Farewell

Post date: May 20, 2016 4:1:15 PM

I don't usually do this, but I thought I'd share a couple of things with all of you as a farewell. 

1. Of the many quotations I have had on my wall over the years, one of my favorites is from Frederick Douglass: "I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but got no answer until I prayed with my legs." I like this one in particular because it remains relevant, and perhaps is more relevant now than ever. Clearly, he was referring to his escape from slavery, but his message is easily transferable to my students and their lives. Stop waiting for someone (or something) to rescue you from whatever situation you are facing. If you are unhappy, fix it. If you are oppressed, stand up. If you are abused, fight back. However, I caution you to pick your battles carefully.  Douglass escaped from a literal system of oppression and injustice; is the prohibitions of hats in a school building oppressive or unjust? Fight the system when you must, but keep things in perspective. Be grateful that you are able to go to school without facing police dogs and fire hoses, that you are able to walk around your neighborhood without wondering if your house will be bombed next, that you are not marching through the desert with the remains of your family trying to find refuge from genocide. You are fortunate to live in a time and place that, despite many pervasive social and political problems, offers relative safety and freedom.

2. Though I really enjoyed teaching TOK this year, I heard some rumblings of discontent regarding my performance compared to that of Mrs. Jones. To those of you who complained, I don't blame you; it is never fair to the students who take a class with a first-time teacher. Even with courses that I have taught many times, at the end of the year I always feel like there is more I could have or should have done. Still, I had a great time teaching this course, and I've learned a great deal that will help make the coming years even better. Pat Conroy's memoir The Water is Wide is about his experience teaching a group of terribly underpriveleged black children on a small island off the coast of South Carolina. They are poor both literally and intellectually, and he fights hard to make some meaningful difference in their lives. At the end of the book, he says this: "Of the Yamacraw children, I can say little. I don't think I changed the quality of their lives significantly or altered the inexorable fact that they were imprisoned by the very circumstance of their birth. I felt much beauty in my year with them. It hurt very badly to leave them. For them I leave a single prayer: that the river is good to them in the crossing.” Obviously, the circumstances he describes are very different from my own, but I always think of this quotation as each year ends. Teachers never really know the full extent of the impact we have on each student, which may be a good thing. No matter how much or how little your life has changed because of my class, I hope that "the river is good" to each of you. 

Andrew St. John