Anywho, had that happened the week before, it would have pissed me so off & the rest of the day would’ve been sour. By that point I just left & went about deciding how else I wanted to spend my day peacefully.
* * * * *
People hate to see you leave if you’ve done your job well as a guest teacher & I was rocked by the expressions of love & sadness from my students as the realization our last day together was almost upon us. ‘Lil Mama’ one of my running buddies, told me I was the first guest who made a concerted effort to learn the 40+ names. On the first day, I had them write their names down on my pad since I was mad determined to get each & every doggone one. But I gotta tell ya, when I heard the first name out loud, I didn’t think there was ANY way I would master them, let alone even come close to pronouncing them! Yet the desire to be able to call them by name as opposed to saying ‘you in the abstractedly red tee shirt’ [which by the end of that description, totally forgetting what the heck the correction was in the first place] made me dig my feet in & persevere. Anywho, when I learned how appreciated the effort to learn their names was received, I smiled with pride. I am always in awe & humbled by how much acts of Human Kindness transcend. Transcends color, creed, nationalities, religions, money, big cars, big houses, language. What seemed a small gesture had a deep impact upon my students, inspiring many to learn all THEIR students’ names. It makes such a big difference to a person be it a child or adult when you know their name. They’re not concerned you have 30 or 130 other names to learn, they want you to know them. You acknowledge…Them.
