My First Goodbye

Ladies and gentleman, classes are over. Tommy is no longer a teacher. Well, to be honest, we still have final exams ahead of us, but the english lessons are over. This really does feel like my first goodbye.

I feel much more sad than I expected. I have recently realized that my students have been the best part of my Chinese adventure. In fact, traveling all over Asia comes in a suprisingly distant second place, which is not to say that these travels have been anything short of amazing. It's just that the classroom has easily been my greatest motivator, entertainer, and teacher.

The emotional rollercoaster began during one of my final lessons. At the beginning of each class this term, I wrote down and explained a famous quote. In typical American fashion, I didn't necessarily explain the quote, but tried to facilitate the students' own discovery of the quote's meaning. The students did not like this. They wanted the answer and didn't trust their own insticts to provide it. I didn't stop though. Each morning I kept on urging my students to tell me if the question "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?" had an actual answer and whether or not "With great power comes great responsiblity." is a quote that can only be applied to superheroes like Spiderman. During my final week, I had each student return the favor by teaching me one of the quote's meaning.

When it comes to classroom activities, the vast majority of my class usually took the path of least resistance, so I fully expected almost all of my students to choose the easiest quote. Instead, however, the quote selection was an almost perfect distribution. Most students began their "lesson" by declaring that they had decided to teach me their favorite quote and (sniff) it seemed like they meant it. Not only did each student (yes, even the bad ones) do a fantastic job explaining their quote, but their explanations often strayed away from my own, showing an unmistakeable fingerprint of originality. You might as well call it: Moment I almost cried #1. It might be difficult for non-teachers to understand why this was such an important moment for me. I fucking did it! I got through to them. Months of uncertainty were washed away! Furthermore, I had conquered their Chinese hesitancy. I had opened their minds and I don't care in the least that I'm getting a bit carried away.

This exciting day was quickly followed by the final day classes. I started each class out by taking care of some housekeeping issues and marveled at the fact that it was I who was now using such an annoying teacher term. This was followed up by the most intense competition I had ever witnessed in the classroom: a paper airplane competition. This was my treat to them, as I knew they LOVED making paper airplanes. Every class exploded with excitement, laughter, and joy. The school moniter (sort of like my boss who has no direct control over me) stood outside and took notes. I don't think they considered this an acceptable use of our time, but at that point, I couldn't have cared less. This was my parting gift to my students and if someone didn't like it, well they'd have to give me a lecture quick because I was only a teacher for about three more hours.

For the rest of class, I had my students work on their final exam. While they were doing this, I walked around with my video camera and got every single student (280 or so) to give me a message that I could take back to America. Some students cried their goodbyes, others told me how cool I was, some sang songs into the camera, one did an amazing rendition of "Zombie" (Cranberries) using a broom as her guitar, all of them insisted that I never forget them and promised they'd do the same for me. I told them I wouldn't, which was true of course. I really won't forget those kids. It's the kind of video I can't wait to watch 5, 10, 20 years from now.

The entire day I was emotionally ripe, overwhelmed at how much these kids seemed to care about me. However, only one time did tears actually form. One of my best students, a very special girl, gave me a note and this is what it said:

Once upon a time, there was a travelor who traveled all over the world. One day, he passed by a deserted field which was full of little plants. He thought, "if only these poor little plants could be taken care of." At that moment he made a decision to be a gardener. From then on, day after day, he watered and fetilized the poor little, weeded them and even sang beautiful songs for them. These little plants had a very good time with their gardener and grew bigger and bigger, day by day, until one day they could shyly turn out their beautiful faces, each the same shape as butterflies, and also secretly gave off their sweet smell. The gardener was happy that the ever desolate field had taken on a new look. How colorful and aromatic!

However, all good things must come to an end. Seeing those well grown plants, the travellor thought that he had already completed his mission and it was time for him to say goodbye to those lovely plants. But you know, how reluctant those plants were to depart from their benefactor. They prayed day and night to stay together with that travellor forever. At last, thier love touched God and God bestowed a pair of wings upon each of those butterfly shaped flowers, enabling them to fly and travel with their benefactor. So from then on, the travellor was protected and blessed by his butterfly fairies and became the happiest man in the world.

At the end of class, the girl who wrote this story, Mary Mack, came to me and said she had a secret to tell me. She said, "you are the gardener" and ran out of the room. Men don't say they cried, men say they teared up. You can go on an extended international vaction, you can study abroad anywhere in the world, but it takes special circumstances to obtain moments like this.

That's all I have for you right now.

Thomas

**Note: I lightly edited the student's story for the convenience of reading. Even so, the quality of english that the original contained suggests that multiple hours were spent working on it. This, in my opinion, greatly adds to the gesture's significance.