"Knowledge comes slowly, and if it comes, it comes at great personal cost." Paul Auster In the Country of Last Things
LAST DAY OF CLASSES

I have had these students since last september, and now the time to say good bye is at hand. Somebody get a bottle of Cristal. Actually, at this point, a bottle of Boones and some cough syrup will do. (Ah, I remember when the boys in art class used to sniff permanent markers in order to get high-oh those golden days of yore in middle school) It's a very conflicting moment for a teacher to let go a class after all this time, I have had the same kinds for about seven months, three times a week for an hour and fifteen a pop. Anyone care to do the math on that? I think, and I stress think here since my math is awful, that it comes out to about 315 hours with these students, to counting grading papers and offering help through Im and email as well as in office meetings. So there is this feeling of "Please, please get out." But then on other hand there is this gap when they leave, and there is very little to fill it with. And there is bond that exists. So some of my students have invited me to go with them six flags this summer. They will, predictably, never call or write. (This happened last year, students said they would invite me to parties and so forth, most of them have yet to send even an email.)


So I had my students go around and say one thing they learned. It is always upsetting that some students can't come up with anything or they come up with something random and unimportant (ie "I learned about Groucho Marx" "I learned the importance of the film 'Fight Club'"-actual examples) But some of them come with sweet ones, "I learned a teacher can be a friend" others showed "personal growth" or interest in learning "I learned that reading can be fun" "I learned that homework can be interesting" "I learned to enjoy reading the newspaper." (generally these are the types of things that I aim for) and finally some learned about the things I was actually supposed to teach "I learned to question the sources of information and not just accept" "I learned to examine to circumstances under which statistic were gathered." So overall a sad but satisfying day.


When I was in Scotland my junior year I met a man from Liverpool who was a cabinet maker. He said he loved his job because when he finished not only had he left a part of himself there, and he could always go back and say "see these cabinets, I built them", but because he knew people would get great use out of what he had built. That he had enhanced lives. With a good teacher, you can't point to something, and say "See I did this." But there is nothing more amazing than watching someone learn, to actually see the improvement, and to know that whether he or she is aware of it, you have changed his or her life permanently. People ask me all the time, if I am so underpaid and frustrated and sleep deprived, why do I do it. Why do I not follow my fellow grad students into publishing (where, if their whining is to be believed they are equally tired and underpaid and frustrated)? Because in publishing you don't know that you have actually taught someone something. Because in publishingyou don't see that look when some one actually has a revelation that will alter, no matter how insiginifcantly, his or her life.


In this day and age believing in yourself is common, it is believing in something beyond yourself that is unique.