The Wall

For a year I taught French in southwestern Ontario. What you have to understand is that many students and their parents wish it were not so. They don’t see it as necessary. There is no place to use the language in the area. Thus, they don’t really care if they do well or not. For many, it is a convenient subject to hate.

Fortunately, I didn’t share this attitude. I have seen my knowledge of French take me places I would never have been without it. Still, it was difficult staying positive each day when I was faced with so many negative attitudes.

What made matters worse is that I was an itinerant teacher. I moved from classroom to classroom. I had no claim to any space for my needs anywhere. Each time I entered, I had to establish control.

The worst part was going from the Grade 4 room downstairs to the Grade 8s. There were some Grade 8s who had trouble with English. Their knowledge of French was pitiful. Somewhere along the way, the basics just didn’t stick and it was my job to motivate and teach them.

As I trudged towards the stairs, I noticed an empty wall. It wasn’t very big, but it wasn’t designated for anybody’s use. I decided then and there to kidnap it. I didn’t ask anybody’s permission. I just adopted it as mine.

Well, what was I to do with my wall? I decided it to make it my wall of quotations. Whenever I saw a positive thought that I really liked, I would put it into my word processing application, increase the size of the font to as large as I could so it would fit on one page, print it and stick it up.

It started with one piece of paper stuck on my wall without any attention to how it was placed. I waited for the custodian or the principal to tear it down. It didn’t happen. The second one went up. No reaction. The sheets of paper on the wall grew and grew with quotes from an eclectic group of people scattered madly here and there.

Each time I passed that wall, I read one or two of the quotations for inspiration and it worked.

At the end of the year, I figured it was time to take them down. I peeled them off and had them in my Grade 4 class. When they saw them, they all wanted them. I had to draw lots for each one. It seems that I was not the only one my wall inspired. I learned that you might never know how anything you do will affect others until you do it.