Miss "Shanna"

So I've realized that my first name must be really hard for people to pronounce here in Asia. The first couple of days of class I wrote my name on the board and told my students how to pronounce my name properly. My older class asked if they could call me Miss Shan, which was fine by me because most of my friends call me Shan anyways. A week went by and I noticed that most of my kids were calling me Miss Shanna, or just plain old teacher.

One day I was teaching this group of kids, whom I now adore, the sound that 'sh' makes. Thinking it would be cool to use my name in their 'word attack' quiz, I asked them to spell my name. They seriously couldn't do it. They though my name was Shanna and not Shannon. I've since given up on their pronunciation, and frankly think it's adorable that they cannot pronounce my name.

Saturday a group of us went to the neighboring city, T'aichung (the 3rd largest city in Taiwan). As we were walking down the sidewalkless street trying not to get hit by cars, I hear this little voice, incredibly excited, "Miss Shanna! Miss Shanna!" I turned around and saw one of my super cute students, William, hanging out the backseat window of his mom's car waving at me. I waved back of course, somewhat stunned to see one of my student's outside of class. I turned around again, and saw that the car had parked at an apartment building, literally 50 yards from the school, and saw him waving to me.

Teaching definitely has it's perks. My first week of class I received several origami boats, and numerous cards with inscriptions such as the following:

"Miss Shannon, welcome to be our teacher and Miss Shanon is Good to be our teacher."

or

"Thank you Miss Shannon To Teach us I like you very much."

It's always nice to know that you are loved and adored by your students. My fourth grade students think that I'm so cool that I'm equated with Sponge Bob.

I wasn't feeling quite the same on Thursday when I received my first ever hate note. One of the boys in my basic reading class (who will stay nameless) had torn a corner on a piece of paper and wrote a note. I had reprimanded him earlier for not listening, and had to take away his break time. I noticed that he was writing something, and thought, "How thoughtful that he would think to write an apology." So at the end of class, he comes up to me and hands me the note. I opened it up and had to come to terms with the fact that not all students will like me all the time. His simple "Miss Shannon, I don't like you," was basically enough to crush my day, and ruin all my hopes of ever being a great teacher (yes, as many of you know, I'm incredibly dramatic).

Ach jo, life does move on. Friday classes were cancelled due to the "small" typhoon that hit Taiwan and killed 19. I think having the weekend away helped this young man realize that I'm really not that bad. William seemed to think I was great and asked if I wanted to come to his house and play Wii.

Teaching is a delight. Even the punk 14 year olds that I teach are starting to warm up to me. I may actually have a positive influence on the kids that I teach. Hoorah!!! Who could ask for anything more?