What It Means to Teach

I took it upon myself to teach Riley.

He's smart. He's funny. He's sweet.

He's also a little shy and insecure.

This would not do if he was to be in my History class project.

You had Bryan, who never shut up. You had me, you never shut up. Then you have Riley who never says a word. When I first learned of Riley's being in my group, I formed the beginnings of a plan to change him.

I have known Riley Smith for nine years, going all the way back to our elementary school years. I don't remember him ever being so quiet. Then again, maybe I was too wrapped up in my own worries to pay much attention to his lack of socialness.

We were called the Bryan Peterson Team in History class. Believe me, I fought and fought to get a more general name. Yet, I was brutally rebuffed and I was unable to change the name. This resulted in my calling Bryan egotistical, and then my having to explain what the word meant. Riley never said a word.

This was going to be much more difficult than I originally anticipated.

Actually, I never really anticipated anything involving the situation at hand. The way I figured it was this: Talk to Riley in particular. Eventually, he's going to have to reply. And when he does, you just have to keep him talking. The problem of Bryan talking when I was trying to talk to Riley arose, but that was easily solved. All I had to do was say a few tongue-twisting words to him and tell him to go look them up.

Then I had another dilemma soon following my oh-so-brilliant plan: What was going to happen if I began to have feelings for Riley?