Hopes and dreams: Stories about teaching (#2).
Karma Points.
Today, one of the conversations during a consultation veered in the direction of “what do you want to study in the university?”, and student K vehemently objected to Literature, claiming that it was one of those academic subjects with one way out in life – teaching.
“No, I can’t teach. My entire family says nobody in our family can ever become a teacher. Really, it’s down to karma points. We’re all terrors to our teachers. The karma will come back to haunt us.”
I laughed.
“And you see, I really cannot stand stupid people. I can’t take it when I explain something and anybody can be daft enough to not understand it the first time round. Take D for example, I can never have your kind of patience. Teaching, no.” She was almost adamant.
“Well, how do you say it? When you’re a teacher, your… How do I say that in English – your 立场 is different.” I had to explain myself, at the very least.
“What’s that? Your stand is different?” A volunteered a translation.
“No… More like, a teacher takes on a different role. You see, if I was a student, perhaps I might feel the same as you do. Wait, I most probably will. But now my role is different – which is why I will see things differently from you.”
K seemed unconvinced.
And I left it as that.
***
A few conversations later, she was telling A about her tuition kids in Primary 6. They probably weren’t paid assignments – I vaguely heard her mentioning about it being voluntary… Church related, most likely.
“And just that day I was telling them to write down their dreams. So cute – one of them wants to go to NUS, this other one wants to grow up to study Law. Some others had shorter-term goals like getting into whichever secondary school, whichever JC – it’s kind of amazing to see them want to work towards a goal. I really feel important now – I’m like part of this growth process. They’re so cute!”
That made me look up from the script I was marking.
“K,” I said, with that little glimmer in my eye, “that’s because your role is different. All of a sudden you don’t hate stupid people anymore, do you?”
She tried defending herself – to which I simply concluded, before returning my attention to the script at hand, “You know, I think you’ll make a great teacher next time.”
***
Karma works in mysterious ways, yes, but who says it can’t be beautiful?
