So, where were we? Oh yes: the eight-year-olds were losing their fear of me and transforming into little human express trains. And I was about to tell you about Dilemma The Second.
Okay. Well, it first surfaced due to a mutual interest shared by two of my students, Anna and Sergey.
Anna is a bright kid, prone to getting bored and pouty when other pupils don't match her pace, but basically okay. Sergei is … well, a boy. I don’t much like boys, and never have – they nearly all seem to be suffering from some kind of learning disability, on top of which I frankly just find them annoying. But as boys go, Sergei is no worse than most. There are even times when his masculine delinquency gives way to something else; a sort of witless "hello there!" smile that's as dumb as rocks, yet almost charming in its complete lack of reserve. I still much prefer the girls, though. I guess it's just a variation of the dogs vs. cats argument, and (with apologies to dog owners who are reading this) I'm always gonna come down on the feline side of the fence.
Some time in late September, at the start of one of my lessons, the Anna-Sergei monster was whizzing around the classroom in full flight – chasing its own tail, darting between chairs, dodging tables and so on – when suddenly its Anna-half decided to try going through a chair rather than around it. She fell forward and ended up lying prone across two seats, with her head and feet dangling less than half a metre from the floor. As the capsized Anna lay there trying to work out how to fix the vertical hold, Sergei continued to beat her over the head with his pencil case (or possibly hers). It was pretty much your typical no-holds-barred, psychotic eight-year-old deathmatch.
Here’s the thing, though: on their way through the maze of classroom furniture, both halves of the monster had bumped themselves on just about every single desk, chair or other obstacle in their paths. In doing so, they’d fuelled one of my ongoing concerns about Muscovites – namely that they sometimes appear to have a very poor sense of direction &/or are genetically pre-disposed towards clumsiness. I won’t try to justify my claim now, though it’ll probably come up again in later entries. For now, you’ll just have to accept the premise that the townsfolk here have an extraordinary talent for bumping into things (most notably other people and their cars*).
But getting back to Anna and Sergei: she eventually made it to her feet, and I could see that their attempts to kill one another were about to resume at an even more intense level. My usual threats and admonitions were having no effect, and their in-built clumsiness had me convinced that within seconds I’d be reaching for my phrasebook to look up the Russian for “I need to phone an ambulance”. So what was I to do?
What I did was this: I walked behind Sergei, stuck my arms underneath his shoulders and forcibly lifted him through the air, all the way back to his desk.
It worked, too.
Now, perhaps my experience of how grown men are supposed to behave toward small children back in Paranoid Delusional Land** has made me a little too concerned about having physical contact with young students. Because, you see, I was expecting angry phone calls from parents after this incident. I thought Sergei would be so upset to have been man-handled by a teacher that the story would make it home to mama and papa, and I’d end up having to justify myself to the school director, possibly copping a written warning or even having my contract terminated if my school didn’t accept the “it was the only way I could think of to ensure their physical safety” defence. Mentally I'd begun packing my bags already, just in case. But nope. Nothing at all. Sergei didn’t seem remotely disturbed by what had happened. I'm sure he's forgotten it.
It was during the very next lesson that I realised something I never would have suspected: these children actually seem to crave proximity to the teacher. This fact dawned on me all-of-a-sudden while I was reading my eight-year-olds a story from the Teacher’s Book - or rather, while I was trying to. Perched on a chair at the front of the room, I was completely failing to get anyone’s attention, so out of grim determination I decided to go and sit at the desk of a student called Nastya and read my book directly to her. Anticipated result: I might get one student to actually listen, which would've been one more than I’d had up to that point. But when I did this, the psychological effect was stunning; before I knew it, there were four littl’uns crowding around me, sitting on tables and resting their hands on my shoulders. It was like Story Time with Uncle Anthony! I really expected one of them to push their way up onto my lap at any moment. Very surreal.
Cut forward about two weeks to a bar in the downtown district of Kitai Gorad. Here I sat drinking with a few teachers and students, recovering from the Sergiev Posad débacle (see my earlier entry). I found myself sitting next to a teacher who I knew had quite a bit of experience with 'young learners', so I told her my reservations about physical contact with students. She was astonished: “I’m touching my students virtually the whole time. It’s essential.” I then went on to tell her about the Story Time incident, at which she exhibited no surprise whatsoever.
The upshot of all this is that I now try to remain within striking distance of my Little People whenever I can, and they often decide to lean in close or just stick out a hand and grab me. (Example: you'll notice in the photo here that the ever-delightful Zusha has her hand in mine. That was her idea.) It still feels pretty weird at this point, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. And it has made quite a difference to the effectiveness of my lessons.
So there you go. Barely two months into my new career as a poor man’s Rhys Muldoon, and I’ve survived two dilemmas already. Undoubtedly they're just the first of many to come. I’m still a long way from comfortable in a classroom full of eight-year-olds popping out of their skins like corn kernels in a hot covered pan. But I’m also vaguely proud not to have crumbled entirely (yet). And I must admit, there have been moments when some of the little vultures have flipped the switch to Cute-as-Hell Mode and disarmed me completely.
Actually, to be truthful,there are one or two pupillini who melt my steely detachment like this on a fairly regular basis, notably the terrible twinlets Zusha and Ksusha. Two days ago, for example, sweet and silly Ksusha approached me during class and motioned for me to lean in close to her. Evidently she had a secret to share, which was delivered behind a cupped hand: “Entoni … today my birthday.”
Exactly why one of my mini-pupils would choose to reveal this to me I don't know, but frankly that would’ve been plenty of cuteness for one day. After class, though, Susha approached me again, this time with hands held behind her back. I’m thinking “Oh no, is she going to show me a birthday gift someone gave her? Will I need to feign being impressed by something truly awful?”. But instead, Susha made a short announcement: "Entoni, preee-zent". Then from behind her she whipped out an enormous box of chocolate wafers for me. I was very nearly speechless in two languages!
I actually sat the wafers on my desk, knowing I’d need them later in the day - not to eat, but to glance at whenever I felt like strangling members of my nightmarish Tues/Thur adult class. Or to put that another way: I used something symbolic of my eight-year-olds to get myself through an adult class. Bit of a turnaround, no?
Meanwhile, as the eight-year-old situation slowly improves, Moscow's wider adult population (or at least the white 'European' portion thereof) has been offering me ample practice in dealing with juvenile behaviour. I mean, in the two months I've been here, I’ve met some remarkably lovely and big-hearted people who've shown me that the famed 'slavic hospitality' I'd heard about is not mythical. For this fact, and to those people, I am hugely grateful. But then you have the other, less pleasant face of Moscow. It's this that I want to tell you about now.
A good way to see this face is to ride the Metro. You frequently find yourself resisting the urge to turn on other commuters and say stern, motherly things like “Do you really think that shoving will get you there any faster?” and “Oh for heaven’s sake, would you just grow up and consider someone else for a change?” Likewise in the classroom, there are at least one or two adult students who could easily go pout-for-pout with the worst of my teens and tinies. And attempting to converse with most people in 'service' industries here - like, say, the staff at the local supermarket - is like trying to make cats excited and enthusiastic about bath time.
There are exceptions, of course, and the kindness of strangers has saved me on more than one occasion. Still, the unfriendly public persona of your average Muscovite is a notable fact of day-to-day life. Acquiring the patience and stamina to deal calmly with this kind of childish crap from adults is therefore a matter of daily necessity.
I imagine this will help me out enormously as a teacher, and possibly even as a human being. It also makes me think that perhaps – in Moscow at least – spending a few hours each week surrounded by a bunch of eight-year-olds isn't that much of a special dilemma after all ;-)
* Statistic: Moscow has approximately the same population as London, but six times the number of road accidents.
**My suggested new name for the territory previously known as Australia, after four years of the War on Terror, eight under Howard and decades in the vice-like grip of insurance company lawyers.
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