Echo And Narcissus

The game is simple enough. The questions range in difficulty - 10 being the easiest, 50 the most difficult. Given the opportunity and the chance at being given a sweet, the boys are eager to compete against one another. Their hands fly up, their bottoms leave their seats and more often than not they yell the answer out of turn causing a new rule to be enforced that gives them negative points for doing such an act.

The game is jeopardy. The language is English. The competition fierce.

At the all boys school being the lone girl in the room is something of a formidable task. Hearing a voice that is not of the male register and simultaneously speaking a bizarre foreign tongue riddled with tiresome Ls and Vs, the boys tend to do what any self-respecting teenage boy would do: they mimic it and laugh at the bizarre, girlish sounds being emitted from their very own masculine mouths. More often than not I morph into Narcissus and Echo follows me obediently around the class, parroting my speech, and often over emphasizing the fact that, yes indeed, I am a girl. And just like Narcissus, I ignore Echo and her childish pranks, and continue on my merry self-absorbed way.

This class is no different. After I finish reading each question: “Please translate into English….” “What is the capital of Australia?” “Who plays Harry Potter?” I hear a voice floating around the back of the room. It’s not unlike Mickey Mouse after sucking hungrily on a helium balloon whilst attempting to vindictively torture all the dogs in the nearby vicinity. This boy seems to be giving the class his all. He keeps up the irksome facade after every question, trying my patience and concurrently impressing me with his dedication. Surely in a country where the women spend a good portion of their professional lives speaking two octaves too high in a bold attempt at cuteness, femininity and politeness and their personal lives speaking in an equally high-pitched, charming tone in an attempt to attract a mate, a normal female voice in English should not be all that shocking. However, much to my chagrin the boy keeps it up.

We move on.

The students come out to the corridor one by one to gather sentences in English from me, which they report back to their group. One boy struts out, approaches me confidently and puts his arm up along the wall above my head. He looks down at me expectantly and grins.

Eventually, Echo wanders out and listens carefully as I give him the phrase. He recites it back to me at a tone even higher than my own.

Enough is enough. Without realizing it, my voice jumps several octaves informing him quite plainly that I see his game and that I’m not amused. He seems unfazed and responds back with the exact same falsetto brassy tones and innocent brown eyes.

Fine. That’s how it’s going to be.

The teacher sidles up to me. “So the class is going well, right?”
“Yeah. It’s fine. The students seem to be doing okay. Except, some kids really like mimicking, don’t they?”
“Mimicking?”
“Yeah, copying my speech. It’s alright. I just wondered…”

It’s then that the teacher drops a bomb that makes my brain want to shrivel up, my heart to crack and for me to stick every available limb into my mouth:

“Oh, him. His voice, how do you say… it hasn’t dropped yet.”

After I manage to dislodge my left, right and center feet from my mouth, I manage to continue on with the lesson.

See also Excuse Me Sir… Ma’am, Do You Have A Penis? for more completely inappropriate teaching gaffes.