Call Him Sir

I learned more from a third grade boy than from anyone or anything I have done while on this island. What I learned stunned me. It left me speechless. I still don’t fully understand it. It happened on the last day we met.

I have spent one hour a week for the last five weeks with third graders. I volunteered to do this as an extra assignment. Yes, I did this willingly. This was not a requirement. I’m sure you are wondering, “Why would you do this?” You might even ask, “Are you alright?” or “Do you have an issue with the word ‘no’?” At times I wonder the same thing.

I am teaching Junior Achievement, a five week primary school course. Junior Achievement curriculum is designed to start in the primary school grades. Each year the curriculum builds and develops the child’s skills. Finally, at the secondary level, students run an actual business and put their skills to practical use. The material is at times challenging. It is developed through the eyes of American educators. Little thought has been given to how the material relates to children living in a small village in another country.

During the first class I asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” One little boy wants to be a fireman and another wants to be a policeman. A little girl wants to be a nurse and another wants to be a pharmacist. Of course there are a lot of budding farmers and fishermen, shopkeepers and mothers. One little boy said he wanted to be a “sir”. Male teachers are referred to as "sirs" as female teachers are referred as "miss".


On another day, I gave the children cut outs of donuts. I also gave them stickers with pictures of ingredients that go into making a donut. With crayons, stickers, direction and a little imagination the children learned the difference between unit production and mass production while making paper donuts. The problem was that my children had never eaten a donut and were curious about what one must taste like. We talked about donut commercials they had seen. Cable TV broadcasts American television with American commercials. One little girl told me she knows someone who has eaten a donut. We spent a lot of class time on that sticking point.


Monday was our final class together. The lesson demonstrated how the economics of the village depends on the movement of money. Junior Achievement supplied a cassette tape with a cute little rap song and the story of a quarter. My children love music and I was looking forward to this lesson.


Miraculously, I have a cassette tape player in my apartment. It’s a boom box that came with the furnishings. As I prepared for the lesson, I put the cassette into the holder and turned it on . . . nothing. I turned up the sound . . . nothing. It would have made the lesson a lot of fun for them had it worked. Resources are thin in my village and I had to quickly adapt. I bet you are wondering why Junior Achievement gave us a cassette tape and not a CD. I am too.


I decided to do the lesson without the music and tell the story in a very animated way. I made little packages of homemade cookies. The cookies had nothing to do with the lesson, but I tried to make up for the lack of music. I have no idea why. They didn’t know it should have had music. Perhaps it was a twinge of guilt.


So, with materials, freshly baked cookies and a plan in my head I walked down to the primary school for our last meeting. I was anxious to teach them a simple economics lesson and unprepared for the life lesson I was about to receive.


Miss Monroe greeted me and as usual the children were excited to see me. “I saw you in the village yesterday” said one boy. A little girl said, “I saw you on the bus”. Another child said, “When I saw you I told my mother you are the Junior Achievement Teacher”. There is always a lot of excitement when I arrive.


We talked about all the things we learned over the weeks and then we began our new lesson. I picked a few children to play parts in the story. I gave a quarter to the banker. As the story progressed, the children participated by passing the quarter around their “village”. The banker gave the quarter to the meat market owner. The meat market owner bought shoes at the shoe store and the shoe store owner bought pizza for lunch at the pizzeria. And the game went on. The quarter was passed all around the village until it finally went back to the bank making a full circle. The children were hanging onto every word.


When the story was over, I asked, “What do you think would happen if the quarter stayed at the bank and didn’t move around the village?” What answer would you anticipate? I thought they would surely say, “Miss, we would have no money to buy pizza”. Or, “The shoe store would not stay in business and there would be nowhere to buy shoes.” There was a lot of chattering and I could tell they were coming to a big consensus. Finally, the decision emerged as I heard one boy say, “We would all be slaves”.


As I write this I’m still speechless. This little boy taught me something valuable on Monday. I should call him “Sir”.