The One Who Outdoes My Job

We, teachers, really love to have such bright students in our classes. I do love it too. Many students captured my attention during our literacy classes, but those who show empathy for their friends are the ones I remember the most.

I have this one student who has attended my class since earlier this year. He speaks fluently and confidently. He always comes first in the class and greets me with a grin and a little funny TMI. He is super-expressive for a boy at his age. He can elaborate on what he feels in such complex expressions. He talks in logical and well-structured sentences. Within all of the sentences, he uses many unusual words for his age like “catastrophe” or “ecology.”

What stands out to me about this baby boy is how he gives genuine and sincere support to his friends. After every end of our monthly presentation project, I always ask my students to give questions and commentary about their friends’ presentations. This lovely boy always has nice and encouraging words for his friends even before I said anything.

“Whoaaa I love your pictures! It’s so cool! How do you come up with that idea?”

“Omg, your cat is sooo cute I want to touch it!”

“You must have tried your best,”

and the list goes on.

I wonder how his parents raise him to be such a positive kid as he is today. Not every student is comfortable being under the spotlight and attention. When one student is not confident enough to present his/her project, he gives a small affirmation, “It’s okay, some things are not easy to do. My heart was almost exploding during my first presentation as well.”

He definitely outdoes my job, haha.

Once, he stayed quiet the whole session. He looked sad. It breaks my heart to hear that he has been bullied and that he doesn’t feel okay at that time. What breaks my heart, even more, is knowing the fact that I cannot do anything about it, because we only have a 60-minutes zoom session in a week and the bullying happens in his offline school.

I thought about it for a whole week until my next session with him. I didn’t ask him what has happened or what kind of bullying he experienced or how he reacted to it. Yes, I basically did not ask any further questions to him. I was scared that he felt uneasy talking about it in front of his friends. So I kept it to myself.

We have another session last week and he smiled eye to eye. He told me a fun TMI about him messing with his playdoh and making his parents throw the playdoh away. He giggled. I was so glad to see him back. I was so happy that I forgot to ask him how he felt that day. Was the bully stop bothering him? Was everything okay?

Again, I missed the opportunity to ask him.

“How are YOU, Miss? Is everything good?”

Again, he outdoes my job.