I think Mr.Wells was one of the best teachers I have ever met in Catholic High and throughout my whole life. His look reminded me a bit of my dad. He was a short , bald man with a big belly that looked more firm than jello-like. His gray hair was always a bit shabby on the sides and he wore the simplest pair of glasses with circular lenses. The man was loud and you can hear Mr.Wells rrom anywhere in the school if he raised his voice any amount over his normal tone.
First time I saw him was on the first day of the school in the opening ceremony, which was basically a catholic service where some teachers and the principal, Mr.Straessle(pronounced strayslee, yeah that's how Americans massacred the German names), gave speeches to congratulate seniors and terrorize freshmen. I thought I came to a cold country but I had no idea Arkansas could be hotter in the summer than my hometown in Egypt, the mighty Portsaid. And of course, Catholic's gym wasn't air-conditioned, like they thought we became closer to heaven in the other life by experiencing some hell in this one. I came in with Kay Barre , my counselor during my year in the us and a spanish teacher at Catholic. She handed me over to the lovely Mrs.hunter who took me by the hand to the junior bleachers , that's when i caught a glance at Mr.Wells, smiling at the confused new-coming Egyptian.
When I received my schedule at the office from Mrs.Delorenzo, and just then, I realized that we were actually supposed to go to each teacher in their rooms. I thought that was terribly exhausting especially when you are running around all day with your books because the school doesn't allow us to put them in a backpack for fear of students drug dealing. First time I step in Mr.Wells' class I was 10 minutes late. You see in Egypt 10 minutes late has the same effect as coming on time, because probably that's about the time your teacher set foot in class. But in Catholic, if you are 10 minutes late means you are new to the place and you have to make sure never to repeat that infamous act.
Of course I asked a lot of people about where Mr.Wells' class was but they would start giving me directions that were either very difficult for me at the time or spoken in the southern accent of the Arkansan students. I hated that accent then but I loved it later and have loved it ever since. The room was A10. '' Sir, are you new here?'' Mr.Wells asked me withe a big smile.''Yes'' I replied. '' Yes?'' he inquired,'' No sir here we treat each other with respect and everyone is addressed as sir.'' he said with the biggest smile.'' Yes sir.'' i corrected myself.'' No problem sir'', said Mr.Wells with characteristic enunciation justified by his job.'' So where are you from sir?'' asked Mr.Wells. I am pretty sure he already knew but he wanted me to present myself to the class.'' From Egypt sir.'' I replied. My seat was all the way back behind Jonathan Fili, and to the left was Stephen Lorge, and to my right was Kyle Armstrong.
Mr.Wells' class was my second favorite class after French class with Brother Richard. It was my first time to study any literature other than the Arabic literature. And it was a great cultural experience to study the American literature because a people's poetry and prose was a collection of really deep explanation to their behavior, which would be very obvious to a person very new to the culture. That gave me a sneak peak to the part under the water of the cultural "iceberg" of the American people. I vividly remember Mr.Wells' lecture about the story of the origin of the term " The American Dream". He told us about the conquest of Britain by the French lead by William I in 1066 all the way to the "Exodus" of Puritans from England escaping religious persecution by the Church of England and we found out at the end that the American Dream was actually Land. That was how we studied American literature, by first studying the bit of history at the time of Romanticism, Naturalism, all the way to the Harlem Renaissance, and then studying the actual literature like poetry, speeches, journals and novels. Simultaneously, Mr.Wells would give us a book every month to read on our own and we would be tested on it without covering it in class. We read books like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Good Earth, A Man of all Seasons, and my all-time favorite Nineteen Eighty Four. American Lit class really made me fall in love with a lot of American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne , George Orwell, and Jack London. It pushed me to start looking up their works on my own and reading them, the original texts or the translated works in Arabic. The class made me understand that although America is such a young nation , it had a very rich literature and a lot of it was original and very indicative of the American character, in addition to the many elements it assimilated from the world literatures and civilizations.
I remember that time when Mr.Wells told us that we needed to prepare a speech to make in class, The speech had to be more than 5 minutes, and one had to say it from memory. So we were supposed to talk for 5 minutes from memory. Anything can be a speech, Mr.Wells told us, a song, a speech by a politician or a coach at a game, a poem( it had to be long for you to recite it in 5 minutes). And we did that speech twice throughout the year. It spurred in us such creativity, and we prepared amazing speeches. Richard Cheek, well he wanted to recite this one song by a band called Californication. " Now, ( the usual two-second pause famous of Mr.Wells) sir, is it something that would be appropriate enough for my grandma ?. " Uhh ( a sneaky smile) no sir" said Richard. Valentino Di Rienzo, the young ambassador from Italy, made such an amazing speech that featured a piece from an italian poem translated to English. He acted the roles of the two people speaking to each other in the poem perfectly. Dylan Owen made this brilliant speech about that kid who hears the questions of a teacher in class and wrestles with himself thinking if he would answer the questions or not. A couple of people recited speeches of sports coaches motivating their teams to win games or to achieve greatness on the court by being great in life. I loved listening to the speeches of my colleagues because it really gave me an idea about what really inspired students my age in America. My first speech, I wanted to show my friends what really thrilled Egyptian students my age when it came to speeches and also give them a part of where I come from culturally. So I recited selected parts of President Sadat's speech in the Israeli parliament ( the Knesset).
First time I saw him was on the first day of the school in the opening ceremony, which was basically a catholic service where some teachers and the principal, Mr.Straessle(pronounced strayslee, yeah that's how Americans massacred the German names), gave speeches to congratulate seniors and terrorize freshmen. I thought I came to a cold country but I had no idea Arkansas could be hotter in the summer than my hometown in Egypt, the mighty Portsaid. And of course, Catholic's gym wasn't air-conditioned, like they thought we became closer to heaven in the other life by experiencing some hell in this one. I came in with Kay Barre , my counselor during my year in the us and a spanish teacher at Catholic. She handed me over to the lovely Mrs.hunter who took me by the hand to the junior bleachers , that's when i caught a glance at Mr.Wells, smiling at the confused new-coming Egyptian.
When I received my schedule at the office from Mrs.Delorenzo, and just then, I realized that we were actually supposed to go to each teacher in their rooms. I thought that was terribly exhausting especially when you are running around all day with your books because the school doesn't allow us to put them in a backpack for fear of students drug dealing. First time I step in Mr.Wells' class I was 10 minutes late. You see in Egypt 10 minutes late has the same effect as coming on time, because probably that's about the time your teacher set foot in class. But in Catholic, if you are 10 minutes late means you are new to the place and you have to make sure never to repeat that infamous act.
Of course I asked a lot of people about where Mr.Wells' class was but they would start giving me directions that were either very difficult for me at the time or spoken in the southern accent of the Arkansan students. I hated that accent then but I loved it later and have loved it ever since. The room was A10. '' Sir, are you new here?'' Mr.Wells asked me withe a big smile.''Yes'' I replied. '' Yes?'' he inquired,'' No sir here we treat each other with respect and everyone is addressed as sir.'' he said with the biggest smile.'' Yes sir.'' i corrected myself.'' No problem sir'', said Mr.Wells with characteristic enunciation justified by his job.'' So where are you from sir?'' asked Mr.Wells. I am pretty sure he already knew but he wanted me to present myself to the class.'' From Egypt sir.'' I replied. My seat was all the way back behind Jonathan Fili, and to the left was Stephen Lorge, and to my right was Kyle Armstrong.
Mr.Wells' class was my second favorite class after French class with Brother Richard. It was my first time to study any literature other than the Arabic literature. And it was a great cultural experience to study the American literature because a people's poetry and prose was a collection of really deep explanation to their behavior, which would be very obvious to a person very new to the culture. That gave me a sneak peak to the part under the water of the cultural "iceberg" of the American people. I vividly remember Mr.Wells' lecture about the story of the origin of the term " The American Dream". He told us about the conquest of Britain by the French lead by William I in 1066 all the way to the "Exodus" of Puritans from England escaping religious persecution by the Church of England and we found out at the end that the American Dream was actually Land. That was how we studied American literature, by first studying the bit of history at the time of Romanticism, Naturalism, all the way to the Harlem Renaissance, and then studying the actual literature like poetry, speeches, journals and novels. Simultaneously, Mr.Wells would give us a book every month to read on our own and we would be tested on it without covering it in class. We read books like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Good Earth, A Man of all Seasons, and my all-time favorite Nineteen Eighty Four. American Lit class really made me fall in love with a lot of American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne , George Orwell, and Jack London. It pushed me to start looking up their works on my own and reading them, the original texts or the translated works in Arabic. The class made me understand that although America is such a young nation , it had a very rich literature and a lot of it was original and very indicative of the American character, in addition to the many elements it assimilated from the world literatures and civilizations.
I remember that time when Mr.Wells told us that we needed to prepare a speech to make in class, The speech had to be more than 5 minutes, and one had to say it from memory. So we were supposed to talk for 5 minutes from memory. Anything can be a speech, Mr.Wells told us, a song, a speech by a politician or a coach at a game, a poem( it had to be long for you to recite it in 5 minutes). And we did that speech twice throughout the year. It spurred in us such creativity, and we prepared amazing speeches. Richard Cheek, well he wanted to recite this one song by a band called Californication. " Now, ( the usual two-second pause famous of Mr.Wells) sir, is it something that would be appropriate enough for my grandma ?. " Uhh ( a sneaky smile) no sir" said Richard. Valentino Di Rienzo, the young ambassador from Italy, made such an amazing speech that featured a piece from an italian poem translated to English. He acted the roles of the two people speaking to each other in the poem perfectly. Dylan Owen made this brilliant speech about that kid who hears the questions of a teacher in class and wrestles with himself thinking if he would answer the questions or not. A couple of people recited speeches of sports coaches motivating their teams to win games or to achieve greatness on the court by being great in life. I loved listening to the speeches of my colleagues because it really gave me an idea about what really inspired students my age in America. My first speech, I wanted to show my friends what really thrilled Egyptian students my age when it came to speeches and also give them a part of where I come from culturally. So I recited selected parts of President Sadat's speech in the Israeli parliament ( the Knesset).
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