Being a teacher is perhaps the most difficult job next to being a mother. There is a kilometer-long list of complaints I could air out but the fact of the matter is, for me, the hazards of being a mother is just about the same as that of a teacher - you lose and forget yourself. In the end, the self doesn’t matter in the least. Nearly everything will boil down to them - to the kids. I feel this now more than ever before, for I have lost one of my students. And, so help me, it feels a hell of a lot like some part of me has been lost and defeated as well.
When he was in second year, Gerard was one of those students who recited sometimes, made himself noticeable sometimes, groped for something in answer to a question he didn’t really hear when you catch him off-guard, and kept moving to another seat when you turned your back on him for a short while. However, he was also one of those students who made sure the class wasn’t too boring, will keep challenging the teacher, and will never miss a greeting when he sees the teacher outside the classroom. And he was passionate about basketball. He was a typical teenage boy trying to have fun while trying to get through high school.
I never felt that he had begun to grow on me. I never suspected that my student would mean anything to me other than just another student who will eventually graduate and leave the school and forget my name in a year’s time. Just one face in a sea of hundreds of eager, young faces, whose names I will eventually grope to try to remember as I grow old.
And now that he’s gone, he is making himself known to me again, making sure that I never forget his face and his name. He is teaching me that the hundreds of faces that I see before me when I am doing my job have names, and they constantly make sure that I never forget them. He was my student - they are all my students. They are the reason why although I abhor waking up early in the morning I still force myself to; why although I just want to go home and rest after classes I still stay behind to try to finish more work. I am a teacher and I must work for my students. In this way, the student becomes the teacher’s reason to move, to think, to exist, to live. And slowly but surely, the student has become part of the teacher’s heart and her mind and her life. And the teacher realizes, "What would a teacher be without a student?"
When I saw so many of my students at Gerard’s wake, I thought to myself, "It could have been any one of these boys." It just happened to be Gerard’s time - it was Gerard’s turn to teach me the lesson. And for the first time in a long time, I saw their faces, and I remembered their names, and I realized that these students are so much more to me than items in a class list. They are parts of my life.
And though it splinters my heart to have lost my student, Gerard, I thank him deeply and remember him dearly for what he has taught me. The student has taught this teacher a lesson she will never ever forget.
(posted elsewhere 8 May 2007)
When he was in second year, Gerard was one of those students who recited sometimes, made himself noticeable sometimes, groped for something in answer to a question he didn’t really hear when you catch him off-guard, and kept moving to another seat when you turned your back on him for a short while. However, he was also one of those students who made sure the class wasn’t too boring, will keep challenging the teacher, and will never miss a greeting when he sees the teacher outside the classroom. And he was passionate about basketball. He was a typical teenage boy trying to have fun while trying to get through high school.
I never felt that he had begun to grow on me. I never suspected that my student would mean anything to me other than just another student who will eventually graduate and leave the school and forget my name in a year’s time. Just one face in a sea of hundreds of eager, young faces, whose names I will eventually grope to try to remember as I grow old.
And now that he’s gone, he is making himself known to me again, making sure that I never forget his face and his name. He is teaching me that the hundreds of faces that I see before me when I am doing my job have names, and they constantly make sure that I never forget them. He was my student - they are all my students. They are the reason why although I abhor waking up early in the morning I still force myself to; why although I just want to go home and rest after classes I still stay behind to try to finish more work. I am a teacher and I must work for my students. In this way, the student becomes the teacher’s reason to move, to think, to exist, to live. And slowly but surely, the student has become part of the teacher’s heart and her mind and her life. And the teacher realizes, "What would a teacher be without a student?"
When I saw so many of my students at Gerard’s wake, I thought to myself, "It could have been any one of these boys." It just happened to be Gerard’s time - it was Gerard’s turn to teach me the lesson. And for the first time in a long time, I saw their faces, and I remembered their names, and I realized that these students are so much more to me than items in a class list. They are parts of my life.
And though it splinters my heart to have lost my student, Gerard, I thank him deeply and remember him dearly for what he has taught me. The student has taught this teacher a lesson she will never ever forget.
(posted elsewhere 8 May 2007)
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