The Invasion of Room 207

Invasion of Room 207

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you wandered into your safe and familiar classroom and found a scary looking creature sitting in the back corner of the room? One small group of children were faced with this very situation on their return to school following the Chinese New Year vacation. It all began early on what might have been your average Monday morning. The hallways were filled with children waiting for the school bell to ring. You could hear the murmur of students talking about their weekend adventures, and see them huddled together franticly trying to finish their homework before class began. The last thing you want on a Monday morning is the prospect of a weeks detention. Little did one class know, that today would be remembered as the scariest school day of their lives. The day when a strange creature invaded their class.

At precisely eight o'clock the school bell rang out loudly and the teacher opened the door to room two hundred and seven. All of a sudden, twenty small kindergarten students burst into the room and ran to their assigned seats. They were eager to get back to their daily structured routine. At first, only one small boy noticed the strange looking creature sitting on a wooden chair at the back of the room. He had seen pictures of similar creatures in picture books and in movies, but he had never seen one in real life. It was so very strange. It's eyes were so big and the most unusual colour. But that was not all. It also had the biggest nose that he had ever seen. He was frozen with fear and confusion, but could not look away. It had light brown hair that stuck out in all directions, kind of like when they used a balloon to make the girls hair stand up in science class. “What does it want with us?” he thought.

One of the boys turned to see what had caused his classmate to stand frozen in fear, then another child, and then another one after that. Within two minutes the class was silent and all eyes were turned towards that strange creature. Within three minutes the silence was replaced with uncontrollable sobbing and the pitter patter of small feet desperately trying to escape the room. For the next twenty minutes mothers, fathers and grandparents desperately tried to convince, bribe and force their children back into the classroom. At one stage it was like a scene from an old cartoon. A father tried to pull his daughter into the classroom, but she was clinging to the door frame. Holding on for dear life, as he tried to pry her fingers away one at a time. The children were terrified of this strange looking creature. With five minutes left of class, two students were too distressed and had gone home, the others finally sat nervously.

At last, their beloved and not so trusted (any more) Chinese teacher stood at the front of the room and called the strange creature to the front of the room. She spoke to them softly in Chinese, “This is your new English Teacher. Her name is Nicole and she is from Australia. She will be teaching you English once a week”. And as the introductions were coming to a close, the bell rang once more. It took mere seconds for the room to empty out.

This is how I am sure many of my kindergarten students will remember their first day of class with me, their new foreign teacher. You see, Australia is a very multicultural country. You walk into any school and you see a rainbow of students and teachers. Many different hair colours and styles, different skin tones, accents and builds. Tall, short, thin, fat, curly, straight and everything in between. If a teacher from India or Africa walks in, no one bats an eyelid. It makes no difference. What I didn't realise when I sat at the back of the classroom eagerly waiting for the Chinese teacher to introduce me to my new students, was that most of the younger children in this small Chinese town have never seen a foreigner before. After a few weeks the mood in the classroom was very different and the students began brining in mobile phones so that they could take many, many, many photos of their new teacher. It was a day that will forever be imprinted into all of our memories.