Teachers | Students | This Happened To Me
When Students Return
Students who return to meet a teacher
One of the greatest blessings and delights of being a teacher is that students return to meet us. Long after the student leaves school or college, settles down, has a family, or merges into another way of life, they remember and return. For them, it is as if time has stood still.
The first words they utter are, “You look exactly the same!” That sounds charitable and generous, but they are not trying to flatter. They see only what they want to see. Then they relate chapter and verse of some of your classroom and lecture-hall interactions with them. It is a revelation, an echo from the past that we have forgotten.
One such returnee was Cheryl. She had been a teenager then. I had taught her English two decades ago. Back then, the Commerce Department of the College was in a building across the road.
I was in the staff common room, resting in the space of time between two lectures. Her unannounced and unexpected visit was a breath of fresh air, in the usually toxic atmosphere of the common room.
She had not come alone. She had brought along her year-old son, her husband, and her Dad, to meet her old English teacher. It was an honour, a privilege, and a delight to meet them. The baby, Bradley, just woken up from sleep, grinned at me engagingly. He had sharp features and eyes that looked fearlessly back at me. Tiny fingers curled around the hand that I held out to him and he stared unblinkingly at me, as though he had always known me…even when he was not even a dream in his 17-year-old mother’s starry eyes.
For this child always had stars in her eyes, my student, Cheryl. Back when she was in college, she sang like a lark and the smile that beamed out from her eyes, the same that I see reflected in her son’s, was frank and full of felicity. She was my original songbird, ready to break into song at any opportunity. There have been many such songbirds in my classrooms, and they have always been a delight to be with.
But this songbird was never selfish. She never, EVER tried to guard her talent and keep it from ‘contamination’ by other, less fortunate people. She warbled like a nightingale: but she had no qualms in training and teaching other students to do well, or better than her. None at all. All she knew, she taught, and all she didn’t, she was willing to learn, with the humility that only a really great mind possesses.
This was during the day.
At night, another student came over to meet her old English teacher. That was Disha. Disha was an academic, and a fun-loving one. She had always loved reading and writing, and I was not surprised to learn that she had gone on to pursue her Masters in English Language and Literature, or that she had started teaching at the University.
Disha and I spoke of poetry and poseurs. And poses and supposes. And men and their machines. And of course social and anti-social media.
In between, of course, I twirled. The corridors between classrooms and lecture halls are long, broad, and usually empty when lectures are on. I love twirling and the saree is perfect to twirl in. Factor in open Medusa hair, and you have the right recipe for joy.
Life is good!
ⓒ 2024 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
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