Thinking about respecting teachers

The homeroom teacher's name is Eric, but in France, students have to call the teacher Sir with the family name. The proper name can only be used between friends of the same age or those who are really close. However, the students in the class always call the teacher Eric, no Sir, nothing more, just like calling a friend. "Hello Eric", "Have a nice weekend Eric", "Don't give too much homework today Eric"... the students' rude greetings are answered with a scolding (more like a plea): "Call me Sir. Honaker, ladies and gentlemen!" And our answer is always: "Ok, Eric".

Eric kept a goldfish named Lou at his desk in the classroom. Every time he had to leave the classroom to get some materials, Eric would return in a hurry and be greeted by students scooping Lou up with nets to play with. Another time, when he carefully put the fish tank in a locked glass cabinet before leaving the classroom, we would climb up on the display cabinet, remove the skull of the dinosaur skeleton model and hide it in the dormitory. As a result, poor Eric spent the first and last five minutes of every class period begging us to put the skull back because it was funny to display a headless dinosaur skeleton all the time.

Eric had high cholesterol so he was very careful with his diet. We learned about this when one of our classmates brought a whole loaf of chocolate cake his mother made to class and cut it up for the whole class to eat. Seemingly tired of scolding us for our mischief, Eric just sighed and said, “Please don’t drop crumbs on the table!” Seeing his pitiful face, we invited him to eat the cake but he refused because chocolate is not good for people with high cholesterol. This surprised the whole class because there was always a box of instant chocolate in the classroom, which we often mixed and drank during long lessons. It turned out that Eric bought that box of chocolate for us to drink, not because he liked it. Yet for a long time we were delighted to see him get angry every time the students “stole” his chocolate.

Besides Eric, I remember other teachers: a Geography teacher who always sat on the desk and loved to play with words to tease the students, a French teacher with a bushy beard that every time he shaved it, the whole class was shocked because they thought there was a new teacher. This bearded teacher, although bearded, was surprisingly extremely gentle. Once, when we were talking too loudly in class, he did not scold us but only gently advised: "Speak softly, so as not to wake up Pierre who is sleeping!" We were so amused that we forgot to talk, and Pierre was awakened by the sudden silence of the classroom. There was also a Philosophy teacher, so small that if she sat with her legs stretched out on the desk, her whole body would still fit inside the table without showing at all. She often came to sleep in the girls' dormitory and every time she did, the girls would sneak into her room to gossip and do fortune-telling, and watch movies until late at night. It is difficult to vote for who is the most loved person by the students, but if it comes to being the most hated, surely no one can surpass the supervisor - Mr. Dupont. We never bother to call him by his first name, and who cares what his name is because every time we meet him, something bad happens. At best, we get points deducted from our conduct, at worst, we get grounded. If this guy is shown with a magic mirror, he will appear as a giant security camera, always appearing suddenly to catch us in the act of causing trouble in a very timely manner.

In France, there is no holiday for teachers, and the relationship between teachers and students is not too formal, but more like friends. After graduation, students can call their teachers by their first names (of course, Eric is an exception) and if they accidentally meet on the street, they will happily invite each other to a cafe to chat like two friends who have not seen each other for a long time. But don't mistake that for disrespecting teachers. On the contrary, we respect them very much, but more or less differently from the way students respect teachers in Vietnam. We respect them, not their professional titles. It is a respect that is proactive and voluntary, not because someone told us: We must respect them because they are our teachers. I think that is true respect. Just like in the case of Eric and Mr. Dupont, the word Mr. here does not say anything.