the credit for his accomplishment.

I'm so proud of him! And I'm fiercely proud of the politics I smoothed out of his way: we went out tonight with him and his family, and homage was paid to a prodigy.

I get a bow for this. These are the rare glamourous moments for a teacher.

[George61]

Goodonya Con. It's good to get a star pupil. Especially one with an attractive personality.

[acjade]

Oh Con that is the best news I've heard in a while. Well done. You have every reason to be proud... of both the young champion and yourself.

Well done. If there were some smilies with flowers I'd send you a bouquet but I'll just have to substitute this one instead.

[Newbs]

Way to go, Con.

Newbs

[Ruth]

Con, that's great news. What a treat to work with a star pupil. And congrats to Neo.

I hope the headmaster realizes the part you had to play in bringing him into the fold.

[con's fly is open]

This should be a new thread, but my server sucks this week. So I'll title things here on in "Class of 2005":

I took a poll of my high school grads: How many children do you want one day?

Last year's bunch said "One", a few said "Maybe one".

This year: 6 said one, 5 said two, 5 said "the more the better", i.e. at least one, more as wealth and circumstance permit.

No smileys available to me, so colour me stunned.

[con's fly is open]

This earns a seperate post: when I came into class in the morning, they all stifled giggles. Mandi pointed out, 2 hours later, that my T-shirt was on backwards.

[acjade]

connell said:

This earns a seperate post: when I came into class in the morning, they all stifled giggles. Mandi pointed out, 2 hours later, that my T-shirt was on backwards.

You ought to have looked at her with a straight face and said,' Yes. Of course it is. Today's the 6th of July. '
You could then continue with a tale that Canadians always wear their Tshirts back the front on the 6th of July because...............

Who's got a plausible idea for a National wearing of Tshirt backwards Day?

[George61]

I wore my jacket inside out for an hour in class earlier...No one said a thing...I finally cracked and explained inside out, back to front, upside down, etc...They had forgotten by the next class!

[Ruth]

They had forgotten by the next class!

So much for visual object lessons!