I was a translator, but for many years, before life turned completely differently, I was also a teacher. Well, if not so seriously, just an English teacher. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of teaching stories. Especially because I started teaching someone something very early. At the age of 17, she graduated from school and became a student.

My mother and I lived very poorly. My mom taught private English lessons as long as I can remember. She came home from school and started her second (and even third) shift. And then I grew up - still an English special school behind my shoulders, a student, why not try it? And my mother helps, and I earn money, and practice - with this specialty, I will ever have to teach.

To my surprise, the students arrived quite quickly. Almost all of them were third-class students. After understanding the situation, I realized that they were, as a rule, the children of officers who were recently transferred to serve in our city. The parents wanted to give them to an English special school, and English had to be taught. After the fourth-fifth grade, this was usually not decided (there would be too much to catch up), and third-class students - right.
All my third-class students were very cute people, I taught them with pleasure and remember with a smile.

I remembered this boy especially.

The new student. A lovely intelligent mother. The son is a wheat blonde with not quite the usual name Miroslav. My name is Mirek. The Polish roots? A Russian boy with a very Russian surname.
“Well, Mirak, we’ll get to know you. What are you fascinated? What do you like to do? to read? What are you reading?
“I like books on military history,” Mirek replies to me, “I am now, for example, reading the history of the Napoleonic Wars of Tarle.

History of the Napoleonic Wars. by Tarle. The third class. Not even a third class. It’s summer, and he’s just moved to the third class.

And you know, I paid attention to one interesting moment. Other authors...

So, Mirek obviously intended to read me a lecture. A good lecture, by the way, with knowledge of the matter, with an understanding of the subject, with a comparative analysis... His language is like a professor. Solidity and prudence are far from childish. The overall development is surprising. Readiness is shrinking. Oh my God, what should I do with this wanderkinde?! to

What to do, what to do, and what to do! Why was he brought to me? Working in English? Here we will practice. You just need to realize that this is not a child. He may look like a child, and his height is small, and his voice is childish, but this boy will probably be older than me. Everything is done, as with an adult.

Our classes are strange. My new student has some totally bottomless memory and incredible learning. Mirek moves forward, swallowing the material into huge pieces, and all my attempts to “repeat” and “fix” are cut to the root.
Why waste time? I already know.
– Mirek, – I try to hold him, – in the language it cannot be so. It’s not mathematics where “I’ve already understood, you can go further.” It’s like music, like dance – exercises are needed, skills need to be fixed, worked out, brought to automation. Do you understand?
“Yes,” Mirek replied, “but I already know it. Check it.

A couple of times I really check, then, shaking my hand, I give up. He knows. He really knows. If Mirek says he knows...

The first class program will be completed in a week. In another two or three weeks (with all my desperate attempts to slow down the process, give extra material, etc.) Finished second class. After that, I call his mother and say that as I regret losing such a student, he no longer needs my lessons. Miriam can go to the third class. (Oh, I am afraid that he can go in the tenth, but it is unknown what he has there with the exact sciences...) Mama Mireka doesn’t believe me. We do a few more weeks, we run quite far (whether in the fourth or fifth class) and we break up, quite satisfied with each other.

For a while I still hear something about Mireka from my former teachers: “... he makes such reports on history! What a speech! What an erudition!” And then – study, work, new students, new events, and I finally lose sight of it.

Then passes the whole life. The world is changing unrecognizably, and there is such a miracle as the Internet. And at some point, looking for long lost acquaintances, friends, classmates, neighbors, I decide to try to find out - and what about Mirek? I find it easy - so, a Russian military historian and writer, a candidate of historical sciences, UGU, colonel, author of many books on military-historical topics. He chose his profession early. A happy man! Well, in the "thematics" of him, of course, I do not understand anything, but on one of the forums I find the argument of the participant: "... this is stated by Miroslav Eduardovich himself, and he, without a doubt, knows." “Sam Miroslav Eduardovich.”

And I have that little professor in front of me: "I already know this!"
It’s just scary to imagine how much Mirek knows now!