My Teaching Past Came Back To Haunt Me... In A Good Way

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I have been an educator for a good eight years now and before I was working at a university, I was at a high school. Back then I was a new teacher who was told that students in high school are a difficult bunch. I was told that this unique species of students were known as the dreaded teenagers.

To my surprise, the experience was pleasant and I enjoyed my time as a teacher in that school. While it was very brief, it taught me some valuable lessons and it made me love teenagers. This has led me to be involved in projects that cater to teenagers. However, that's a story for another time.

It has been a good eight years since I last left that high school and to my surprise, I received a text from one of my students from that school. He was about to fly over to the city where I worked at and he wanted to meet up. I was pleasantly surprised and so I took him around. He was here on his study assignment and as such, it was more like a study-vacation (A Studcation?). We even managed to fulfill one of the items on his vacatin checklist, which was to eat this little bugger over here.

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If you have not seen it before, that's a Sago worm. No, this is not part of my daily diet and no it did not taste all that bad. It was a bit weird as it wriggled between my fingers, almost like a sausage trying to get away. But after pulling off the necessary parts, we all did a Sago worm toast before eating it. As much as I am tempted now to share this with you on how it felt like eating it, I will not. Do drop me a comment below and I just may describe it to you or better yet, I may just send you the video.

Wait, I Thought We Were Talking About Teaching

So here comes the part where my teaching past came back to 'haunt' me. I don't mean it in a good way, but this student of mine has always been an active and outspoken one and I think as teachers, you will always have that one student that you form a bond with. Some may call it a teacher's pet, I call it a relationship. He was by no means a pet of mine but I enjoyed his company even all those years ago. So much so that I would eat raw worms with him =)

I also appreciate the fact that he still remembered me after all these years. I have always heard of colleagues telling me of how good it feels having a former student meet you on the street to say hi. I just never thought that it would happen to me so soon. Also, it was great knowing that he was doing well, seeing that he is now a studying medicine in university.

Conclusion

I am thankful to have been doing this for all these years. Sure, the pay is adequate but you get rewarded with so many other perks. Also, while it is undeniable that teaching can be stressful with a lot of paperwork and some difficult students, the rewards are definitely worth it. Especially if your student is willing to try crazy stuff like eating a sago worm with you.

Victorious after eating the sago worm.