A man covered his face with tattoos and turned his eyes black. He says it cost him his kindergarten teaching job

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2020/10/01 13:49

Today's Vocabulary

1. suburb (n) 
an area on the edge of a large town or city where people who work in the town or city often live

2. setbacks (n)
something that happens that delays or prevents a process from developing

3. norm (n) 
an accepted standard or a way of behaving  or doing things that most people agree with

4. racist (n) 
someone who believes that their race makes them better, more intelligent, more moral, etc. than people of other races  and who does or says unfair or harmful things as a result

5. homophobic (n) 
involving a fear or dislike of gay people

6. complain (v)
to say that something is wrong or not satisfactory

A man covered his face with tattoos and turned his eyes black. He says it cost him his kindergarten teaching job

A schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically turned black said he was prevented from teaching at a French kindergarten after a parent complained he scared their child.

But the teacher, Sylvain Helaine, 35, still teaches children from the age of six up, and said that, after an initial shock when they see him for the first time, his pupils see past his appearance.

“All of my students and their parents were always cool with me because basically they knew me,” said Helaine, who estimated he has spent around 460 hours under the tattooists’ needle.

“It’s only when people see me from far away that they can assume the worst.”

He said last year he was teaching kindergarten at the Docteur Morere Elementary School in Palaiseau, a suburb of Paris, when the parents of a three-year-old child complained to educational authorities. They said their son, who was not taught by Helaine, had nightmares after seeing him

A couple of months later the school authorities informed him he would no longer teach kindergarten children, he said. “I think the decision they took was quite sad,” said Helaine.

A spokesman for the local education authority said an agreement was reached with Helaine to move him away from teaching kindergarten. Pupils under six “could be frightened by his appearance”, the spokesman said.

Despite the setbacks, Helaine said he would stick with his chosen career. “I’m a primary school teacher … I love my job.”

He said he hoped to show his pupils that they should accept people who are different from the norm. “Maybe when they are adults they will be less racist and less homophobic and more open-minded,” he said.

Discussion
  1. When you see somebody with a lot of tattoos what do you think?
  2. Would you ever consider getting a tattoo? Why/why not?
  3. If you got a tattoo, what would it be?

“My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.”

Johnny Depp