Todd: OK, Charlotte. You've been a teacher for quite a while.

Charlotte: Yeah, I started about three years ago, and my first job was in Jessif, in the east of Poland. I was promised that I wasn't going to have to teach any beginners, or any little children because it was my first job, and I was promptly given the beginner infants. My first day of teaching I was given a book which said, "Ah! Go into the classroom and say 'Hello' to the children, and they'll all say, 'Hello' back to you and wave". I walked into a class of five four-year olds, followed by all their mothers, and grandmothers, and I said, "Hello" and they all burst into tears. I spent half the lesson trying to get them to say,"Hello" to each other and stop them from crying while all the grandmothers stood around and stared at me. I finally finished off my singing the, whatever, Happy Princess Song, all on my own, with crying infants to accompany me. It was one of the worst days of my life. I could identify with all the children though, cause I wanted to sit on the floor and cry with them by the end of it. I think that that was when I realized that teaching kids was never going to be my vocation. I had some other classes as well but quit soon after that and moved onto adults who cry slightly less. Um, yeah, that was my first teaching experience. Not the best.