Last class
It's the last week of class, amazingly. What happened to this year? In each of my classes, I read three stories to my students: "Teacher-Diplomat" (about my first week of classes last fall); "Manabu's Lesson" (about the heroism and courage of learning a new language) and "On Fire" (about the intensity of Hunan food and, similarly, my students' intense devotion to their teachers).
Prior to the classes, I was a wreck. I spent two days tweaking the language to be more approachable for my students. I rehearsed the reading over and over on runs, to steel myself against breaking down in tears. I wore pants that roll up easily, to wade through the flood of my students' tears. I expected laughter. I prepared myself for outrage, always a possibility when writing about people, no matter what you've written.
Whatever their reaction would be, I expected a strong reaction. It was our last class. We were best friends from the first day last October. We would be on separate continents within weeks.
I passed out a copy of each story to each student, and began reading. Each student's eyes were focused on the paper in front of them. The first laugh line passed. Silence. Eyes trained on papers. The next laugh line passed. Silence. Eyes trained on papers. Emotional moments came. Silence. Eyes on papers. I walked around the room, trying to make eye contact. Eyes on papers. Blank expression on every face. Colorful moments came. Silence. Eyes on desks. Jokes about their classmates. Silence. Eyes on desks.
The room resembled an empty church. My beloved students were statues. Time stood still. I immediately assumed my stories must be incredibly stupid, to draw zero reaction from anyone. For a writer, especially reading live, silence is the most brutal reaction. Outrage, vitriol, rants, all are great compared with silence.
After the first story, I asked if they had any questions about the language or anything else. Eyes on desks, silence. I asked if I should keep reading, or if it would be better to quit for today. Silence. My best student, Nancy, finally mumbled, "keep reading," still looking at her desk.
And so I kept reading, and they kept staring at their desks, completely silent, completely blank. It was the longest reading I've ever given. Total, uninterrupted torture. What made it especially agonizing was that the stories were, no doubt, meant to be funny and emotional. It's one thing to draw no reaction to a serious treatise. But when you try to be funny and you're trying to elicit emotional responses, and you're met with silence, it's double torture.
After the reading, we went outside and posed for three photos: one Swedish (glum faces), one Chinese (normal happy expressions) and one Phillippino (jumping-to-the-sky, fist-pumping giddiness). The students came straight back to their usual life, full of energy, goofy and spontaneous and great. Just as I've known them to be, every minute of this year, save for the fifteen minutes in which I read my stories. It made me feel worse: it wasn't just an off-day. They had their usual spunk. It's just my writings that put them to sleep and dulled their senses.
We said goodbye, some students gave me presents and cards, but it was nothing like the heart-wrenching experience I had expected. I figured that, after all, I must not have had a bit of an impact in their lives. I can't imagine a more dramatic anti-climax.
Beginning that night and continuing now, however, all the emotion I expected came flooding out of my students. In cell-phone messages and phone calls and email messages, they gave me all the reactions I had expected them to give in class. Breezy's reaction was typical [excerpt]: "in today"s class,i feel very sad, because i were award that was our last class together with you. when you are reading your articles,i had to try my best to stop my tears."
And so, even on the last day, I learned that I still have a lot to learn about this culture. The last day of class brought us full circle, to the first day of class. On that day, I asked questions and students stared at their desks, silenty. I told jokes. No one laughed. I asked for volunteers. It took a lot of prodding to get any.
In both cases, my students felt uncomfortable, and the way they express discomfort is to keep silent and look at the floor. It had been so long since they had responded to me in this way, but it is their natural, culturally conditioned way.
Their silence on the last day reminded me of how courageous they were throughout the year. At heart, they're not the animated, spontaneous, verbose kids they became during oral English class every week. They put on a new personality for me, to match my own, another gesture of their generosity. I never would have appreciated this without the final class, which felt like torture but now makes me feel even better about my beloved students, makes me appreciate anew their heroism in learning English.
