welcome to a new semester

On my first day of writing 2 class, I was delighted to find a wide spectrum of cultures represented (ie, a couple of Koreans rather than a dozen, a Russian, some Brazilians, a Japanese, Hispanics from various locales, and a Saudi). Having a diverse class makes things more interesting for me and makes English a lot easier to acquire (mostly because they're forced to speak it. I'll never understand students who come to the US and then refuse to ever speak English).

This morning I had a student from the Dominican Republic show up. He seemed fairly competent in English and chatted with me a bit during down times in class. And just when I was starting to possibly like him a little bit, he started making little jabs at the Saudi student. Something along the lines of "you're from Saudi Arabia? You know what that means?" or "don't you look like someone I've seen before...aren't you related to someone on the news..."

Luckily the Saudi was no pushover. At first he ignored the comments (they were sitting on opposite sides of the room), but then he politely defended himself "Hey, I like my country. Leave it alone."

But by the end of class, little Dominican student was getting rather irrtating. And finally, during their group discussions, Dominican accused Saudi of being Osama bin Laden's cousin (because naturally, all Saudis are related to Osama. And are all terrorists) and therefore a terrorist. At which point chaos ensued. I started shouting at the Dominican to stop saying such inappropriate things while he tried to defend himself, Saudi's friends started shouting at the Dominican, and I frantically tried to draw attention away from the Saudi who had turned slightly red, stood up and mumbled something about needing to go meet a friend, and walked out of class. It was a mess.

Class finished shortly thereafter. Domincan fled, and I ran out to find Saudi. Not surprisingly, there was no friend waiting to meet him; he confessed that since he didn't want to start a brawl in the middle of my classroom, he thought he should remove himself. Which was appreciated. I confessed that I would have punched Dominican in the face. We bonded, I promised I was on his side and would try to control the Dominican. The Dominican was nowhere to be found for a well deserved lecture.

And all on the second day of class.