ERIC: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Eric must have been an all-star teacher. I’m talking as Gandhi is to India, as Oprah is to talk shows, as Chanel is to my mother, Eric seems to have been to Baharn 1. He’s a legend. I can tell because his name is everywhere. I’m a mildly competitive individual, so naturally as the new kid on the block, looking to make a splash in my teaching debut, I engaged in an unspoken, metaphorical teaching competition with this Eric character. Unfortunately, I was playing 1 v 1 teacher-ball against the Michael Jordan of ESL. “Welcome to ERIC!” reads a huge, beautiful banner in our foreign language office. There wasn’t a banner for my arrival, but if there had been, I’m sure it would be displayed as prominently. I’m guessing Eric was the first Western teacher at Banharn. And maybe he was quite a catch for a rural public school, with extensive teaching experience or an excessive fortune, perhaps? Maybe he used a negligible portion of that fortune to purchase a boat load of English language resources for the school. After all, most of the workbooks and textbooks that clutter our office are emblazoned with his name, shouting my ineptitude to no end. He was probably exceptionally pale and abnormally tall, making him devilishly handsome by default. As I spun this story of the enigmatic Eric, my patience for him dwindled.

One fateful morning, I found a binder of worksheets on my desk. Eric’s name sneered up at me from the spine. Just before the exasperated question, “who is this Eric!?” escaped my lips, I got my answer. The front of the binder revealed my opponent’s identity. ERIC: English Resource and Information Center. Eric’s not a person. He’s a place. My confusion cleared and my cheeks flushed. I’d been losing a one-sided competition to an acronym. For weeks.

I too often slip into these silly competitions. Eric, of all people, taught me that. Our society makes it so easy to compare and compete. Class rank, GPA, goals scored, dollars saved, degrees earned, miles travelled, BBMs received, football players befriended, real estate purchased, Facebook friends acquired. Some of it’s legitimate and some of it’s ludicrous. We have been created for things greater than these. Not just to be a number in the world. I forgot that. And it had me feeling inferior to an acronym for far too long. Eric will always be out there. Smarter, richer, and more popular than I am, but that’s okay. I wish him the best and return to my pursuit of greater things with renewed focus.  I still wince inwardly when I catch a glimpse of Eric’s omnipresent name, not because he’s creaming me in the Teacher Olympics, but because he reminds me of my own tendency to strive for victory, rather than excellence. I’m learning though, so ERIC has found a way, in only four letters, to impart some wisdom after all. He’s a master of brevity.