Bananas

Ukrainians have incredibly nice handwriting. They also eat bananas backwards, holding from the top and peeling from the bottom. Though I guess really, “top” and “bottom” are all in the eye of the banana eater. Less arbitrary is good handwriting, which I used to think I had, until I realized I didn’t.

The teachers at my school have beautiful handwriting; beautiful, flowing, cursive that puts me to shame. After history class, or Ukrainian literature class, the chalkboard is a real work of art. I don’t even want to erase it, so I usually have a student do it for me. I get enough chalk dust on myself as it is.

Towards the end of one of my classes the other day, I found myself standing in the back of the room, for the first time staring at my shame from the students’ perspective. It was bad. It looked like a first grader had written the assignment on the board. It looked like I’d tried to use my left hand, or to write with my eyes closed, or for that matter, to write with my left hand AND my eyes closed.

My handwriting is at its best when I’m writing on a napkin with a ballpoint pen. Now that’s a good combination, the pen really flows. These soviet-era chalkboards and chunks of cheap chalk don’t really give me top of the game flow, if you know what I mean. It’s hard to find your groove when the chalkboard is as smooth as a cobble stone road.

It also doesn’t help that I’m always writing things as fast as I possibly can. Nothing good happens when my back is to the class. Things usually start flying around the room. Once it was a broom, though usually it’s paper balls, or paper airplanes, or spit-wads. Sometimes I’ll turn around to find my kids darting around switching seats to be near their friends. Other times I’ll turn around to find them hitting each other, flicking each other in the head, smacking each other with books, or pushing each other out of their desks. If you had these rascals, you’d speed write too.

There was a time when my eighth form boys were rolling paper cigarettes and “chain-smoking” them in class. I don’t know what was more annoying: the sound of ripping paper as they rolled, the sight of them “puffing” away, the constant “ashing” in the plants along the side of the room, or the discarded “smokes” all over the floor. Initially I thought I’d be frank with them, so I said: “You do know that you look really stupid, don’t you?” Unfortunately, Ukrainians kids are used to being belittled by their teachers, so my words had little effect.

I then told them to knock it off and made them put all their “butts” in the trash, and they responded by spending the rest of the lesson “smoking” covertly. But kids aren’t half as sneaky as they think they are. They tried to mask the sounds of ripping paper with hacking, tuberculosis-type coughs. They snuck “drags” by burying their faces in their book bags. They faked long, drawn-out stretches as they “ashed” into the plants. Oh, they thought they were real coy, until in exasperation, I was forced to finally exclaim, “I can see you!”

Today was my last day of lessons and the last day my kids will drive me bananas for a whole three months. Tuesday is the last official day of school, but I don’t have to teach. It’s mostly a day for class parties and for teachers to put their final marks in the registry. The semester went pretty fast, as things usually do, after the fact. Now that it’s summer, perhaps I’ll spend some time working on my handwriting, though probably not. More likely I’ll try to master an easier Ukrainian art, like eating bananas backwards.