I Was An Award-Winning Teacher By Day. After Dark, My Behaviour Was Increasingly Troubling

<div><img src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/68c061bd190000b01834c8a9.jpg?cache=kY7Cj9f8g8&ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" alt="The author at home with her World Education Award." data-caption="The author at home with her World Education Award." data-credit-link-back="" data-credit="Photo Courtesy Of Jennifer Dines" />The author at home with her World Education Award.</div><div class="content-list-component text"><p><span style="font-weight:400">I stood in front of the class of middle-school ESL students. I was wearing a flower-print baby blue dress and a pair of pearl earrings, but my “perfect teacher” costume couldn’t stop the profuse sweating, the pins and needles shooting down my arms and the redness in my face. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">I was gripping a dry-erase marker, but my numb fingers caused me to drop it on the floor. I worried I would drop it again if I attempted writing on the board. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">“Hanh,” I asked our best speller, “could you write today’s question?”</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">I dictated: “What might you find under the back porch?”</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">When she finished writing, I read the question and students repeated, mirroring me as I acted out “under” by putting my hands under an empty student desk. I projected images of back porches from my students’ countries: Vietnam, Cabo Verde, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. Later that day, we read a poem titled “Under the Back Porch.”</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">As the students shared their answers with their table groups, I circulated, smiling and high-fiving, but I wasn’t really listening to their answers. I