I met a real teacher today

We were at a meeting in Yerevan to meet our partners in our Peace Corps projects.  I think, because of my age, I stood out in the crowded coffee break area.  Several of the Armenian partners introduced themselves to me as I talked with my partner, Narene.  A lady closer to my age came over who knew Narene and had worked in the same town and introduced herself as Emma.
Emma told me that she had worked with everyone at the NGO where I will be engaged for the next year.  I was very flattered when she told me she had heard about me and my background.  She told me she now teaches English at a college relatively close to where I will be living.  Emma asked me if I would be willing to come visit her college class and deliver a lecture in English about my teaching, union, and political work.  I could not say no.

At the next coffee break, I found Emma and offered her my phone number.  As we talked, she told me two things about her past that made me feel so small I cannot even say.  Neither were said to me to make me feel that way, it was just to let me know her and why she was interested in continuing our conversation.

First, when the Soviet Union collapsed, she was teaching.  For several months as the transition to a new Armenia was happening, Emma and her fellow teachers did not want the children to go without school.  They kept teaching even though there were no paychecks coming.  Several left, but as Emma said, we found out who the real teachers were.  They had potlucks together to eat.  They kept teaching through hunger, loss of electricity and other utilities.  Classrooms were dark and cold and the students and teachers were hungry but they kept the school open.  Finally, the government settled in and the meager paychecks returned.

Secondly, she told me she organized a teacher union.  They negotiated their working conditions as best they could.  They got their salaries all the way up to the equivalent of five hundred dollars a year.  A visiting teacher from Canada asked her to come with him.  He told Emma he would pay her $5000 a month.  She told me she thanked him and it sounded nice but the children of her country needed her.  She said no to a raise of over 100% because she loves Armenia.

Damn, I have walked some picket lines and organized and sacrificed for my fellow teachers and the students we serve but Emma is a real teacher.  I am so glad I will be learning from her.  Maybe I can become a real teacher; she sets a pretty high standard.