LatinosUSA

By John RC Potter

‘Birds in the Setting Sun’ artwork by the author’s god-daughter, Nisa Winter.

I always wanted to be a teacher. Well, that’s not quite true. Since childhood, I had wanted to be a writer. However, then my mom said if she and good old pop were going to fund my education, I had to have a real job. Enter teaching! After receiving my teaching certificate, I couldn’t find a job. Enter international teaching! A friend told me about an international teacher-recruiting agency called Schools for Fools. Thus, with a few bags packed and my tail between my legs. I was on a flight to Indonesia. I would be a lower elementary school teacher at ISPS on one of the smaller islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

My apologies, we teachers are constantly using acronyms because we tend to talk fast; we like to throw in an acronym here and there, which allows us to say more and mean less! ISPS stands for the International School of Perpetual Suffering. You may think it was a Roman Catholic-based school, but no! When the school was founded, the name was selected by the school’s visionary founder and his team (all non-educators), the ISPS Board of General Mis-Management. This shrewd group of men and women figured that any unsuspecting teachers who would come from abroad to work at ISPS must be the type to wear hair shirts and spend non-teaching hours at home self-flagellating to their heart’s content.

It’s true what they say about international schools: they are different from schools in one’s home country. On the upside, your taxes are paid by the school, you receive flights there and back (unless you decide to do a ‘runner’ in the middle of the night), the salary is usually in USD or another stable currency, and housing is provided. On the downside, the parents are paying ‘big money’ for their angelic and privileged children to attend these institutions of private education. Sometimes the parents run the school (i.e., on the Board), or they try to. Let me tell you about one such parent. She was what is known to educators around the world as an overprotective ‘helicopter mom,’ due to the tendency to hover over her primary school children, ready to come in for a landing to rescue and protect them.  I just poured myself another martini, so I am ready to remember my least favourite school parent.

Her name was Mrs Kopter (Hele, to her friends and enemies alike). She was from a Scandinavian country. I think it was Russia. Isn’t Russia in Scandinavia? What’s that you say? Oh really, who’d a thunk it! Sorry, geography has never been my strong suit as an elementary teacher who had to teach a range of subjects. Well, Hele Kopter spent the entire first term of school peering into the classroom from the window of the classroom door. Sometimes she would make excuses to see her son and daughter (they were twins). Her appearance would get the twins all worked up. When she left, they would cry. Mrs Kopter complained to the principal about me, as well as to other parents, and to anyone else who would listen. I wished she would disappear in a puff of smoke! Then one day, the family was no more. They had suddenly left. I was over the moon! Mr Kopter had been transferred to Singapore. For that reason and others, I have always loved Singapore!