Of Appreciate & Appreciations

As an academic year comes to its end, I would usually wonder whether my students have been learning while under my wings. And another matter that would linger in my mind is whether the students appreciate what I have done for them, purposely for them to pass and score in their exams.

And usually, these thoughts remain as thoughts. It is not common now to see every holiday to begin quietly, and to see students (perhaps they can now be called previous students) leaving the college premises without seeing their educators for one last time - to thank the educators for the education they have provided to the students in the academic year. Very few would do that. Some would send SMS thanking the educators. Well, that's better than to disappear as if one has never known or even met the educators before.

Students are becoming ungrateful. If they succeed, they feel it is due to their intelligence, hard work, talents, abilities, etc, etc. Yet, if they fail, it is often the educators' fault - the educators did not teach this and that, did not do this and that; the list goes on and on...

Selfish, I would say of these types of students. Like parasites, they suck out every bit of knowledge from the educators. When they are in the cold waters, they rely on and beg to the educators to save them. When they are out of danger, they would not even thank their savers.

MM is an educator too. Once she asked her students, "I've given 11 As to your class. What can you give to me?". Like all educators, she was expecting a word of thanks. Yet, nothing came out of her students' mouths. 

I have actually stopped expecting appreciations to come from my students. For I have generalised that all students are ungrateful. Yet the end of this academic year has surely displayed to me that hope is still there; that there is still light at the end of the tunnel; that there are still students who appreciate their educators' efforts and sacrifices to make them a better person in the future. 

I'll share with you what I have received from my students. They are not many but enough to soothe my heart:

A class gave me this cupcake. Small but still meaningful.

Almost the whole class turned up for the 'cake giving ceremony'.

 Together with the cake was this card.

 This was part of what was inside the card.

I was rather moved by these words.

 These are the students, who had presented me

with the cupcake and card.

 This is another card, given by a student a year ago.

 He alone sent this card but his card lifted my spirits

to soldier on.

So I guess there's really hope after all . . .