I teach English classes at a little school by my campus in Mexico. The first time I went to this project I was filling in for someone who wasn't going. I am on my school community service group so whenever someone needs help in a project I jump. I got to teach the second graders. When I stepped into the room the kids all smiled. Their faces lit up and there eyes widened. I can't help but smiling either. Today I am only filling in, but after I learn all their names and the class finishes I feel like I want to come back.

Sometimes I want to rip my hair out after decisions like that. The next class, they were far from cute, heck they were far from civilized. I came out defeated. I couldn't control them, had they just pretended to be angels the first day? After a few weeks of classes I knew my assumptions had been correct. Once I decided to get into this I couldn't get out till the end of the school semester, so I suffered the whole semester with a bunch of screaming devilish children. I was given no training to do this before hand; I just went and did it. I was assumed the assistant of one of the teachers but instead he turned into one of the kids. I was in 10 grade, he was in 12, but not having him was better for me.

Besides the miscreant kids I had to baby sit an 18 year old, not fun. He would not help me at all in the class planning or when the kids were acting out. He couldn't have been worse; he even encouraged the kids to fight. The kids live in a very poor part of the city and have a lot of trouble getting by so they have a lot of street fights; they all had more than enough practice.

So I suffered this torture for a whole semester, once a week, one hour, every week. When it was finally over I was relived but I had one more thing I had to do. We had to plan a big party for the kids to celebrate Christmas. The day finally came and after this I wanted nothing to do with these kids. I was put on door duty. I had to check what kids came in and give them nametags.

After giving out about 70 name tags I felt defeated, none of my kids were here. I had worked so hard for this, so they could have fun! My shift was up so I turned and started up the steps that lead inside. Then suddenly I heard, 'Mira ah' esta la maestra Sofia!' For those of you who don't speak Spanish that means, 'Look! There's teacher Sofia!' My Heart leaped and I turned to see a group of 7 of my students running towards me.

But the one that yelled ran past the crowd, up the steps and hugged my legs. I almost cried, he was so cute! All the other kids followed promptly. I smiled as I gave then their nametags, proud of myself for knowing their names. I even met their parents; they were such kind people and were very thankful for me teaching their kids. But the strangest thing of all was the little boy that hugged me was Ivan, the worst behaved kid in my class. I

After the party all my kids hugged me and said thank you and thing like 'you're the best teacher ever'. When it came time to sign up for English classes the next semester my name was the first one on the list.