One of my best friends, Chie, is an elementary school teacher in Yamanashi. Whenever she's feeling a little down, she'll call me up and we'll chat about when we were at elementary school, which seems to cheer her up every time.
I've cleaned up my act since though. Perhaps a little too much because now I'm a complete geek. Still, Chie tells me, "You give me hope that people really can change."
Anyway, this is all by-the-by. The reason why I mention Chie is because it's through her that I learned the meaning of this week's proverb.
One summer, Chie was taking several English courses in college, not because she wanted to, but because she had to, and truth be told, she wasn't very good at it. That's why one day she ended upturning up on my doorstep with her toothbrush, pajamas and her English text books, imploring: "Kana, you've got to teach me how to do my assignments. I don't even know where to start."
At first, I made her read the English texts aloud, summarizing each paragraph in Japanese as she went, but she would get stuck on every other word, and after a while I just got a headache. We continued a little longer and then I lost my patience. "Damn it, girl, " I thought. "This is going to take forever."
So I ended up dictating Japanese summaries of the English text to her. The end result was that she finished all her assignments but she was none the wiser about English or how to do these assignments in the future. Chie was, of course, extremely grateful, but still she jokingly said: "Kana, you are a great teacher. Now, I know exactly what I shouldn't do when I'm a teacher myself."
She's completely right. A good teacher wouldn't have given her all the information because that way she didn't learn anything herself. What's more, after all the effort you put into doing the hard work, this is the kind of gratitude you're going to get: "Thanks, but you're a bad teacher."
Q1 Why did Chie tell Kana that she knows exactly what she shouldn't do when she is a teacher herself?
A1) Because Kana beat her after losing her patience.
A2) Because Kana basically told her the answers and Chie didn't learn anything new.
A3) Because Chie did not get her homework done on time.
正解： A2) Because Kana basically told her the answers and Chie didn't learn anything new.
Q2 Kana decided to dictate Japanese summaries of the English text to Chie because:
A1) She lost her patience after Chie got stuck so many times.
A2) Chie wasn't dictating loud enough for her to hear.
A3) She was falling asleep.
正解： A1) She lost her patience after Chie got stuck so many times.
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