Letters to my students
study hard. It is a long list of antipodes without the comforting and safe middle ground to hold on to. For instance, a girl has to be smart and beautiful, and yet not too beautiful. The boys on the other hand should be handsome and intelligent, and yet not too smart and somewhat averse to a stable relationship with a significant other. So even in the land of dreams, America has learned how to stifle the millennials’ dreams and turn them into nightmares.
Hoping to change this aspect I decided to be honest in my communication with my students. I openly tell them of the struggles of being an undergraduate in a local university. It is no bed of roses. University ragging—referred to as hazing in American English—ought to make any American student value the life they lead at this Southern univ university I teach at. The the same time, I make sur sure I encourage stude dents to participate in St Study Abroad progr grammes which will a allow them to experience foreign cultures and understand us brown folks better. In my final letter to my students. Postmarked entries that get lost in University mail. Here’swhat Here’s what I s say:
Dear Student,
By the end of the semester you will either like me or despise me. I know this because I read the feedback forms that I can only access two weeks after posting your grade on the electronic system. I know how each student writes and their writing style. It’s my duty as a teacher. In other words, I know what feedback was given and by whom. Don’t be afraid though. I don’t take offence. I use student feedback to improve my standards for teaching. I understand if the classroom challenged you and you may have enjoyed it. I also understand if my classroom setting at times made you feel inadequate. That was never my intention. In the words of the famous Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke -“Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers--perhaps the most intelli- gent of all the ones that are building your life.” We studied Rilke for the semester, but Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet offer profound lessons I wish I could have imparted during my world literature poetry lessons to you. I hope I changed your perspective in the same way that you nourished mine. Warm Wishes, Ms. P.H. Imbalanced. The columnist is a Sri Lankan who resides in the deep South of America and lives in a quaint college town teaching English and World Literature to university undergraduates at an American University. Currently pursuing the final year of her PhD in English, she hopes to continue her journey of teaching, writing and exploring cultures.