Memorizing Life

I’ve been working with 5 students for the past 2 1/2 weeks on preparing for a speech competition in English. I’m sure some of you out there did this as children and I know I did. When I think about it I mostly think about running lines for a play with my mom which was fun, but every once in a while I get a lurking pain in my memory. I think that part is from having to memorize speeches. If anyone else has that memory it would be good for you to know that it is only more painful for the person helping you, especially if you are doing poorly. This is because they can’t make you memorize the speech they can just hear you repeat the same lines over and over and over again. That’s what I did this week. The first week was spent having the kids write their speeches, which most English teachers do for them, but which I wanted them to do themselves. Ha! It really required a lot of translating that I was only half up to and asking a lot of other people about the cartoon so I could make the speeches make more sense. Oh yes, I couldn’t do the elaborating without help because the theme is about their favorite cartoon and unfortunately I have no TV and can not watch the 700 crazy Japanese cartoons dubbed in Chinese. I know a lot about them now though. Doraemon, the most famous, is a blue robot cat from the future that uses magic to help a little boy, while Bubuchacha is the story of a boy and his talking toy car. Of course the others are about witches in training, ninjas and boy detectives. What happened to shows like Rainbow Bright and the Killer Tomatoes?
When I started this I thought we were a little short on time, but that it would be fun for them and me. Who was I kidding? I have learned that competitions are not supposed to be fun; they are supposed to be painful and nerve racking upon the minds of young children who already don’t get to have enough fun. I suppose me thinking a speech competition was supposed to be fun is along the lines with me thinking it would be a great idea to make my kids memorize poetry. Most of my friends in Italy could spout out at least 20 poems memorized by heart and I like to attribute my occasional inability to remember what I did yesterday to the fact that I had to memorize very little as a child. I thought every child should have to memorize poems until I heard a dear friend’s trauma of having to recite poetry to her grandparents and after weeks of torment being proud of her Emily Dickinson poem until her sister started reciting the whole of “The Walrus and the Pussycat.” The experience with these speeches has been similar. I think something is a great idea until I run up into the actuality of the situation.
Well, we have finished practicing and now all that is left is to pick the kids up tomorrow morning, encourage them in a language they mostly don’t understand and then hope that they don’t mess up too bad. I hate the feeling of having worked with someone and then see it lost and to see their pain. Let’s just hope it’s not that and is rather the really happy feeling of success along with them so that I can take them to have a celebratory lunch and not a conciliatory lunch.