Awkward Moments in Teaching: Take 2

November 12, 2007

So I thought that after Pre-Service Training I would not have quite so many awkward moments in teaching, but that was not the case, as today clearly demonstrated. Today for my 4D class there was a short reading from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and because of this as well as the accompanying vocabulary I decided that today would be the perfect day to talk about Slavery. I figured that it was a great opportunity for cultural exchange, and I had a great idea for an activity that I was sure would help my students get the message of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Still, you know what they say about making assumptions. We were barely halfway into the lesson when my counterpart reveals that not only the N-Word in the text of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it’s a vocabulary word complete with translation into Russian. I told my class that it was a very bad word that we never say in English and they understood, but I still could not believe that it had been put in the book in the first place. I could understand it being in Stowe’s narrative, but for the text book to pick it out specifically boggled my mind, or at least it did until I flipped through the book some more and found several stories celebrating British and American citizens who had defected to the Soviet Union. The best part of the lesson was still to come though. I thought that the students might better understand what it meant to be a slave if they made their own “For Sale/Wanted” signs, and as a bonus it would help me learn names. I wanted them to draw a small picture and then write a few descriptive sentences about themselves. However, despite my slow concise instructions and even some translation from my counterpart for a few students, there was still some miscommunication. Rather than present me with something akin to the Osama Bin Laden “Dead or Alive” I got something more like ads in the personals section. They were all in first person and none of them sounded particularly upset that they were for sale or wanted. They all cheerfully told me how old they were, what they liked to do on weekends, and that they were good at cooking and cleaning. I can only assume that Uncle Tom and I have not yet gotten across to them the concept of human bondage, or that in patriarchal society that still practices bride-napping from time to time, they have just gotten used to the idea.