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Diary of a teacher's last year | page 1, 2
The class fell silent. I almost misunderstood it as emotional withdrawal or cynicism, but fortunately I remained silent too and allowed
the mood to settle. Then Willow, who had criticized the
class as too intellectual, said, "His little corner of the universe," and shuddered. Red said, "It's a Buddhist film, acceptance and all that." He resisted his usual temptation to entertain the crowd with wit. Daniel, who had just written one of the sincerest accounts of personal struggle I'd ever read, declared the film to be a portrait of "one man's journey home and the paradox that 'nothing matters' and 'everything matters.'" Bryan, usually silent and brooding, pointed out Augie's compassion for Paul and the importance of love in this world. Garrett, the worldly and traveled Jew, spoke about paying attention instead of letting people and moments pass by. Then they fell silent again. "Well, let's go," I said finally, "before we fall into a pit of sentimentality." I had planned to show the scene because it illustrated two crucial components of spirituality: Being present in the moment and making caring connections to animate and inanimate objects. Everyone smiled and nodded as they began to pack their gear. We had skated along the edge of our complex desires for community and solitude, for involvement and detachment. I was surprised when April came over to give me a hug, because she had seemed distant all semester. Yet her last paper mentioned an appreciation that the class had helped her find a writing voice. Then Bethany stopped and wanted to embrace. She was one who always hid in the back of class, looking perturbed and slightly sullen, rarely speaking except to voice disapproval of religious orthodoxy. But at the end, Bethany was fighting her emotions, and gripped me hard before mumbling something and leaving. After a semester of gestation, we were suddenly aware of what we had accomplished together, like a moment of satori in Zen Buddhism. We had given each other power rather than taking it away.
It was just coincidental that Christmas vacation was near. Our
class had cultivated a taste of global culture, an expansion of perspective
that discouraged ethnocentrism. Our experience that day seemed like some faint whiff of, dare I say, Christian charity. Perhaps "the spirit of Christmas" touched us with its wand, corny as it sounds. My postmodern side wanted to erase the moment immediately in order to detach myself, but the mood was irresistible. Scrooge was reconstructed. If it had been "mere Christianity," to quote C.S. Lewis,
Red and Karen and Josh wouldn't have been part of the revelation. Buddha, Gandhi and Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Lao Tzu and Black Elk and other icons were present, along with Jesus, lending us their grace and giving us permission to destroy obstacles to solidarity. We edged toward the door and into the world again. It was getting cold outside; the wind blew leaves and the sun was buried behind gathering clouds. I waited until the others were out of sight before I shed a few
tears, wondering why I had maintained such emotional distance from my students. My next-to-last semester had come to an end, and suddenly I missed my students terribly. I wanted to embrace every one of them, from the troublesome David, who infuriated me with his procrastination,
to the acerbic Jane, whose sarcasm provoked anger in her peers. The aikido master didn't teach me anything new; he simply inspired me to pay attention. After 31 years of teaching, I was also a master, but tenure had made me lazy. I vowed to start next semester with the full realization that I am a master and should conduct myself as one. The aikido master had stood in the center of the room with his arms folded, smiling slightly, before extending his hands in greeting and bowed. I wish he could have been in the classroom that day. We could have all bowed back.
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