Postmarked letters to my students
I love having a ‘pen pal.’ Full Stop. I’ve had several pen pals over the years. One pen pal was an Irish pen pal who cracked the vilest jokes. I had a local pen pal from Kandy who told me how difficult it is for her to hide her teenage relationship from her family.
I also have long term pen pals who are in my close friends’ circle who enjoy writing cards and letters to me.
I love the idea of having someone to write letters to. It is an ancient practice (i.e. the only form of communication before the 19th century invention of the telegraph) that is probably unfamiliar and uncomfortable to most of my students.
In the spirit of encouraging my students to try writing with pen and paper I ask them to write letters to themselves (using the first person of course) mapping out their greatest struggles and how they overcame it. This writing activity allows a student to look at their own journey from a fisheye perspective. These letters are then read by me, graded on merit and finally shredded. The personal misfortunes that students encounter are quite shocking. As teenagers and as freshmen, they have to maneuver the college experience with Harry Potter’s wand in their hands and an indelible mark somewhere across their fragile bodies. I say this because they need to maintain a decent GPA, commit to their sorority and or fraternity activities, organise charitable causes, have a ‘good time’ and 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 university I teach at. The the same time, I make sure I encourage students to participate in Study Abroad programmes which will 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’s what I 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 intelligent 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.