Why Teachers Teach
A few weeks ago, a Canadian friend of mine stood outside her house in Bucerias, a Mexican beach town half an hour away from my town of San Pancho. She was talking to her neighbor, Miguel. She likes Miguel. He’s a gregarious, good-looking guy in his late twenties who works hard in his uncle’s restaurant in Bucerias. Now Miguel is about to open his own place, and he’s excited.
“I’m starting small,” he tells her. “Five, maybe six tables at the most, so I can guarantee good service.” He’s confident that nobody’s chiles rellenos can rival his, and they’re going to be his signature dish.
“I know how much gringos love rellenos. The tourists will come in droves.” Both of them laugh.
“You have the perfect personality for a restauranteur,” my friend tells him. And his fluent English is a huge plus, she adds.
He owes his fluency to a high school English teacher he had ten years ago, he says.
“Man, she was tough. Every week she forced us to partner up and write a minimum ten-sentence dialog, which we handed in and she corrected and gave back to us. Then we had to memorize it and perform it in front of the class.”
No excuses; do it or receive a failing grade for the week. The students hated it. Speaking in public was hard enough, but in English? Their accents embarrassed them. Classmates sometimes laughed at their mistakes. They had no choice, however. Week after week, for two years, they performed.
“And learned to speak with confidence,” Miguel said. “Now, looking back, I think I owe my new restaurant, at least in part, to that teacher. Her name was Mrs. Greene.”