On my teachers

As I snapped a candid picture of a young woman in Bratislava, one of the girls I was sightseeing with said with a giggle, "Uh-oh! Someone's falling in love!"

I explained to her in my most adult tone that "love" really didn't enter as a motivation, I simply preferred such shots as they catch the person in a moment as they are and not as they present themselves to be. Her following nod and quick jump to a new subject confirmed my suspicions that I had successfully and masterfully used the very adult skill of delivering a bit of a truth in an incredibly untruthful way as to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. Ahh, growing up!

This leads us to two conclusions:
1. I am awesome.
2. The world better watch out when that girl discovers just how smart she is.

I did have some feelings for the girl in the photo that I would have enjoyed following up on had the circumstances been different. Though romantics might decry me, I think whatever I felt will have to be likened to the brief moment of shared recognition that sometimes occurs between riders on oppositely departing subway trains. By the time it takes hold of you her train is leaving, you're looking for a seat that is not near the crazy raving man in the corner and, always, the faint smell of urine. Still, it's nice to know there are those kinds of people out there. Like her, I mean. Not the crazy pee-soaked guy.

This post isn't really about her, though. It's about the little girl who called me out. Of all the people I joked and flirted with, smiled at and made moderately inappropriate comments to, the young woman in the photo was the only one who apparently provoked a response from me that was interpreted as anything more than silly Americanism. Moreover, I was expressing things that I was fairly confident I had hidden. Moreover than that, this girl was the only one who picked it up and decided it was worth verbalizing to me.

But the truth has a way of finding its way through. I would not be at all surprised to be told that the girl didn't buy a word of what I was selling but thought it best to let the unrequited young man hide in his justifications. Why am I so consistently thwarted by 14 year olds? Her understanding of and care for others has been inspirational most of the adults that have worked with her and really makes me wonder about the teacher / student relationship. I think it's very likely that we have fooled those poor saps into thinking that they are learning, we are teaching, and the relationship gets no more dynamic than that. But what is REALLY happening is that we have created a magnificently convincing set of lights, mirrors, and smoke machines that disguises us taking notes as they live and act in the honest ways that we have forgotten.

Many of the implications of this little lesson as clear on their face, some of them are less so and I'm not sure how to verbalize them. Some probably haven't occurred to me yet. In any case, teachers like these are what have made my time here so meaningful and what will make it so hard to leave.

Thanks, B.