Today, right in the middle of my class I had an awkward feeling of missing something...
I realized I grew old :))), I looked into their eyes and faces and for a bunch of seconds I felt numb, I saw all these years running in my mind and while they were struggling to use "participle clauses" , I was struggling to get a grip on reality and convince my body to react. I still remember the thickness of the board marker, the colour of their clothes mixing into a rainbow of moving lips. It was 4 years later, I was doing the thing I am best at, still I understood there is something missing inside, I just couldn't relate to them and that scared me.
I just guess there is a time when we feel the passing time through our veins, I just had a flash -back of my first lessons, of the people talking to me at that point, I could actually see myself those days, those exact moments...I can't even understand what was the trigger, but everything worked just like in Proust's novel, maybe the smell, maybe the voice, or maybe the grammar structure became the background and I was flying through these stages of my teaching.
Age is also important in teaching, if you feel what you do, if you live those instances, then your whole teaching stream changes in time. I was afraid I lost the freshness of thinking, the enjoyment of finding new means of enacting the lesson plan, I was just scared I might have lost my "teaching youth" and just like in real life the question popped-up in my mind: "What is next?"
I just wanted to run back, see my long-time-lost students and friends (whom I can't bring back, time flies), I realized how important they were for me, because they actually witnessed my growing-up process and that made feel an acute lust for the beginnings.
Now I am different in many ways, I am happy to have learned that much, to have discovered new people, new methods, new teaching experiences,new good friends.
I can't help myself from lingering for some time in this nostalgia mood, remembering places and chatting and gossiping and me 4 years ago.
I saw some empty chairs...that was the trigger, now I know. I have been teaching the same people for almost 3 years and all of a sudden I had to do my job without them and that confused me a bit. It is also funny that we can't share the same feelings with all of them and just like we can't forget the firsts in life , I realized I will always be attached to those people, those faces that have been enjoying, crying, smiling, screaming or telling jokes by my side for such a long time. I will surely miss them, that is why I just had to stop my tears and when I said" Good!Now ask your colleague" I realized I am now in a different dimension of my teaching, maybe different dimension of my life and I will have to make it work within this new settings, with new tools,sharing precious memories with my first and former students.
Thank you for being there and enjoy spelling your mind in English!
