I have just arrived home. I step into my room, unbutton my shirt, relieve myself of my black khaki pants and toss my gray socks into the hamper. I have just come home from my Tuesday stint as a teacher. Three classes. Four and a half straight hours of talking. A hundred students. A hundred lives that have placed their hopes of learning into my hands. As much as I am relived of the tightness of my outfit, the memories of the lecture this afternoon is fresh, and unwilling to part away. The people around me – friends, colleagues, family and loved ones – have time and time again told me something I am still trying to comprehend:
“Once you’re out of the office, detach yourself from your work.”
I find this really hard and a bit impossible to do. When you are a teacher, you are at the very least, pressured to meet expectations. So, there is always that nagging set of questions that frankly, I only have myself to ask. Did I make them learn anything? Was my English flawless? Were they able to understand the depth and the beauty of the concepts that I feverishly wrote in front of the blackboard? Were they entertained? Am I still a godlike figure before their eyes? I can’t not entertain these thoughts, because somehow, I am now a thread that is weaving the fabric of their lives. Whatever I say in front of them, be it a word of praise, a foulmouthed curse, a wrongly-spelled word, all of these, it can affect the way the see the world after they step out of the classroom.
It feels like I haven’t ran far from what I used to do. As much as I have tried to, the fact is that I am still in the business of pleasing clients. At the end of the day, no matter how profound, patient, caring, enduring and endearing that I can get, I need to sell the beauty of education. To that end I need to make the stupid ones feel smart while at the same time de-smarten the ones who have brains. In the spirit of equal treatment I have to encourage the soft-spoken ones to speak up, but their hesitation should not delay the progress of the lecture. I need to cast a serious mood to remind them of the rigors of learning, but from time to time I need to make a fool out of myself. Bring myself down to earth for a minute or two with a joke.
There is a crippling fear inside of me. I fear that if I will not be able to teach them everything that is in the book, everything that is in their head, then they will not be able to step into the real world fully equipped and prepared. But then, if I try to cram everything in just one semester, they will end up hating me. I have always hated professors who have insisted on memorization. Those who emphasized the absorption of facts and figures rather than the digestion and analysis of concepts. So where is the line that I must draw?
When you are a perfectionist trying to avoid all possible flaws, the hard part is that eventually, you will screw up, and your students will pounce on your error like lions eager to ravage an unsuspecting zebra that has stupidly wondered into their territory. When that happens, just like it did today – a misspelled word, a mispronounced name, or one’s inability to clearly define a complex term written on the blackboard – it becomes a potent weapon that they can use to assert your imperfection.
When your objective is to be seen as God, omnipotent and omniscient, a student correcting a flaw that has appeared on your blackboard, it can cast a big blow to your pride. Especially when that correction is followed by rousing laughter and murmurs from various corners of the classroom. And I can’t forget about it. Something inside me wants revenge. The chance to prove the accusers I am way beyond that. To “put them in their place.” But to do so would prove petty, irascible and immature on my part. Aggh. I’m only human. Making mistakes.
(to be continued)
