A Time Well Spent
When I first moved here not so many moons ago I taught English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) in Homestead Florida. I had many young students, too old for high school but at the right age to work towards some sort of collegiate training. I had this one kid name Chan, maybe 18 or 19 years old, from Indonesia. He didn’t know a lick of English, I mean 0, but he was bright and hard working. His parents would drive 40 minutes each way, every day so that he could sit in my classroom for three hours and then we would work for another hour privately. I dove in determined to teach him and did it for free because frankly I I had nothing else to do. I left Homestead about three years ago when I got the teaching post I now fill and had not seen Chan since.
Yesterday, as I was walking up the stairs towards my classroom, Chan was there chatting with a friend. He wasn’t waiting for me, just one of those coincidences. I got so excited I almost jumped out of my skin. He’s finishing up EAP and is probably less than a year away from starting college. It feels good to know that this time in my life was well spent.
Sometimes a Good Notion 