My job was
to vet them and to make sure that they spoke English intelligibly and clearly
enough to be understood by incoming freshmen. I was to teach them how to make a
proper lesson plan, how to develop tests in their subject-area, and how to grade
papers in our generous and highly inflated American grading system.
Somehow, I
was to make it clear to them that the administration did not like to have
parents call the Dean and complain that their progeny had been unfairly tested
and graded by the very hard teacher who made Johnny cry when he got an F after
a night of partying at the sorority house.
The teaching
assistants were to prepare a lesson plan and teach a 15-minute lesson as part
of their final exam during which time a panel of three veteran teachers was to
grade them on content, delivery, and mastery.
Last, but
not least, I was to tell them very diplomatically, without starting a riot in
the classroom or on campus, how to bathe regularly and wash their clothes. The
president of the college must have had a lot of faith in me, especially since
we used to jog at the track together almost every day and talked some during my
two miles.
How do I
tell an assorted hodge-podge of Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, and
Asians, most of whom came from backgrounds where soap and water were scarce and
very expensive, that they must bathe regularly because body odor is offensive
to other people around them, especially to Americans who have plenty of water,
cheap soap, shampoo, washing machines, and access to laundromats? One of the
first questions on this very delicate topic came from the front row, what is a
laundromat?
The math and
computer science departments already had a few malodorous foreigners with whom everybody
refused to share an office or an elevator; they preferred to climb stairs or
held office at the library in the reading rooms or in the stacks to avoid the
unbearable gagging stench.
So I came up
with the genial idea to say that offensive body odor is part of non-verbal
communication and Americans respect each other's space by bathing, washing
their hands, and laundering their clothes regularly. Problem solved! I was
quite proud of myself and was looking forward to deliver my speech to the first
class.
Here I was
standing in front of the classroom, saying in the most crystalline voice I
could muster, my prepared sentence. As soon as the last word resonated against
the windows, silence. Everyone was squirming uncomfortably in their seats; few were
looking up at me, increasing my discomfort by the second. Finally, a
Palestinian on the back row, who was going to teach something in engineering,
shot up, looked at me for the first time in almost thirty days, and said,
"Are you saying that I need to go home and take a bath?"
A pregnant
pause followed as I was weighing in my head a response and debating how I
should say things to keep this from escalating. A jocular Chinese man, always
wearing safari shorts with the hairiest legs I had ever seen, said with a large
smile and booming voice, in his broken English, "That’s right, you stink,
go home, take bath." The entire class erupted in laughter and the
explosive moment was diffused.
I never
agreed to teach this class again the following summer even though I could have
used the remuneration.
Today such a
class would be considered racist, bigoted, and xenophobic on any American
campus which is kind of sad because some people do need proper hygiene lessons
to prevent the spread of disease and to spare the noses of those around them.
I am glad
that I am retired because today I would not last one day in the classroom.
Everybody is offended by something daily and reality has been replaced by moral
relativism.
Great essay, both truthful and comical. I also liked the essay you forwarded from your friend about the sew girl. Its a shame he never found about her later life. Maybe one of these days someone in Romania will read it and contact her. Bob
ReplyDeleteI hope so, Bob. Joe is still regretful that he cannot find her. I don't think he remembers her last name, that is the main problem. It should be easy if he had a last name.
ReplyDeleteJoe had some comical and horrible experiences while at his post in Bucharest. I wished he would write more, it is the ONLY way these young, brainwashed people would have a record of what it was like to live under communism from the perspective of an American who lived quite well and protected while surrounded by the misery and poverty of the Romanians.