I had an older gentleman from India who came to this country and was working as a technician. He came to one of my technical classes, and was having serious problems passing the class due to being almost illiterate in English.
After class he hung out to talk to me about it. I explained that he needed to become fluent in written English or it was going to seriously impact his career.
He told me that he tried to read the newspaper every night, but it took so long because he had to get referring to a dictionary.
I asked if he read the comics in the paper. He said he did sometimes, but often he was so worn out after reading the news, he could take it.
I suggested that he read the comics first.
“I can do that?”
“Sure” I replied, “Reading should be fun, read the fun stuff first.”
He thanked me and left.
Due to my travel and what not it was about a year before I saw him again. he seemed to have no problems reading the course book. After class he came to me, and thanked me for helping him.
“What did I do?”
“You told me to read the comics and enjoy reading English. I did that, and I found that learning English became easier”
So I guess I have made a difference at least once anyway.
It wasn’t quite inadvertent but I hadn’t expected such a big impact.
The first time I went to the US, it was to spend the summer working in New Hampshire. After the job was over, I had one week before the plane back. Of course, I spent it in New York (people who’d been on the West Coast ofcoursed to San Francisco).
I boarded at the Youth Hostel, which happened to be two floors at the YMCA. Every room had a bunk; through my roommie, I found out about a group of people who were meeting every night at one of the rec rooms. The group changed as people arrived and left.
One night when the group was specially colorful (something like 14 people, 9 nationalities, 7 native languages) we talked about “how would I spend an afternoon back home.” One girl was from LA, on her way to college. She’d been her family’s ticket into the country; her parents didn’t even watch TV in Spanish because they wanted their kids to be fully American. She didn’t speak Spanish at all. She talked about going to the mercado, taking a look at some camisetas, buying meat and pimientos for a stew…
And everybody else got colored confused. Except me, I was laughing so hard I couldn’t talk. When I was finally able to breathe, I explained to the beffudled girl that mercado (market), camiseta (T-shirt, top) and pimientos (peppers) are Spanish. “You know more Spanish that you think, and from what I hear, you probably cook in Spanish.”
One of the people in the group was a black teacher from Miami; she spent every summer in a different youth hostel and was the person who’d started the group. She said “it’s funny, so many people paying money to learn foreign languages, you could have learned one for free!”
The student said “you’re right! And you know, I don’t think I’d be less American if I spoke Spanish. I’m going to ask Mamá to write to me in Spanish and I’m signing for Spanish class in college! And since I’m the eldest, I’ll ask Mamá and Papá to teach Spanish to my little brothers.”
When the group was breaking up, the teacher turned to me and said “you know, she’s gonna be a community leader some day and it’s all gonna be your fault :D”
Mine is sort of like Nawth Chucka’s
For part of my freshman and sophomore years in college, I became a Born Again Christian in a big way and was quite involved with a campus christian group. When I was a sophomore, “J,” a freshman, started sporadically hanging around the periphery of the group. He lived in the dorm next door to mine. One night around 1 am, craving a sugar and fat fix, I invited him to walk with me to the donut shop.
I talked to him about how he needed to stop being a wishy-washy, nominal Christian and truly commit his life to Jesus Christ. Looking back, I suppose I was trying to convince myself as much as J. Didn’t seem to work as not long after this I began to lose my faith and soon became the atheist I remain nearly 30 years later.
Fast forward a couple of years from this donut run and J marries a woman and they both intend to become missionaries. The elect to go to a Muslim country under the cover of working for a non-religious humanitarian and educational organization. In this country it is illegal to proselytize – it can get you deported at a minimum. It is also illegal to convert from Islam to another religion – the punishment was quite severe, though short of death, IIRC. In any case apostasy would lead to extremely negative social consequences. J and his wife lived there long enough to have a few children. They were successful in getting several locals to convert.
I ran into him when he was in the States on furlough a couple of years after his mission started. Apparently he credits that early morning conversation with firing him up and eventually inspiring him towards his missionary zeal.