Today was the last day of our school year and I was busy cleaning up my room. I went outside for some fresh air and one of my ex-student came to visit. We talked outside for a while.
He was in my Greek class last year and would chat about his love of Greek Mythology and Turkish Delight (the sweet). He had also experienced some extremely hard times in his life and he was pretty philosophical about all that had happened.He acknowledged that he had an anger management issue based on his past which he never wanted to talk about as he didn’t trust many adults, but he trusted me. His love of family was heartfelt. He also promised that he would visit as he felt at home at our school.
I hoped that he was okay at high school and that he would find a mentor to help him through the hard times. He thanked me for being there for him during the year and I thanked him for listening and for taking my advice onboard. He was one of those kids that just needed someone to listen to him and to know that they cared.
Today he had just completed his first year at high school and I asked him how he fared. He answered that it was ok but he was a little fish in the big sea. He was happy that he could talk to the school counsellor. He also made some interesting observations about school. His take was that if schools were there to help kids then why didn’t they allow creativity. I asked what he meant and he said, “We are the future but schools are in the past, they don’t hear us that we need to create, to be ourselves. Why do we all have to be excellent only at Maths and English? I can do those subjects but there is more to me than that. I love drama and watching media and acting. I did really well and never got upset in that class. I could express myself. You let us create in your Greek lessons and we were able to be ourselves. That was important to me. You also listened and we could trust you.”
He was affirming that relationships are important to learning and I am so glad that I believe strongly in relationship building with my students. He was sincere about relationships being very important to him and to his successful learning. He thanked me for listening to him yet again and for believing in him. I told him that I would always be there for him and that I was proud of him for his mature outlook on life. He was quite emotional when he said that it meant a lot to him. We said our goodbyes and he promised to keep in touch.
As I started working on clearing my room again, I thought about this fine young man and how he was embracing his life experiences. He could have taken a very different road but I am so glad that he didn’t. I felt honoured to have played a small role in his school life and his simple thank you from the heart was the gift that helped to end my year on a positive note. As I said on Twitter – J, you matter!
