
The school year is over, and the students who are children are off to a summer of play, the younger ones skipping away and the older ones sauntering out the door. I remember my first year at the academy, when on the last day, my class of grammar school students hugged me goodbye, the whole class, all of them at once. It was like a scene from a movie. “This is my favorite class,” I thought in gratitude, my arms around three of the girls and boys, the others jumping about like joyful puppies.
I never had any of those six children as students again, and I don’t remember them entirely clearly. Why didn’t I take a photo of the class? Because just to take a photo in which a student appears—never mind posting it on the academy’s website—I first would need parental permission. But how often I itch to take one! “Okay,” I would say, “look this way, say cheese! Done!” Then I’d urge them to have a look. “Yes, that’s you!” Only, it’s not looking at the photo upon taking it that would be the real pleasure, for me and for them, but looking at it in the future. This year, I had several teens as students who have been in class with me for as many as eight years, and those two or three early years when they were brought and picked up afterward by their parents are hazy for me but hazier for them. “How old was I?” one boy asked just the other day. We figured it out together. Five. “You were this tall,” I told him, holding my hand out. We both looked at my hand, hovering waist high, then looked at each other as if to say, “Could that be true?” With a photo, we could check.
Or take handsome Martín, grown immense, both tall and wide, with a shock of wheat-colored hair across his forehead, who used to be a merely rotund little boy with a crew cut and a sneaky expression. Or was it sneaky? Yes, that expression portended trouble! And he was: wouldn’t stay seated but always wanted to peek at classmates’ progress on exercises, no matter how often I sent him back to his chair.
By the age of eight, however, he was listening to me better. At 10, he was shaking his head in dismay over his little brother—whom he called not a boy but a monkey! By then, with his little brother providing the example of what not to be, Martín had some clear ideas about how to behave, and he followed them. He was not a troublemaker after all.
But he was a lackadaisical student. On his term reports, I often commented that his pronunciation was good, but that he made no effort to improve in other areas of learning, like vocabulary or grammar. “He would be an excellent student if he made a bigger effort,” I wrote.
He never did. He remained merely mediocre. He kept growing. Both up and out. He kept coming to class. I kept sending home his reports. He developed a stammer.
This year he turned 13. He is as tall as I am and might weigh twice as much. He came to class one day when no other children appeared. “Game or story?” I asked. He wondered if, instead, he could practice a presentation for his English class at his middle school. It was his autobiography. “Of course,” I said, and he pulled out his notes. Together we organized the information to cover details about home, family, friends, and school. Under “About me,” he reported on his two hobbies, boxing and karate.
“Why do you like those sports?” I asked.
“Because I did them since I was five.”
“Have done them.”
“Because I have done them since I was five,” he said. No stammer. “I’m good at them.”
I nodded, careful to show no surprise. Privately, I wondered how such a large, lumbering boy could be good at sports requiring quick movement. Jumping, kicking, twisting, turning? I couldn’t picture it. We went on.
Next he described his family. “I have a brother, mother, and father. My brother is nine years old.”
“What else can you say about him? What is he like?”
Martín thought for a moment. “He’s nice.”
“Really?” I asked.
He again took a moment to consider. Then he looked at me. “Yes,” he said, with a smile. “He’s a monkey, but he’s nice.” Martín, five years old, crew cut and sneaky look, Martín seven with a loud voice, 10 and always with a story about his bothersome brother. Thirteen now, and able to sum his brother up in three good words. He’s come a long way. What, I wonder, will he be like next year? Better than a camera would be a crystal ball. But maybe not. Sometimes just imagining the future is good enough.