to my wife that for the first time, I think I understood how my old high school teachers felt about their students who'd long since moved on. I've been teaching at The Greek Institute for about four years now, long enough for the people I've taught to head not just to the next phase of their lives, but the one after that as well. And although most of my students check in from time to time, as the months go by I hear from them ever more infrequently, then one day not at all (though I guess you could just say "not at all" is just "really really infrequently"; but that's hairsplitting!). I guess I should find it gratifying to know that they're on their way, but I miss the regular contact - not just the lectures and the grading and the questions and answers about all things grammatical, but being privy to both their inner and outer lives. How is so-and-so doing in his first year at university? How about you-know-who, now in a Ph.D. program! And who can forget my summer school student; I wonder how things are going for her.
It's a kind of loneliness, I have to admit, I guess something akin to the "empty nest" feeling that parents get when their children grow up, get lives, and start families of their own. And I was just starting to slip into a funk just thinking about it this afternoon when I received an email from one of my students, out of the blue, telling me everything was fine but how much I and my teaching style was missed. How about that? I should obsess about these things more often.
(Or maybe I should take the hint and make the time to write some of my old teachers! Come to think of it, you should, too!)
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