Now, if I am supposed to talk about the moments that affected me deeply during my internship, as a person who always observes the students’ even the smallest behavior to know them better, I can say that my internship process was completely an impressive period for me. Last semester, I was studying in a high school. Yes, they were also so cute guys and I still feel that sometimes I miss them because they were my first students in a school atmosphere. However, young learners are really unique. At the very beginning of this semester, you wanted us to read a writing of one of your students graduated from METU and now he is working in a state school, but I could not remember his name. Nevertheless, I remember what he wrote that even though there are lots of disadvantages of working in a state school, feeling the “pure love” of the students is something inimitable. No matter whether there is love or not but it was clear that my little students were really “pure”.
I want to start my first anecdote by talking about my first week in that primary school. I already knew that I am too emotional person but to be honest I did not aware that I am such a maudlin girl. At the very first course with the fourth grade students, when I entered the classroom, they all run and hugged me sincerely. First, I was really shocked but when I felt my tear was about to appear, then I stopped myself and sat down. During the course, I observed them not as a teacher but as if they were my little sisters – brothers. When the course finished, one of the students came and said “Hocam, we have been preparing for April 23 and we are going to dance on that day. During this break we are going to rehearse. Could you please watch our dancing?” Actually, we were supposed to go, but not to make them upset we said “Okay, we will wait”. I was expecting that I would only watch them for a while; maybe I could get bored and leave the class. Then, I guess 15 girls came together in the classroom and they started dancing with maybe the worst song of the world. However, when I saw their seriousness in their childish faces, sometimes their happiness when they saw we were watching them and their feeling of responsibility, I really could not believe in myself because this time I could not control my tears. Yes, I cried as if I was their teacher and I had been having them prepared for this dance show for weeks etc. And at that moment, I really understood my mother. I really understood her love to her students. And I understood what she felt while she was crying when she was watching her students reading poems on some special days. When I came home, I called my mother and said “Mum, I am really sorry for the moments that I said you ‘Are you crazy they are not your own children why are you crying?’ because today I cried for some girls with whom I met only a few hours ago.” Now, I see this is not being “crazy”, but this is only the effect of feeling that “pure love”.
The second moment which really affected me was on the last days of my internship. It was about one of my 4th grade students, Bahadır, but first let me talk a little bit about Bahadır. He is the shortest guy in the classroom but the cutest fat boy I have ever seen. During the breaks, while they were eating their meals, you can unfortunately guess their families’ income levels from what they eat. While some of them were eating hamburgers, Bahadır was eating his meal in a box of cheese which he brought from his home. However, while eating it, as if he was the happiest person in the world. Also, from his type of clothing, you could observe that Bahadır was coming from a family with low-income. I think because of this matter, most of the students isolated him and the saddest one was that he was aware of this fact. I saw him so much while saying “I know you would not play with me. I know you would not choose me.” when I wanted them to work as a group. Because of this matter, all the time I teach, I always tried to make him as active as possible during the lesson. I wanted him to come to board and do the activity always and then I saw that his friends also wanted to work with Bahadır. Fortunately, during the last week of our internship, we saw that Bahadır was much better in terms of gaining self-confidence. One day, while we were going back to home after the lesson, I heard Bahadır’s voice only saying “ice-cream” in a pity way. One of his friends was eating ice-cream and because Bahadır does not have any money to take an ice-cream, he was really upset. Then, before leaving the classroom, we called Bahadır and said him “Take this money and take an ice-cream for yourself but do not tell this to your friends.” He became really happy and after saying”Thank you!” he run to canteen quickly. After that, we walked around the school and we spent a lot of time there. While we were about to exit the school garden, I heard a voice saying “Hocaam Hocaam!” It was Bahadır running too fast to catch us with an ice-cream in his hands. When I saw he was so fussy, I scared and said “What happened Bahadır?” Then, he showed the money in his small hands and said “Hocam, I bought the ice-cream and this is your money left.” I stopped for a while and could not know what to do. My partner, Gülsüm, is generally my logic-side in such kind of matters, but when I looked at her, she was also shocked and about to cry. From the very beginning of my internship to the end, I always said myself “You are going to be a teacher and you have to be strong to be professional. Stop crying like a little child.” I know that being too emotional is one of my biggest weaknesses so I tried hard to get rid of this problem. However, at the very end of my internship, I experienced such an emotional moment and after made Bahadır go by saying “This is your money, go and take something else for yourself” I started crying…
Pure love, pure children, pure moments… I guess this is what I understand from teaching to young learners…
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