Friday, September 01, 2006

A Small World/Feel my Velvet Shoes

At noon yesterday my boss randomly asked me if I would fill in and teach her 2 o’clock Effective Communication class. Always up for a new adventure, I said sure. I drove out to the Jordan Applied Tech Center, which is a campus where high school students take college classes. When I arrived, I found out that I was going to be teaching effective communication to 20 cosmetology students – an adventure indeed.

Like a good little teacher, I stood at the front of the class and introduced myself. (It was a computer lab, so I didn’t have a blackboard to write “Mr. Sutherland.”) I started going down the roll when I reached “Rebecca Miller.” The name caught my attention and I looked up to see which girl raised her hand.

“Rebecca,” I asked, “What are the chances that you used to live in the Netherlands?”

I watched the light bulb go on above her head as well. Rebecca is an American girl whose LDS family lived in Holland for a few years. She was 12 when I last saw her. Her family is now living in Draper. Can you say random?

So that was a highlight. Other highlights included:

  • Me trying to get the girls logged onto the computer. I say, “you’ll just have to enter the last four digits of your social security number.” Immediate panic – none of them had any idea. Solution: of course they each had a cell phone and they all called their moms. Problem solved.
  • One girl asking me if I wanted to feel her shoes. “They’re pink velvet. They’re even velvet on the bottom.”
  • “What does compose an email mean?” On girl asked. “Compose means to write. An email is like an old-fashioned text message.” "Oh, cool. "

I think I want to become a teacher.

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