I’m back at the JJ apartment.
I went to school thinking that I would have to go to a student closing ceremony. I didn’t, it turned out, so I waited in the closet of my classroom for my son Tony, who attended the ceremony, so we could go home together.
As I waited, I mulled over the three years I spent at the school, and then the years before that. The years I spent at the International schools were a failure for me, I reflected. Was it my shortcomings as a teacher, was it the students and their culture, or was it the system I was stuck in that made my final years of teaching a bitter experience? I honestly can’t say conclusively. It would be easy to just say it was me, but the students were very shy and I couldn’t get the interaction I needed. As well students exhibited behavior in class that I had never seen in my years as a student. They slept in all the teachers’ classes. I didn’t care about that so much because it beat having to tell them to STFU, but I had to put my feet down when they brought pillows to class. The system doesn’t fail students who deserved to be and so I had nothing to back up my authority as a teacher. When students got a well-deserved screaming at from me, I got taken into the office…. Any who, I am sure I went to the last school with fine intentions.
Tony sat through a ceremony filled with gaseous speeches. When he came back, I asked him if he said good bye to anyone. He said he didn’t. I did say bye to a grade 10 student. I had him in one class but I always was friendly to him, so I made a point of saying good bye to him. He was the only student to whom I did say bye.
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