Sometime ago, I sat as a student in a literature class which my father taught with passion, discipline, and care. I often wondered what inspired him to teach that way, unmindful of the little imps whose minds were everywhere else except on the lesson. It just didn’t occur to me to ask him then. But, I discovered in the end that I had slowly become enamored at the thought of being a teacher myself.
When I finally became a teacher, I set out on my secret quest for the correct formula to success and fulfillment in what is often referred to as the ‘noblest profession.’ Mastering the subject matter was my first focus of serious attention. As an English composition teacher, I made sure that I knew how to teach grammar thoroughly and well, as if nothing else mattered! As a literature teacher I was concerned with literary genres and conventions. How does a dramatic situation in poetry differ from a short story’s plot structure? Why is there a ‘persona’ in poetry but a ‘point of view’ in a short story?
After teaching in this mode for sometime, I got very bored and uneasy. In the first place, I was a teacher, not a grammar-violator policewoman! Something was missing in my teaching! Mastery of the subject matter didn’t grab me anymore. I then, began to look elsewhere. In my second search, I found my students.
There was Albert* who nearly flunked my Lit 13 class because he was too weighed down by insecurity to show his real merit. His words came in staccato but his numbers moved swiftly in the right places: D’s in English but A’s in Math. One day, I subjected him to a ‘motivation detector test.’ He would independently study three Philippine stories in English of my choice and report to me after a week to discuss them. If he was willing to go this extra mile for himself, I’d match it with my two miles of help. That was the deal. I wasn’t sure if he would keep his side of the bargain. I knew I was committed to mine.
To my pleasant surprise, Albert’s performance exceeded my expectations. During our one-on-one discussions, I saw him slowly transform from a shy receding posture to a confident and poised bearing. Away from the ogling gaze of his classmates, he spoke up with a twinkle of certainty in his eyes. And he spoke with conviction, absorbed in expressing his insights.
I couldn’t, at first, believe that he could be as articulate as he was in a language he wasn’t at ease with. His discussion swung back and forth between the world of fiction and his world of reality. I listened to him with joy and appreciation. I felt like I was being drawn out of myself to see a bigger world that could contain all that I saw and all that I still wanted to see.
There was Angie* who had purposely flunked out of her En 11 block and joined mine in her sophomore year. On her first day in class, she came without a word but filled with an aura of daunting self-confidence. Her stunned classmates looked at each other and froze. No one sat beside her, only an entire row of empty chairs, which became her territory. Luckily, I had a mild-mannered class in which Angie felt free to express her insightful contribution during discussions and group work activities. Somehow, we were bound by an unspoken understanding that we wouldn’t make a big deal about Angie’s presence.
In due course, the class was eased and slowly the ‘great divide’ diminished. Her classmates could now tease Angie more openly about her dressing style: one day she would come in a gown, another day in a stunning fancy dress. They respected her uniqueness. At times she would turn up in a serious mood, weary from not having slept the night before to finish an interesting book. At other times, she would hop in bright and sprightly to show me a script of her play that engaged her imagination for days. Angie was simply many different shades and hues! The one thing I was impressed about her was that despite being saddled with her life’s issues, she never missed a class and she passed her assignments on time. Hers were some of the essays I enjoyed reading to the class for their crisp ideas, creative formats, and polished turns of phrases.
Angie’s final breakthrough came on the last day of class. The class activity was a two-minute poster presentation by each student of one thing they learned significantly in En11 – either about writing or about themselves. When it was Angie’s turn, she pulled out from behind her chair a huge illustration board colored black with silver and gold specks that glittered as she moved the poster from side to side. In metaphors, she spoke about her life and sincerely thanked the class for helping her understand better about who she was just by being who they were. No need for words, only hugs! For one semester, the class had been writing and rewriting this one big composition of their intertwined lives, culminating in a well-made conclusion.
Albert and Angie were only two of the many students that have challenged my capacity as a teacher to go beyond just answering to the demands of my discipline. Their presence in my classes advocated the belief that while error-free communication is desirable, helping students to embrace this value cannot be a separate process from contextualizing major learning events in the lives that they live.
The likes of Albert and Angie have taught me how to teach English beyond English – to reach out to the students’ world of learning possibilities: thinking with a clear focus, steer the restless imagination, connecting the loose threads in the tapestry of their lives. If my father were alive today, I’m sure he would be the first to agree!
*Names have been changed to protect the individuals.
