Unspoken Emily Shoemaker “Tell me about your first year of high school,” you say to the student sitting across from you. It’s his end-of-semester speaking test and he smiles at you nervously, eyes darting to the stopwatch on the table. You start the time. “Today I introduce my high school life,” he begins slowly, shifting around in his chair. “First, every day early wake up. So tired. Take subway for… for about one hours. When I arrive school, I play badminton. Homeroom teacher with. In the… the… teacher, what is gangdang?” “Gym.” “Play badminton in gym. Then I go to classroom and…” Though halting at first, your student warms up into his spiel as he goes. Just like the dozens of students you tested earlier today, and yesterday, and the day before that. Before these speaking tests you hadn’t realized that most of your students live at least a full hour of crowded, miserable bus or subway rides away from school. It is a facet of their daily existence that you hadn’t really thought about, and that bothers you. You find yourself wishing, as usual, that you had gotten to know them more personally earlier in the semester. But there were so many of them, and you were so focused on worksheets and lesson plans, and back then the sounds of their names kept slipping through your
memory like water through your fingers. Next semester you will not teach these students anymore. This is your third school. You know the drill. They will be busy with their new classes, and you will be busy with your new classes. There will be hallway greetings and lunchtime chats but things will never be quite the same. With each new semester you’ve learned to spread your emotions a little less thin. Maybe this time, you think, you will finally be able to find some peace in the goodbyes. You step toward them for the first time in the setting summer. You dance, twirling and pushing and stepping on each other’s toes as the leaves catch fire in fall. You love them as the embers fade into white winter ashes; then the soft smell of spring seeps into the air, and it is time for you to bow out and let them go. Before you came to Korea and became a teacher you had no idea how much these kids were going to mean to you. How much you would look forward to their smiles and waves, how many snacks you would conspire to eat together, how hard you would laugh at their animated commentaries and hilariously blunt answers to your delicate questions. How much you will miss the familiarity and trust shining in their coffee-mahogany-midnight gazes once they are gone.
