auhea wale oe, maunaloa la?

It's funny. Just as you think people aren't thinking about you they suddenly show up in your life again. As if they knew you were thinking about them.

I like to reflect on this past summer. Granted, I haven't had the full experience of being a real teacher. I taught during the summer. However, if you add up the total minutes of teaching, I taught a few hours more than a normal professor. I also had less time to prepare and more time I had to use. Perhaps I've just seen a different venue of teaching, no less valid than a regular professor. In any case the whole thing has given me plenty to reflect about.

The last day was particularly memorable. I had a recording of Mozart's symphony #25 playing in the minutes before class. As usual, I sat there at the desk with the lights off. Ordinarily the whiteboards behind me would be covered with notes that I would point to and refer to as I lectured. That day they were absolutely blank. Instead I had a page of typed notes on the podium. In the last minutes before class began, I carefully wiped down the boards with cleaner, packed up my markers, and made sure I didn't leave anything behind. I wanted the break to be clean.

The first person to come in was my old room mate's cousin. It was pretty strange. One day after lecture he said, "Hey you lived with so and so right? Yeah I remember you. I stayed with you guys for a few days." I had no idea who this kid was, but he provided sufficient memories for me to believe him. Talk about awkward. Soon, the eldest woman came processing in with her sunglasses on carrying her starbucks cup. The two next people through the door were my favorites. Yes, favorites.

The first is this 30 something year old guy. He's really slick. He is super smart. He'd wear this white hoodie with a pink heart or something on it. The guy is an Asian with a white last name, so it took me forever to put the name to the face. Anyway, he'd always come in saying what work at the hotel was like, what sorts of parties he had been to, and more often than not he'd ask me if I knew one of his friends. But what impressed me the most about him was how he took notes. I required each of them to submit to me a one page weekly reflection on something that they found interesting. This guy just turned in the notes for one day. It was as if he took perfect dictation. Reading them I could recognize my own voice. While some others might see this as uncritical assimilation of the material, I knew that this guy had locked it in his mind. He was the best student in that class, hands down. Everything a teacher could've wanted: clarity, promptness, humility, humor, honesty, engagement, friendliness, etc. he had. I think my main problem with him was his knack to interrupt me during lecture. I could be building up to a certain climax point then he'd stop me and ask a question. I could feel the energy and momentum leave me. But you know what? This was his way of processing information. He needed to talk it through. Besides, with a smile like that and a laugh so infectious how could I be angry? I just took a few seconds after every one of his questions to regroup myself and start building up anew.

Now, his exams were perfect. He did so well that I exempted him from a final project. His writing style wasn't the most elegant but it was eloquent enough. Many minutes were spent trying to decipher his bad handwriting but I am glad that I did. One thing I noticed about students is that they try to imitate you. For example, I remember reading in one of his exams something phrased as if he were trying to turn it in the way I'd say it. I caught it, winced, made a note of it, and gave the exam back. When he saw it he started laughing. "Hey, I tried!" he kidded. Tried he did. When he was being himself he had a real gift of being personal about his writing. He used a lot of "you" statements. Of course, that's one of the first rules of discursive writing: to not drag the reader into your own horizon. Still, I couldn't help but admire the personalism of his work. It was as if he and I were having a conversation about the exam. His writing, where truly his, was as much his own as anything else. Eventually, I'd go on to tell him that therein lies his strength. He's got plenty personality so he doesn't have to copy me or anybody else. "Just be yourself, braddah, and you stay good", I told him. "Ehhh right on, D. Right on" he replied. Yeah, he called me D after I asked him not to call me "Professor".

After him a girl would walk through. This diminutive asian girl that is. Her hair would be up in a bun hastily fastened with a pen. She'd invariably be wearing pink with some black capris. One day I got done with writing on the board super early, so I left the lights off and sat at the back of the classroom against the wall. She was the first to show up. She opened the door and turned right to adjust the air conditioning. "HELLO!" I yelled. She literally jumped and screamed, putting her hand over her chest as she rested her back against the wall. It was too easy to make fun of this girl. She is so quirky. There's something about her that I liked immediately. Maybe because she was so adorably girly. You know, one of those girls which are delightfully clumsy. She isn't stupid, she's just. Her. Anyway, she'd sit next to the man I described above. She also was a diligent note taker and never looked up at me for anything. When I cracked a joke she was the first to get it and she would let out this belly laugh befitting her small stature. I think out of all of the students I warmed up to her first. She was just friendly from the getgo. Sometimes I knew she got spacy but after the first week I knew how to keep her attention.

Her work demonstrated a real curiousity. I mean, every weekly reflection she would mention that she would ask some questions to her coworkers and they'd have a small reflection about it. I think I believe her when she said she did that. Her papers were honest and without superfluous language. They were straightfoward but not boring. In fact, their simplicity yielded a great deal of charm. They betrayed the inner spontinaety of her life. Her bluebook exams were conservative to say the least. They didn't venture into the risque, but they were complete. She had attended a private school for high school and I could tell that through her grammar and sentence structure. She had a highly polished sense of rhetoric manifest in simple everyday language. I don't know how she did it but she was successful. She won me over from the very first reflection, and completely so after the first exam. It wasn't that she wrote blind paraphrases. Rather, I could see her engaging the concepts to the best of her ability. She captured the sense of lectures well while infusing into them a certain freshness that I had been looking for. Above all else her method was paradoxically predictable yet original.

Anyway, most of the class would process in after these two. Again remembering the last day, I could see their faces very clearly. I can even remember how one girl did her hair. She was glowing that day. I began, "Well, today is the end. We've been together for well over a month now. We've seen each other every day during the week. I know it hasn't been easy for you, and it has been equally as difficult for me. I want you all to know that what we've done here, what I have shared with you, what you have shared with me - all of this has been my deepest and most profound privilege." And with that, I began to read by farewell lecture. In the middle, I read a short story I had translated from the German original by Joseph Ratzinger. It was about the role of the theologian in the modern period. After thanking them, I assured them that they would occupy a special place in my life for the rest of my days. I gave my formal farewell.

I then went to every one of them, shaking their hand and placing into their other a piece of folded paper. On it was their name, their grades for the course, and two to three paragraphs in praise of their accomplishments. The closing sentences read simply: "It has been my honor and pleasure to serve as your instructor for the Sociology and Philosophy of Religion course at Chaminade University of Honolulu." The next two sentences changed from student to student, but it essentially wished them luck for the rest of their time at school. I watched as most of them they up off of their desks and through the door. I will never see them again.

In some ways I would be honest in saying that they took a piece of me with them. It was they who saw me at my most valuable. I had to grow up quickly before their eyes. Towards the end of the course I agreed to go to lunch with one of them, under the condition that we went out as friends, not as student and teacher. She was an older woman, so I trusted that she would understand. She told me, "When I first saw you in class I thought, 'Oh no, this guy is a kid. He is going to fall apart.' Lucky for you that never happened. You never came across as nervous. Is that how you always are?" I just smiled and changed the subject. Inside I wanted to shake her and say, "Are you freaking kidding me? You guys almost killed me!!!" Their attention and attentiveness helped develop within me a skill I did not possess before meeting them.

After the last class a handful of us went to Zippy's in Kahala. We spent a few hours there just talking about anything and everything. I really enjoyed those moments. We could be ourselves moreso than in the classroom. After I had dropped them back off at campus I took a drive out to Kailua. A burden was lifted from my shoulders. No more rising at 5AM to make sure lecture would go smoothly. No more stress, per se. But what about this sudden emptiness I feel? Why do I feel an urgency? Why is it that my pulse quickens when I think about not seeing any of them? The short answer: I had come to care about them. After all, they were under my academic care for a "semester". How could I not get attached? Yes, many of the interactions I had there were pretty shallow and school related. Seeing people everyday does something to people. It's a cycle not easily broken.

I can admit to sliding into a small bout of depression after the whole thing was over. On Monday morning I woke up again at dawn but I realized I had nothing to leave for. My leather shoes sat quietly next to the door. I had no need to black slacks for the rest of summer. My aloha shirts hung in the closet unironed. My black portfolio didn't require packing. Everything was at a standstill. What was there left to do? I slept, slept, and slept. I slept all day. At first I thought that it was just me relaxing and being tired. The more I reflected on it I came to realize that I had nothing to do with myself because my identity was that of a teacher without students. Those kids gave my life meaning, no matter how formal or academicly nonpersonal. They were the wind beneath my wings. They stood on my shoulders. Without them, I was no longer suspended in the heights of professional development. Without them, I had no responsibilities for support. It was as if I had ceased to function. But why? It wasn't as if I had been doing it forever. Perhaps that's the point. Even a short while of intensive teaching is enough to leave a profound and indelible imprint on one's spirit.

When I went back home to Kauai I thought of them. Every single one of them. I can remember their fashion and method of writing. I can remember those smirks they had on their faces when they talked crap about me. I can remember the looks on some of their faces when they stared at me. I can see all of that really vividly. Most of all, I can see the relief on their faces when I told them that things would be OK when one of thems screwed up. They were grateful for a second chance. It was my privilege to give many of them second chances.

To this day I still think of them. Is it unhealthy? Perhaps. I wonder if they ever think of me, too.

I suppose that there's a little light at the end of this story. Those two best students I mentioned earlier keep in regular contact with me. Speaking to the both of them tonight moved me to write this short reflection. How blessed I have been to have had them both as students and as friends. To know that I mattered enough for them to contact me and keep in contact is deeply validating on a personal level. I am most grateful for having been entrusted the duty to their education. What is more, I am humbled by the entire prospect of education. Teaching will probably change my life in ways I never knew anything could change me. Thanks be to God.