Graduation

Today was my high school’s after-graduation party.  It’s my 3rd year teaching at that school, so I have known these students their whole high school career.  It was a strange feeling…a mixture of joy and guilt, motivation and hope. 

I don’t participate in much that can be considered larger than myself.  My selfish, independent nature tends to keep me out of things like that.  At this point, the closest thing I have to anything bigger than me is the school I teach at 3 hours a week.

I know that I’m very skilled at the basics of being a teacher – getting knowledge into students heads, teaching them how to learn, and motivating them to learn more on their own.  However when it comes to being a team player, sacrificing my time/desires for others, and taking my responsibility as a role model seriously rather than just being a friend to my students – I think I fall hopelessly short.  In some areas, I think I’ve immatured since I’ve lived in Asia.  It’s so easy to get what I want without having to work too hard that I start focusing on what I want and putting that before others.  Rather than focus on one thing, I spread myself thin and don’t put too much effort into any one thing – they all end up working out pretty well none-the-less, so what’s the problem, right?

Our principal gave a few words of encouragement to the students today.  Usually I don’t have much respect for the principal…he’s a shy, mousey, middle-aged Japanese guy who doesn’t seem to do much and always seems really shy to talk to me or in front of students.  My lack of respect for authority hasn’t changed much since I was young.  But today, his words struck a cord.  Maybe because of the atmosphere of the moment, I was more receptive.  He said that each person takes their own path through life, but the most important thing are the partners that you go through it with.  He explained that the word “partner” (said in English) includes a friend, a ‘nakama’, and also a coworker.  All of which I am deeply lacking, and none of my plans for the future include such a partner.  I’m the go-at-it-alone type.  Robert Kiyosaki would put me in the “S” quadrant for business – I can do the job better than anyone else, so even if I work with people, I’ll end up just pushing them away and doing the job myself.

All of these qualities have pros to them as well – I’m not bashing on my personality.  In fact, I think I’m a pretty decent guy when it comes down to it.  It just made me be introspective and see that one of the most essential things in life is missing from mine.

Something about the living-abroad lifestyle makes having a “partner” as our principal put it a very difficult thing.  People come and go.  You come and go.  There’s no stability to the process whatsoever.

Another thing that the ceremony impressed upon me was my general selfishness.  I truly do wish only the best of success for my students, and I want to do everything I can to help them succeed in their dreams.  But when I think about the way I speak to them, and the casual attitude I treat them all with, I realize that my desire for everyone in the world to like me often surpasses my desire to truly help them.  I’d rather they like me now than be truly taught by me.  Both are often possible, but at times it’s not, and when I have to choose, I think I falter on the side of “like me”.  What a shamefully selfish attitude for a teacher to have.

Recently I’ve been going through a particularly nerdy phase – reading Harry Potter in Japanese and watching a sci-fi program from the US called Battlestar Gallactica.  I hesitated to ever watch Gallactica because the nerdiness of the name was enough to put me off, but after seeing how many awards it won recently, I thought I’d give it a chance.  I won’t go into detail about the program, but one character that seemed appropriate today is the admiral of the ship:  Admiral Adama.  The admiral is one of those silent, thoughtful types who is the opposite of the “like me” type that I so often fall into.  One episode that stood out is one where he is having a particularly rough day.  He’s going through his morning routine and has a young private serve him tea.  He asks the private his name, and then about 10 minutes later, as he’s hard-faced and walking through the halls, he’s mumbling to himself the private’s name.  In another episode, there’s a mutiny on the ship, and as a low level soldier is taking him off to be executed, he calls the soldier by name and touches him on a personal level – successfully pushing the soldier to change his mind and help the Admiral rather than execute him. 

All of that seems nerdy and unrelated, but it stood out in my mind today.  I could only remember a handful of my students names – some of whom I had taught for 2 years, and even had quite personal conversations with.  I try to tell myself that I didn’t teach them this year, so I haven’t had them in class for over a year.  There’s just too many of them.  Nonetheless, I’d like to consider them my “大切な生徒” - valuable students.  But do I deserve the honor to consider them that when I can’t even remember their names?  Again part of me wants to call them my valuable students because that makes me their valuable teacher…but such selfishness is not becoming of someone who would call themselves a leader.  It’s not becoming of someone who would call themselves an adult…it’s really childish.

I should spend less time watching nerdy sci-fi dramas and attempting to meet every person in the world and make them like me, and spend more time valuing those who I’ve been blessed to have placed under my care, putting their dreams/desires before my own sometimes, and if nothing else, at least memorizing their names.

Hopefully today was a graduation ceremony not just for my students, but also for me.  I hope I can graduate from many of my childish ways, and not waste the precious time I’m given each day.