{ glimpses }

Daily I catch new glimpses of students I thought I've known.

On Friday, Omar--a boy I've taught for two years now--earned himself a detention for being generally rowdy and a little bit disrespectful. To be honest, he earned himself the DT on Thursday but had it doubled on Friday due to the fact that he skipped Thursday's penalty.

Omar has always been a sullen, cynical boy. He has told me that he likes me as a teacher, but doesn't often show it. He tends to be vain and arrogant and knows it. I've always liked him but have found him difficult to connect with, since he has such a strong guard up.

On Friday, Omar showed me an endearing side of himself. I kept him for a DT in my room for half an hour after school--torture for any fourteen year old boy, to be sure. He was bored to tears, so I got to talking to him about what he might do after junior high (he is currently in grade eight). He shared with me that he has considered dropping out after grade nine as he has always struggled with school and English. I asked him if he still wanted to be a mechanic as I have known for a while now, and he said that he did. I pumped him up a little and complimented him on how well he did on his research report about car parts and motors. He allowed a little of his true pride--the unsure, tentative pride, not the blatant arrogance I usually see--to seep out in his eyes as they softened. He lit up and shared with me that he wanted to have a good job so that he could one day support a family. I told him about the special courses that I could recommend him for after next year--the courses that are geared towards kids who want jobs in the trades. He seemed baffled and excited by this news--news no teacher has ever given him before. Everyone he'd ever talked to had kept pushing him to achieve higher and higher to go into the academic courses and continue on to University to study sciences or architecture or literature; however, this just isn't Omar. It will never be Omar.

It seemed once I told him this, Omar must have figured I understood him, I "got" him, for then he started opening up to me. I asked him if English is still hard for him, even though he normally professed in front of his peers that it's "easy" and just "stupid". He nodded meekly and told me how hard it is. I told him that I've been studying Arabic and that sometimes I, too, feel as if I'll never "get it". He quizzed me on short phrases and letters of the alphabet--I confessed I haven't even mastered that yet. Then, with his young man's confidence, he stood up to impress and dazzle me.

"Do you want to see me write something?" he flaunted.

"Sure!" I agreed. I know that even he has only learned to write in Arabic over the past two years as he has grown up knowing it only orally.

He took my blue whiteboard marker and in the loveliest boy's cursive I've ever seen, he made his way, decisively, through each scrolled letter, starting on the right and working to the left. He stopped to correct himself several careful times, delicately erasing a stroke or a dot with a pinky finger and retracing it more carefully.

"It's my name!" he professed when finished. "Omar A---!"

In all honesty, it was completely lovely. This rugged boy's hand, with dark, manly hairs beginning to crawl on his knuckles as over his upper lip, had created this beautiful script, and I truly was as dazzled as he had hoped I could be, despite the fact that I had started off merely humoring him.

"Should I write yours?" he asked next, having gained preliminary confidence.

"Yes!" I squealed.

He made his way through my name, a completely non-Arabic name, stumped when he came to the two 'p's in my surname. He was puzzled, and I knew why, having just studied these past few weeks and learned that there is no equivalent sound to the English 'p' in Arabic; it gets substituted for 'b' (in fact, as my podcast tutor proclaimed, it's common to hear Arabs yelling: "Go bark the car!" as they are learning English).

"The 'p', right?" I asked him, knowingly.

"Yes," he said, not knowing how to explain himself.

"You must need 'b's," I directed.

"How did you know!" he said, wide-eyed.

"I told you, I've been studying!"

He grinned and reworked my name, saying it aloud with the 'p's substituted for 'b's. We both giggled a little at the foreign-ness of my new name.

Nearing the end of our time together, I told Omar that I will likely be his teacher again next year, and that I'm glad for that. I wanted to encourage him about school a little.

"I might not come back next year," he confessed.

"But why not!"

"I might go back to my village in Lebanon. I lived there when I was little."

"Do you like it?" I asked, knowing some of my kids do not.

"I love it! Wallah, it's the best!" I could feel his sincerity, knowing wallah is the equivalent of I swear to God! which is a serious thing for a good Muslim to say. He proceeded to tell me of the beauty of his village and how superior it is to a big city like Beirut. He spoke of the kindness of the people and the lushness of the beautiful countryside.

"What's your village called?" I asked, already being familiar with a few Lebanese town names. He spoke a lengthy Arabic name that I could neither decipher nor recognize.

"Do you know what it means?" he asked me.

"No--what?" I leaned in.

And then Omar did something so beautiful, in such a tone and demeanor that I have never seen him act before. His eyes fluttered half shut ever so softly, as if remembering something dear to him, and his hand drifted to cover his heart. He spoke with amazing conviction, in his gruff, accented young man's voice. "It means my heart is broken."

And then he looked at me, as if shocked with himself and eager to hear my reply.

Dramatically I played into his keenness. "My heart is broken!" I echoed. "But why? Why such a sad name for such a beautiful place?"

He merely shrugged and allowed his head to nod downward, somewhat meekly. A handsome smile played just behind his lips, guarded only ever so slightly.

And then, like that, our thirty minute penalty was nearly over. He had been with me twenty seven minutes already. The doldrums that this time was supposed to be had long since melted away.

I glanced at the clock. "Omar, go. You have to go to work, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then go. Yallah!" I laughed, urging him in Arabic to hurry up.

"Really?" he looked at me incredulously.

"Yes," I laughed. "Go!"

"Thanks, Ms. E! Have a good weekend!"

"Thanks, Omar. You too!"