timely encounter

Last night the school held the first of three evenings of meet-the-parents sessions. After the presentations, we had to stand in the corners assigned to our disciplines and field questions from parents and students.

A parent came up to me and asked about the teaching of the English language. He was a little concerned that language and literature will not be taught separately. His wife shared that their other daughter had had to study literature at school and she found it very dry.

As I explained to them the rationale behind the curriculum design of English, using the word pleasure more than once, I looked from time to time at their daughter, a slip of a girl in plastic frame glasses. She was constantly fidgeting, darting glances at the handphone in one hand, or turning away to glance at the other people in the room. Her parents listened patiently, their eyes not once moving away. The girl did not look at me until I asked her for her name and shook her hand.

I picture twenty-five other teenagers like this girl, all of them in a room with a poem, or a short story, or a novel on a desk before them. And the teacher in me, asleep since my last class on campus in April, springs to life.

I guess this is what they mean when they say it's a calling.