A teacher’s thoughts on graduation

This is the time of year when students either come to me to ask for advice on what to do next; or a pile of recommendation letters arrive at my desk to be filled up for various things: law school, graduate school, first job applications. My phone rings at least once a week, a company double-checking on references. “Was she really a good student?” they ask. “Can you give a specific example of a time when she had to overcome an obstacle and can you tell us how she handled that obstacle?” I am stumped. All I have witnessed in my tiny literature class was how she handled reading T.S. Eliot!

But there is a palpable change in the air with the approach of March and its attendant, inevitable goodbyes. On campus, there is a kind of breathlessness, punctuated by the incessant falling of leaves from these old, old trees. The world seems so full of promise, even as all things un-leaf. Nature, parents, students, teachers, all taking that deep, deep breath for what is to come.

Students make appointments to visit me and tell me their plight. The stories follow the same arc. “I’ve always wanted to go to law school, Ma’am, but I wasn’t accepted into the school I wanted.” Or, “I don’t want to inherit our family business! I just want to teach.” Or the one that breaks my heart the most: “I want to be an artist but everyone thinks I’m a fool.” They come to me hoping for some answers, for some enlightenment, and truly, the pressure is great upon the professor to come up with something provisionary one can hold on to.

This is the great disconnect — when I realize that what I’ve taught them is only useful to a certain point. School has cocooned them, even if it has attempted to challenge them with the facts of real life. And again and again, with my students, when second chances come to them, I always say that this is not what happens in real life and the reason why I grant second chances is because I can afford to be generous. The real world? Sadly, it doesn’t give a damn.

I remember what happened to me right after graduation as if it were yesterday instead of 22 years ago. Top of the list was to make a killer résumé. After all, we had hardly lived! How to transform what I had done thus far to illustrate that I could be a great teacher? How to gloss over my underachieving self in my freshman and sophomore years? How to make my singing career into a sign that I was meant for great things? Damn, damn, damn.

My first real-life challenge came in the form of tough decision-making. Three of us wanted to become teachers and did the rounds of schools, dropping off our résumés. Finally, in the high school we all thought could be home to us, we were informed that there was only one teaching slot available and that they would see each of us do a teaching demo the next day, one at a time. All things being equal, all three of us were good enough for the job. The question was, who could impress them the most with the demonstration?

The first thing I learned was that I couldn’t handle competition, most of all, with dear friends. The demo class would pronounce one better than the other two and although it would not diminish our friendship, it didn’t seem at all worth it to put our friendship to the test. Perhaps it was cowardly but I did realize that personal relationships are important to me and that I am willing to sacrifice a lot to keep a friendship. The three of us had agreed to go to the demo by ourselves and that we would not tell each other the contents of our demo. I didn’t tell them that I wrote the principal and backed out stating this was not the way I wanted to begin my teaching career. What I did not know was that the other friend had done the exact same thing! And the other friend? She was so sure she wouldn’t get it (being the shyest and most unassuming), she did the demo anyway. And so yes, she got the job! And when we all met for a snack (having coffee was not yet the thing to do at this time) how happy we were that it turned out the way it did! This story requires a caveat: until today, we are all still teachers. Talk about a happy ending.

I would find my way teaching elsewhere and two years later, I felt bad that I had not helped my father with his business. In high school, I had openly told him that I could not be relied upon to be part of his empire as I had but one wish and dream: to teach. I had seen my other siblings forego their plans to help our empire-building father and I just didn’t think I could sacrifice that much. Two years after college, I realized that I was being selfish with my love too, and condescending about the importance of my father’s work. So I dutifully worked for him and although I gave it my best shot (my best
“forward thinking” moves was fixing the ceiling of our warehouse for better ventilation, something I had learned from a theology class, advocating that our staff have more training modules, and Christmas bonuses that came with handwritten letters), it became even clearer to me that my heart belonged elsewhere. But that two-year stint taught me something invaluable: that life was too short for regrets and making my father happy is priceless.

Soon, another teaching opportunity came and I grabbed it with all my heart! My goodness, my résumé was so much better now and it needed no tweaking! It showed a life more scarred and well lived. It was finally more than one page and under skills, I could write: can drive. And best of all, my heart had wanted nothing more than this. Surely, that would be the tipping point?

And what could be the lowest part of my career was this: the person hiring asked me to see her; I sat in her office, feeling all accomplished that I had teaching experience, corporate experience, had begun my MA, and all that jazz. She looked at me and said, “You, Rica? But you’re not at all a serious person.” 

There are days and nights when this scene still haunts me and I plunge into it hoping to find something new and insightful. I left her office defeated and no amount of cajoling or offers of a good meal could get me out of this slump for some time. “You are not a serious person, Rica” was a bad refrain with no logical harmony. Did she not “recognize” me? I asked myself. What a mystery it all seemed.

This does have a happy ending, I promise, one that would see me teaching in the same university for over 15 years, and I am old enough to know that things happen, life happens, shit happens, but redemption happens, too, and all bad things have good things attached to them, if you’re willing to wait; if you truly believe in fairies and you have the courage to clap your hands when you aren’t quite sure magic exists, when necessary.

These days, parents come to me too, and the story arcs are the same: “My son wasn’t accepted into the University he wanted!” Or, “I want him to be a doctor but he wants to be a painter, of all things!” Or, “When will he ever become a serious person?” My heart lurches, my tongue trips on all that I want to say. I say the kindest things first: So sorry to hear that. I’m sure he’ll find his way. She is always passionate about things. Sometimes, and only sometimes, parents can be the blindest of all and ironically it is blinded by love, or a kind of love that is static, that has refused to see a child all grown up, a child no longer attached to a parent, a child whose merit, and demerits, stem completely from his or her own person. It takes a different kind of love to do that. It is a kind of love that knows how to face fear in its face. It is the kind of love I sometimes have a glimpse of when my children tell me they like Adventure Time or they tell me they don’t like at all what I like.

In a few weeks, I will be attending many graduations, my daughter’s, my niece’s, my own students. The march always makes me cry. It is a triumphant moment and one that suspends time and all the challenges that come after this moment, kept at bay, like some strong dam with the admonition: “DANGER: KEEP OUT.” For now, there is this to celebrate. All other battles are on break. Let us all sit together as parents, as teachers, as children, and simply celebrate. Celebrate the children. Celebrate the students. Celebrate the future and all that is to come.