“All rise!”
Students all stood up, looking curiously at the new teacher stepping into the class.
“Sweet, this one is a woman!” said one of the students to the boy next to him. It was more than two weeks since their previous English teacher had left. The first thing that waved in the minds of the boys was evaluating the new teacher; the new female English teacher. “Does her personality allow us bugging her? …Is she good at English?” A naughty boy at the end of the class said to another, “We are going to enjoy ourselves with this Lady!”
The teacher was good looking, well dressed and middle aged, about 50 years old. She looked experienced. She walked confidently and slowly across the room, passed the blackboard, and reached to the teacher desk. There, she placed her handbag on the desk, paused a bit, turned to the class and looked into the eyes of the students who were still on their feet. The whole room was in silence. The looks of both sides locked on each other, as both sides knew those were the determining moments. For her, this was not the first time she was teaching high school male students and seemed to know her lessons. She let a few more seconds pass before allowing the boys sit on their benches.
- “You may be seated.”
The room became full of noise while the students were sitting on their benches.
- “Let me introduce myself. My name is Parvin Naqshi and you may call me Mrs. Naqshi.” Then she wrote her name on the blackboard in English. “Now, let me know your names too. When I call your names from the register book, please rise and repeat your name. Then repeat this sentence, “How do you do, Mrs. Naqshi?” and I will reply back, “Nice to meet with you, Mr. Your Name.”
Then she took the register book and started reading the names one by one. After every name, the student rose at his bench and repeated his name aloud and said, “How do you do, Mrs. Naqshi?” Then she looked into the eyes of the teenage boy and with a smile replied back, “Nice to meet with you, Mr. Name of the boy.” Then she allowed him sit on his bench again. She looked to be in control and the boys understood it. They were getting a positive impression of her attitude. She was proving herself to the rival.
The first round seemed to be won by Mrs. Naqshi, but the battle was far from over. One of the naughty students raised his hand and Mrs. Naqshi allowed him to speak. He stood on his foot and said, “May I ask a question? This is very important to us and the previous teacher didn’t know the answer to our question. What does remacadamize mean?” He seemed to be talking on behalf of the class.
Mrs. Naqshi didn’t know the answer either. It was the first time that she was hearing it. But she knew how to handle the question.
- “Will you write the word on the blackboard, please?”, she said confidently.
The boy went to the blackboard and wrote it on the board. He knew how to spell it correctly. Then he went to his seat again, with a satisfied smile on his face.
- “I don’t know this word either. Not everybody knows all the words that are in the dictionary. There are more than 80,000 words in the dictionary and we need to know about 2,000 of them, and we use about 500 of them more frequently. Also, you know that not everybody knows everything. I am not Mr. Whoopee, but I won't leave your question unanswered.” She didn’t give up and decided to answer it differently, as an English teacher, not as Mr. Whoopee of Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons, the man who knew everything.
Then she walked to the blackboard and wrote there on the board, “re + macadam + ize”.
Then she continued, “This word has three parts. [1] “ize” is a suffix and it tells me that this word is a verb, as “ize” turns a noun into a verb, like magnetize and modernize. [2] “re” is a prefix and it means “again” and usually comes before a verb to show redoing and repeating, like renew and rebuild. [3] “macadam” is the name of a person and he must have done something important; like Louis Pasteur whose name became well-known and the verb pasteurize is left after him.”
The students looked convinced by her explanation. Then she took out her dictionary and wrote on the board:
Macadamize: to pave roads by compacting broken stone, often with asphalt or tar. Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam around 1820. The students applauded her. The battle was successfully won by her on the very first day
source-mmehdi238
