High School Teacher's Funniest Moment

Video Transcript

"My name is Diana Gutierrez, and I'm a high school teacher in San Jose. One of the funniest moments in my high school teaching life was when we did a unit on "Night", by Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust unit, and I wanted to mix things up that day. I wanted to get us outside of the classroom, and I wanted them to experience a certain chapter on their feet. So, I brought them in to the auditorium, and I had them close their eyes, and I turned off all the lights, and we were recreating the scene where Elie and his father are dying in the snow, and one of them finds a piece of bread on the ground, and you know, all the camp survivors are, like, scrambling for the bread, and he has to decide whether to give the bread to his father, or eat it himself and watch his father, you know, possibly die. It was a very intense scene. I knew that they would fall asleep if we did a discussion about it, so I decided to play my violin. Now, nobody knew I played the violin, but I knew it was important to set the tone. So, as soon as the lights went off, I came in and I played a really somber tune on the violin, and most of my students were rustling around, like, "oh, my gosh, she's playing the violin. What are we doing?" But, they eventually got into it, and I guided them sort of like a meditation, and I said, "okay, get up. Keep your eyes closed, and see if you can find another survivor in the dark." And, it was really cool. I felt like they understood something, and we read, you know, lines of the book, that they had memorized to really get into it. At the end of it, I turned the lights back on, and, you know, we had one more line to go, and I said: "Where's Gavino? You know, it's his line." There at, we were all looking around, "where is he?" And, in the corner we see Gavino fast asleep, snoring, with his hands like this, like he's cold, and we thought he was playing a joke on us, and we go over and we poke him, and he wakes up, and he's like, "am I dreaming?" He was like, "I heard music, and it was so beautiful." So, that was pretty funny, and I'm glad that, you know, he got something out of that lesson, even if it was a nap. My name is Diana Gutierrez, and I'm a high school teacher in San Jose."