Getting It

"One more time: page one of the listening test, question one!" I shout over the roar of the class.

Coskun doesn't hear me. He's in the midst of a noisy tete-a-tete with Hamit and whatever they're talking about must be compelling: I've tried to hush them up twice now, unsuccessfully. "Coskun! Hamit!" I call again to no avail.

Well, I know a way to get their attention. I flick the CD player's volume switch up as far as it will go and press PLAY, then frown. Nothing's happening. It's taken me five minutes to deliver a pep talk on the mock exam my students have just performed abysmally on and another five minutes to take attendance. The last thing in the world I need is a non-functioning CD player, but that's what I've got.

Just as I'm about to ask a student to exchange the faulty CD player, in comes Sevge, ten minutes late. "Tee-cha, I am here!" she gasps redundantly. I sigh: I've run out of test sheets and Burak won't know where to find these; I'll have to go downstairs and get the CD player and test sheets myself. Leaving the room, I almost collide with Aziz. "Teacher, I am present?" he calls after me, obviously expecting me to rush right back so I can put a check next to his name in the roll book. On my way downstairs, I pass another student making her way upstairs. "Teacher, I am here?" she calls, but I decline to answer.

Two minutes later, I am back with another CD player and half a dozen extra test sheets. The classroom volume has gone up another notch; the natives are restless. I distribute test sheets, pop the CD into the new player, and press PLAY. It doesn't work.

I'm starting to sweat now. Hamit and Coskun are half out of their seats, practically jumping up and down. "Teacher what is problem?" Coskun roars happily. Coskun is the kind who will blame me for anything -- a wasp in the classroom, a wonky chair, a spilled bottle of Coke in the corner, it doesn't matter. I check the plug socket, the settings -- yes, it's on CD -- the light switches. The overhead lights flicker on, flooding the sun-filled classroom, so it isn't a power failure.

"Teacher, I get another player?" suggests Burak, a quiet, respectful boy. I nod wearily.

I've got a handful of kids like Burak in this class. Two pleasant, intelligent central Asian girls, a near-native English speaker from Iran, a few boys who aren't bright, but more than make up for it with their quiet maturity and the ability to sit still for 45 whole minutes. They will never know how grateful I am for their presence. In the midst of a hellish lesson where nothing is going right, I see the light of understanding in their faces and realize to my amazement that I'm actually making sense to someone. Posing some general question to the class, I hear, through the cacophony and chaos, their in-the-right-ballpark answers, and I am touched and reassured. True, 85% of the class are lost in space, but I can't be that hopeless a teacher if somebody's getting it.

Burak comes back with another CD player. I plug it in and look for the CD. It isn't there. "Burak, did you take the CD out of the last player?" I ask him. His mouth drops open and he slaps his forehead and vanishes. Coskun and Hamit think this is hilarious. "Burak forget CD!" Coskun cries, pounding on his desk.

By the time Burak is back with the CD, the classroom noise is close to deafening and I don't even bother to pound on the table. I slide the CD into the player, press PLAY, and offer up a quiet but fervent prayer. But the CD gods are not with me: nothing happens.

Now Hamit and Coskun might as well be spectators at a circus. They guffaw and holler as they bounce up and down in their seats, clearly enjoying every minute of my misery. Suddenly I have an inspiration. I pull out the plug and insert it into the next socket. The CD player, tuned to RADIO blasts out a top-volume high-pitched screech of Arabesque, making us all jump out of our skins. Coskun roars and feigns anger. "Teacher!" he screams accusingly, covering his ears and pointing. "Noisy!" bellows Hamit, throwing up his hands in mock rage. Hypocrites.

Five minutes later, we're right in the middle of the listening exam revision and I accidentally jog the plug, resulting in the CD going right back to the beginning. The class roars in frustration: the listening test is all on one tract and we'll have to listen to the whole thing over again, each question repeated in maddening, carefully enunciated tones. It takes forever.

We take a much needed break during which I put my head on my desk and pray for the strength to go on.

"Teacher, can't hear!" Aycan wails ten minutes after the break. I'm thoroughly done in. I've weathered their rage over a mistake on the answer key and a couple of long, silly disputes about whether it's fair for them to know that scary and frightening mean the same thing and that careless is the opposite of careful. I'm exhausted and frazzled, but I want to encourage Aycan. Three months ago, she was one of the noisy, boisterous bunch and suddenly she's joined the quiet and attentive camp; I can see that she's starting to get it. God knows what happened, but now that it has, I want to keep it going. I push the CD player a little closer to her -- and manage to disconnect the plug from the socket yet again.

After this, try as I might, I can't get the class back under control. I bang on the table, I clap my hands, I raise my voice. The third time I start to explain what I'm going to do -- let the CD play at low volume in the background while we tackle the reading section until we get back to where we were in the listening exam -- Coskun interrupts me with a noisy, superfluous question -- "Teacher, what are you DOING?" -- and suddenly something inside me snaps and I lose it. Big-time.

It's as though I'm standing next to myself, another person entirely. I watch in awe as waves of sound bellow out of my mouth. "I HAVE HAD IT! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR CHILDISH NONSENSE! DON'T YOU GET THAT I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU? NOW, WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LISTEN? OR DO YOU SERIOUSLY WANT TO FAIL THIS CLASS AND STAY HERE ALL SUMMER LONG?" My eyes flash fire, my hands are clenched in fists, smoke is billowing from my nose and ears. I'm Moses brandishing the tablets. I'm God straight out of the Old Testament loosing the fateful lightning from my terrible swift sword.

Heads bow over test papers. Hands pick up pencils. Every single one of the students catches my drift even if they don't understand every nuance of my language. For the remainder of the class, everyone works in comparative silence. Nobody, me included, wants a repeat performance from Scary Mary.

As I dismiss the class, my heart breaks to see all my good students scurry out of the classroom, their eyes down. It's so unfair: they weren't to blame, but they got a good dose of my rage just the same.

I've got to start practicing my yoga breathing again. We've only got three more weeks until the end of term, but I'll need it. Not necessarily for teaching, but for the next time someone whines about lucky teachers and their three-month summer holidays.