184/365 I'm ruined for life

It was late September and open house night. "Don't plan on seeing too many parents," Terri said cynically. I had seen it all by that point: my first year in North City, three parents came. Out in the county in the ritzy private school, all the parents came. And at the other south side Catholic school I worked at, almost all the parents came and laid too much baggage on my desk for me to handle in one night. So whatever happened, happened. I shrugged off her comment and came prepared for anything.

A few parents came in and met me. Their daughters (good girls) liked me. Super. And then there was a lull in the evening and I wondered how long I really had to stay.

An older Vietnamese man knocked on my door. I recognized Quan and his sister Phuong, both math students of mine. I got up from the student desk I was sitting in to watch the door and walked towards them. Quan hung back, Phuong stood between me and her father. She said something in Vietnamese and then gestured with an open hand towards me, saying my name.

He bowed. To me.

I had wonderful things to say about Quan and Phuong, of course, they were great students. At the end of the conference, completely translated by Phuong, I can only assume correctly, he bowed again.

"Thank you," he said.

I don't think I'll manage to teach in another school after that. The respect for teacher was so completely a part of the culture of our school, being about half Vietnamese, that there was never any question about behavior problems or who was correct. Even American families fell in line (for the most part). If I said something was so, I knew it would be dealt with. I knew I would be believed until proven wrong, instead of assumed to be a low-wage trade worker with an MRS degree.

It just doesn't exist anywhere else that I've found.