Penultimate

On the penultimate day of my teaching stint, I come home with a very light bag. Over the last few days, have seen the handover plan going smoothly, and that called for me to do my final filing today. I realise that over the last sixteen weeks, I've amassed quite a lot of material, some provided from the resource file, and others produced on the spur of the moment to bring into class. All told, teaching four different classes has produced enough to fill one of those big ring folders, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself compiling something akin to a resource file out of the work of these last few months. Everything must go, and everything will find its rightful place, including all the material in the yellow file that I use to keep my survival kit of lesson materials and marking rubrics. That file will probably find another lease of life come August, but it has come to the time to put aside its current burden.

It's not very often that you can see a farewell coming with such clarity, and not in a way that allows you to plan for it and maximise its facility and meaning, while minimising the need to actually improvise on the spot. And so, took the opportunity fully to pre-plan all the administrative stuff and to let it run itself to fruition, so that I can concentrate on the far more important matter of saying my last words to my kids.

Some people may think that a course that can be reduced to one core lesson is too unrigorous an fluffy; after all, doesn't it mean that most of the course has been superfluous elaboration of the same point? But there is a difference, isn't there, between simplicity and being simplistic. And if there does exist a core principle that describes this course, then I think my task is to put it across as clearly as possible at the end, to cut through the urge to embellish and to state the core idea as clearly as possible.

And so, I told them that if there was one thing that I wanted them to remember from these sixteen weeks, it is that English is more than technical mastery of grammar and conventions. Language is communication, is nothing less than communication, and is only communication. And beyond knowing how to string together a functional sentence and formulate an operational paragraph, there is the far more exciting and tricky task of using these abilities wisely and for deliberate effect. And far beyond the image of the poet or the writer self-indulgently scratching his fashionable brow over a blank page, is the quintessentially humanistic mission of actually communicating. You write to be read, and to write with no regard to the reader is to subscribe to overwhelming hubris. To write, then, is to purposely make yourself vulnerable to your readers in a spirit of humility rather than of superior wisdom.

But, ironically, I also recognise that these sixteen weeks have actually been very self-indulgent for me, because I have been given an opportunity to impose my tastes and views on people who are not yet equipped to rebuff them soundly. And I have to admit that I did indulge in a moment of pure self-gratification today by showing them The Return. There is no denying it, of course - why it felt so satisfying over these weeks, and especially today, was not only because I felt like I could really contribute something, but also because there was no realistic threat to my position. So what seems like a feeling derived from altruism has, as usual, one foot in selfish impulses. There is no denying it; or rather, one can delude oneself into thinking otherwise, but I believe there is inherent value in acknowledging this state of affairs.

However, beyond these inward-looking musings, the people I have come into contact with are the real reason why these sixteen weeks have worked out so well. Beyond anything that I could have brought to the classroom, what my kids and my colleagues have given me has helped immensely. I am only, after all, helping along what is already existent; I didn't instill new things, but only developed existing things. And if my kids had not brought so much to the table, it would not have been so fulfilling by a long shot. So I am indebted to their indulgence in me, too.

Didn't have time to say all this today, though. The one period that I had today with each of my Sec 2 classes was over far too soon, and there were many things left unsaid. A part of me feels that this shoud be the case, that a total opening of the self is neither necessary nor useful. That, in maintaining a part of me that is still distinct from this present experience, I am actually saving something that I may offer them in the future, if ever the opportunity should arise again. But rushed farewells don't give you the opportunity to savour the moment; you are too caught up in doing, and doing, and racing with the clock, and you don't have the luxury to appreciate. And when I left those classes, I left with the awareness of bringing with me necessary things that have been left unsaid. Like an apology for sometimes putting my own tastes ahead of the effectiveness of their learning. Like what a great time this has been after all.

But one thing I do remember from today's last lessons, is the feeling at the last greeting. To tell them that I have finished felt markedly different today, the phrase having gained a new significance with the steady passage of time. And I do think that, as far as exits can go, those were good ones, done on the crest of goodwill and well-wishes on both sides, before time and memory could intervene to embellish and distort the actual experience with either nostalgia or bitterness. A part of me does wish very hard to put off the yellowing of this experience into memory; it has been a good run, and it can continue to be a good run. But my time is required elsewhere, and if you do have to quit anyway, isn't it a privilege to be able to quit when you're up?

And so - one more class to go tomorrow, and then I will be done with this phase of 2008. Gentlemen - these sixteen weeks have been a great honour and privilege. Looking forward has become sweeter because of the addition of something good to look back on. And for that, I am deeply grateful to you all.