Every Wrong Behavior or Outcome Can Be Traced Back to Me
In the virtual classroom, I always keep a big smile on my face—even when students cross the line
I say goodbye to the little boy on my screen, exit the session, and go to check my next lesson, which is starting in five minutes. Immediately two words on the screen assault me: SEX EDUCATION. It’s written like that, bold and unfiltered, in all caps in the special request column for the lesson. Simple requests like “please speak at a natural speed” or “teach me about phrasal verbs” occasionally fill the box, but mostly it remains empty or occupied by students happy to have a conversation about any topic as long as they can practice their English with a native speaker.
The Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor facts my previous student, a young Japanese 8-year-old, shared with me are still ringing in my head. The contrast between the young boy’s innocence and my next student’s creepy gall heightens my discomfort. My legs are bobbing up and down like two dogs excited to go for a walk. I smile. I heard smiling can induce positive emotions and I want to check if it’s true. Right now, it’s not.
My first thought is to cancel the class, but that’s not what a good teacher would do. (I’m obsessed with being a good teacher.) My second thought is to assume only good things happen to me, so I convince myself a gynecologist or a curious teenager will show up in the class, not the grown man I’m imagining it will be. Truthfully, he could be anybody. I don’t recognize the username (which can be as obscure or as realistic as the student wants) and he has no lesson history. With an email being the only requirement to make an account, it’s not unheard of for previously banned students to join again with a new variation of their email. Just in case, I button up the final button on my shirt and put my hair in a ponytail.
I’ve had problems in the past with male students, always male, stepping over the boundary between teacher and student, though usually not in a sexual way. They ask shyly if I had ever smoked weed before or complain to me on how women wouldn’t date them because of feminism, seemingly blaming me. Not allowed to share my own opinions, especially on topics forbidden by the language-learning company I work for, I politely nod my head and pretend that whatever they are saying is perfectly normal. I’ve mastered the art of convincing flummery. They never doubt that I’m over-the-moon thrilled to be complimented during my professional work by a stranger twice my age on the internet.
My experience with impropriety during lessons is generally limited. On average, students don’t do anything worse than ask my opinion on a controversial topic, and I’ve learned to accept that as part of my job. They want to know who I voted for during the presidential election, am I in a relationship, do I want to have children, and if I don’t want to have children, why? At their worst, a student might comment on how tired I looked without makeup on, which I intentionally don’t wear during class, or they might harmlessly flirt with me about my smile. Once, when I made the mistake of speaking honestly about my husband’s superior cooking abilities, a male student gave me an accusatory lecture about the duties of wifedom.
Regardless of the inappropriate behavior I face, I always keep a big smile on my face when I’m with students in the virtual classroom. When one man calls me his angel at the beginning of each class, sometimes with add-ons like lovely or darling, I do nothing but give an embarrassed giggle.
Instilled in my mind is the idea that I have to be courteous and friendly, always, even at the expense of my well-being. Nobody told me to act that way—to agree with everything like a brainless yes-woman—I just do it to avoid conflict. My fear of confrontation is so impenetrable that even correcting the barista on my wrong coffee order makes my heart pound. I would rather leave the café with my wrong order, unhappily and complaining to myself, instead of having a completely normal interaction with the barista. I don’t want the barista to be mad at me and, worse, I second-guess my own ability to place a simple order. I tell myself that I said hot instead of iced, that I mumbled, that I lack basic ordering etiquette. Every wrong behavior or outcome can be traced back to me.
Thus, when the words SEX EDUCATION appear on my screen, I wonder if I’m overreacting. Perhaps the student had just watched a raunchy American comedy and needs me to explain the explicit jokes. That’s the outcome I’m hoping for, but every part of my bouncing body doubts it. There are three minutes left until the class starts. I bite my nails and throw the remnants under the desk.
Two months ago, I was tutoring my husband’s co-worker’s husband, a Korean engineer, whom I’d never met in person before. We held private lessons on Skype once a week so he could prepare for a formal English test. The lessons were usually intense and full of advanced vocabulary and long readings. We didn’t have a lot of time for free conversation.
He was middle-aged, like most of my students, and always came to class still dressed in his work shirts. With round glasses and hair neatly combed to the side, he looked professional and ordinary—like he could be anybody’s dad. He had a slow, methodical way of speaking and, as expected of a non-native English speaker, was shy in conversation, unsure of his abilities. On top of that, we didn’t share any common interests, so this made the lessons quite boring for me as I usually liked to joke around with my students and try to find something we can both discuss. But he was only interested in golf and his family, two things I didn’t care about. (No offense to his family). After a few weeks I could tell he was getting more comfortable with me, and he’d prolong our introductions instead of jumping into the material. He’d ask about my weekend or what I thought of random news events. It was nothing unusual.
Then one day, the last question of his test material asked him to describe what he did on his previous birthday. At first, he answered very typically saying he had a birthday cake, his children gave him some cards, and his wife got him an ordinary gift. Then he laughed and said he went to Hong Kong.
“Wow, that sounds like a good birthday,” I replied. ”I’ve been to Hong Kong before too. What did you do there?”
“Do you know what going to Hong Kong means in Korean?” he asked, with an impish smile.
“Does it not mean going to the city in Southeast Asia?” I asked, feigning confusion.
But I wasn’t confused. I knew that “going to Hong Kong” meant having an orgasm in Korean slang. My husband is Korean and I had studied Korean for a few years, so I wasn’t naive, and he knew that. He knew that I knew Korean, which made his choice to get sexual even more disturbing. But I didn’t want him to know that I understood his perversion. If I understood it, that meant I had to confront his behavior, either with condemnation or approval, and I couldn’t do either.
“Going to Hong Kong… you know? It means… you have fun at night? You know? With another person?” he said, still smiling but noticeably getting more awkward and losing his words.
My face was turning red but I tried to smile as normally as possible. I felt like it was opening night of a play and I was at center stage, forgetting my lines with the spotlight on my face. I couldn’t break character or the show would fail. I couldn’t let the audience—my student—see me falter and get uncomfortable. If he saw me upset, I thought I’d have to abandon my carefully crafted portrayal of a “good” teacher and admit to myself my own shortcomings, that I had encouraged his inappropriate behavior somehow, that I had caused this discomfort.
Naturally, I convinced myself that my Korean was terrible and that I must be confused. Even though I remembered clearly hearing BTS’s Suga say it in a song and then asking my husband about it, I chose to doubt my husband and myself. After all, why shouldn’t I trust the student I’d only known for a few weeks?
“Oh, so it means having fun?” I said. My acting skills amazed me.
“Not just having fun,” he said. “It’s something you do at night, sometimes you can pay for it. You know… Hong Kong?” he said again, slower and with more emphasis, as if trying to trigger my memory. With raised eyebrows, he gestured his hands and eyes downwards as if in a game of Charades, desperately trying to win but seemingly losing patience at my obliviousness.
The way he playfully kept saying “you know,” as if we were sharing an old inside joke, bothered me almost more than the original offense. Ours was far from a relationship in which we could share intimate, sexual stories. How was he treating this so casually and nonchalantly? Why did he think he could talk to me that way?
The previous week I had regrettably agreed to have a lesson with him over dinner one day, in person instead of on Skype, but we never set a date. It was never brought up again, and I had no intention of meeting in-person, but maybe he did. That must be the reason. I accepted his study date proposal and now he thinks I like him. It’s my fault for asking about his hobbies and free time, I should have just stuck with the lesson materials. I knew I was to blame, but I told myself I shouldn’t overreact. “It’s a different culture. He’s from a different generation. Maybe this is normal,” I told myself, trying to rationalize his behavior
Ultimately, I never said anything to him. The lesson ended and I closed my laptop feeling demoralized and dirty. In the next lesson, he returned to “normal” and didn’t say anything inappropriate. He talked proudly of his three children, and even mentioned that he played tennis with his wife over the weekend, all with an easy smile that showed last week’s lesson was forgotten. It proved to me that doing nothing, being complacent, was the correct strategy. As usual, my own feelings were not important, and “the customer is always right” mantra I learned as a sixteen-year-old cashier ran through me strong as ever.
There’s one minute left. This minute allows my brain to envision outrageous scenarios that might ensue once the student appears on screen. As I watch the timer count down to zero, I imagine he’ll be shirtless in a dark room, whispering to me across continents to do something perverse. As it turns out, I’m not wrong about the whispering.
With my video and microphone turned off, I enter the virtual classroom and immediately heart emojis of varying colors attack me. “You are so pretty,” reads one message. Strangely, the student’s camera is also turned off. Without a face to target my feelings at and blame for making me feel so uncomfortable, I feel silly. The blank empty screen is harmless.
The student then whispers my name repeatedly: Kenzie, Kenzie, Kenzie. He says it the same way a pre-teen would chant Bloody Mary three times in a bathroom mirror, unsure yet thrilled at the prospect of a woman appearing. It gives me chills.
I know my camera is off and my clothes are completely on, shirt buttoned all the way up to my neck, but I still feel like he can see my naked body. It feels like I’m unwillingly playing a game of hide and seek, holding my breath and trying not to move in fear of being caught. As I hold my breath and tap my fingernails, I begin to hear other voices speaking into the void of the virtual classroom. All men. At least a minute goes by without me speaking or revealing myself. I am watching the classroom like a ghost.
The men are talking to each other now in a language I can’t understand. Are they talking about me? Are they looking at my profile picture? The picture shows a younger me, 23 years old, with a bright smile, chubby cheeks, and large, welcoming eyes. When I took it, I thought I looked professional and happy, but now I’m not sure. Now all I can see is a girl seeking attention, a girl who wants students to compliment her. Of course, it’s my fault this guy wants me to teach him about sex; I clearly look like the type of person who wants to talk about sex. Just look at my suggestive smile! A normal, professional teacher would not have smiled so large. They would have kept it serious.
“Hello, Kenzie?” a message pops up from the student, followed by a kiss emoji.
Two minutes have passed. I need to decide before the five-minute mark if I’m going to teach or else the system will tag me as a no-show and I’ll be penalized for missing the class. Like I said, I do everything I can to be a good teacher, and not even attempting to teach this class would make me ill. How can I call myself a teacher if I don’t even give this man a chance? He hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong… right? It’s just words. He’s not a native English speaker. He could be confused. English is hard.
Suddenly, I feel a flicker of courageous energy. Dare I confront the student? No, that would be too harsh. Plus, I’d need to reveal myself, turn on the video, and grant him the opportunity to look at me, which I’m not comfortable with. But maybe I could explain politely that I’m merely an English teacher. I could say I’m not qualified to teach about sexual education and that, if he doesn’t mind, could we just have a lesson about another topic? That sounds doable. I can do that. I will do it.
I hover my mouse over the camera button, waiting for more courage to come and make me turn my video on. It doesn’t come and I realize, no matter how many times I face uncomfortable and unwanted situations, the result will always be the same. Courage is not part of my temperament, but giving up is. There, at the bottom of the page, in red, is a button. I click it: Cancel Lesson. ▩