Monsters

The train had just departed and I was still busy with my tea and croissants (breakfast) when I accidentally overheard two men talking. “So what do you want to become when you’re done with your studies?” “A physics teacher.” That’s when I looked up from my breakfast surprised and curious. The man in his early thirties looked like a secondary school teacher already.

Why on Earth one would want to become a teacher?! I remember a young mathematics teacher who was supposed to teach us while our regular teacher was ill. Believe it or not, I was a very quiet and well behaved kid. But even I failed to behave during those classes. The guy was called Eduard Aleksandrovich and I was replacing his first name with: leopard, erudite, parasite, etc.

I remember participating in humming actions against the teacher of Russian. All children were humming with their mouths closed and if the teacher approached you, you’d stop making sound. As soon as she’d move away you resumed humming again. So she was moving in a bubble of silence through the humming space and no one could be punished.

I remember singing during geography classes and minding my own totally irrelevant business during the lessons of Ukrainian (in case you were wondering why my Ukrainian is so bad – that’s why). I remember the whole class building an ingenious construction around the class door to make sure the chemistry teacher would get hit by a mop and get water splashed all over him as soon as he’d open the door. It worked. I remember... too much to describe here!

So why on Earth people would want to become a teacher when they risk all this happening to them? Never say never. But children are monsters and you’ll never find me in front of a classroom!

Maia Hirasawa - The Wrong Way