Grace

I’ve mentioned how much I love teaching*, and I did qualify that the building in which I enjoy teaching is home to the Humanities and Social Sciences, so when I announce that my current teaching gig—teaching English to international university, and mostly graduate, students—has not been my favorite job, people usually wonder why.

I teach students who in large part find it acceptable to lie, to plagiarize, and to cheat. I go to work four days a week, teach at least four classes back-to-back—while squeezing in grading, lesson planning, student conferencing, faculty meetings, eating lunch, escaping on Facebook, peeing, and pumping breast milk—to blaze through the nuts and bolts of writing quality research papers and giving coherent oral presentations while minding the rules of grammar, only to discover that many of these students go on to purchase their theses and dissertations, rendering my time spent with them a waste.

Last week, a student lied to me. When I found out about the lie, I cursed—right there in the office. It’s not my nature to curse; I feel worse if I do it. I apologize for days if anyone else has heard me. This last bit stems from the legalistic church background from which I’ve recently escaped (as if by flames). If you curse once, you shouldn’t be surprised if your life falls apart shortly thereafter as a sign of God’s wrath and disapproval of your mistake. Really what these neo-Pharisees are saying is, Christ’s death wasn’t enough to atone for your sin; you’ll have to suffer all over again.

On Monday, I reluctantly got out of bed, likely showered, and walked to work (because I am not paying the annual $300 fee we faculty—who haven’t gotten a raise in three years like the rest of the country’s hardest workers—must pay to park at work).

When I got to my third class of the day, Advanced Grammar, I distributed an exam and, as I finished telling everyone to put away cell phones, I heard a camera click. The student who had lied to me just took a photo of the exam. I walked over to him, confiscated his phone, and submitted it to my boss. The student told me he needed the picture to study for this exam which, I’ll remind you, he was currently taking.

Later, my boss—who, along with the rest of the department’s faculty, is one of the few tokens of relief at work—came into my office and mentioned how she knew this job was a thankless one at best. My tears came without my consent. I apologized, and my boss comforted me by saying, “It’s normal that you’re feeling this way. You’re terminating.” Once Greg defends his dissertation in December, we plan to make like trees and get out of here**.

I dabbed under my eyes so I wouldn’t smear mascara. “But I’ve felt this way ever since I started.”

“Oh.”

It was the first time I’ve admitted to anyone, except my immediate family and closest friends, how much I dread this job.

That night, still flummoxed and irate over my lying, photographing student, I jumped on Facebook entirely too late in the evening and wrote: “Remember my favorite student—the one who lied to me last week? Today, he took a PICTURE of an EXAM. So I called Immigration to escort him to the airport. He’s probably sobbing somewhere over the Atlantic right now.”

Most people got my sarcasm, and I’m not friends with any students from the department, but when word got around to the director—who is currently on medical leave—that a student was deported, I was kindly reminded by my boss that Facebook is a lot bigger than its privacy settings may indicate.

I immediately erased the post. I was angry at myself for not having the maturity or foresight in posting such a rant, which initially had felt liberating. I wanted December to be here now.


This morning, I walked into my office to find a chair poised awkwardly on my desk. It’s not the first time this week that this has happened. I wondered its meaning and, when I inquired, a co-worker scolded me for my negligence in not making my students put back chairs once class was over. This was his way of reminding me to get my act together. I have fifteen minutes between classes (sometimes the peeing part of my agenda does not happen until 2 p.m.) and putting away chairs had not occurred to me all semester. I felt another rush of tears come, so as quietly as I could, I said to him, “You need to put a sign on my forehead that says, ‘FAILING.” And then I spent the rest of the morning either sobbing (done while pumping) or sucking back tears (done while teaching).

During grammar class, in what has become my signature trait, I diverted onto a subject that was of much interest to my students: forgiveness. After going over the irregularity of the verb—forgive, forgave, forgiven—I explained to them what it was. I told them it’s of great importance for having a thriving marriage (many of them are newlywed males). I could see they still needed an example. Here’s the one I used:

“Let’s say I had a student who took a picture of his exam (!!!).”

The class laughed, and the Guilty Student lifted his hands—in victory and in defeat.

“What do you think the student might say to me?” I asked them.

Guilty Student said, “Will you forgive me, please, Teacher?”

I said, “Yes, Student, I forgive you. You are my brother.”

He put his hand over his heart, and I smiled at him, and the whole class understood forgiveness.

During my next (and last) class, we were discussing a chapter from the textbook on super-storms, namely Hurricane Katrina. My students were astonished that New Orleans natives would return back to a demolished city—a city below sea level, at that. When I asked if they would move back to New Orleans, they each replied, “No way.”

I went to the chalkboard and wrote: “If ______________ were destroyed by a hurricane, would you return?” I asked them to fill in the blank the name of their native cities and reread the question.  Then I asked them if they would return. They all said yes.

I walked home and began to cry again. I couldn’t stop it. I had called my husband earlier and told him I felt like a jackass. He said I was brilliant and beautiful and bold and to not speak about myself like that. When I opened the door, Ariel ran to greet me. I lifted her up and kissed her. Eva started to cry from hunger. Before making dinner, I sat down and nursed Eva, hugged Ariel again, kissed Greg.

Greg knows I’ve sacrificed the five years of our marriage in a town that’s too small—where I don’t have many friends—at a job that’s too hard. He knows I’d rather be elsewhere. I stay here because my home is no longer Phoenix or Southern California or the Hamptons or even smelly Northern Colorado. My home is in the indestructible assurance that, soon, everything will be new.


Post Script: One of my favorite professors from Biola, Dr. Elizabeth Rambo (she's now at Campbell University), wrote this in response to this essay; please visit her site: The Nowning Process

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