More than thirty years. This is a life from youth up to already …
The Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex has polished, developed, and shaped me, suppressing and excluding some characteristics, and at the same time, instilling and encouraging others. Most of all, I am thankful for instilling and strengthening self-sufficiency in me: I can myself organize the necessary tasks, from self-education to repairing the apartment.
At one point of that self-sufficiency burst, I enter a building materials store and begin to fill in my knowledge gap in the sphere of construction.
The employee, to whom I address the most stupid questions of mine, listens to me patiently, tries to understand what I want to know about and explains, presents, and informs using accessible methods. In response to my next insisting question, whether it would be possible to do this or that, the employee smiles.
“No, it won’t do, Ms Hasmik. You will have to pull it down and do it again.”
As he goes into the details, I look at him in astonishment, he catches my gaze and smiles.
“Don’t you remember me, Ms Hasmik? I am Vaghinak”
Of course, I do. I hug Vaghinak, ask about work, family, and classmates. I forget about my problems, give my best wishes, and leave.
The reason for my sleeplessness that night was Vaghinak. When did I teach him, at what grade, in which school, whose class was he from, how could I have so hopelessly forgotten him?
At dawn, I suddenly brighten up. Well, of course he is Vaghik. Not only have I not forgotten him, but one of the most memorable anecdotes of my work experience is connected with him.
In the 8th grade (at that time it was the final grade of the basic school) the Armenian language exam was a reproduction. They could do reproductions through various language games, but now they simply had to retell and compose. I read the text, explained the words that were rarely encountered, wrote the words with spelling problems on the board, read them again and told them not to ask any more questions.
The questions start in five minutes. No matter you have decided not to answer, you understand that they are learning now, the commentary on the given question is more effective now: they are motivated to understand and apply it now.
There were a few minutes left before the end of the lesson when I remembered that I had forbidden them to ask questions. I reminded them of my demand, frowned, and remained silent. But Vaghik’s pleading gaze melted me.
“Say!”
“What dish did they have to heat?” It was an extract from the story The Gift of the Magi “Heat the cutlets, Dellah.”
I get nervous.
“It doesn’t matter, Vaghik. It is the New Year and Christmas. They eat something. Write down “the dish”.
Vaghik completes the sentence and hands it in with the confidence of a man who has found the way out.
At home, I read the last line in Vaghik’s notebook “Della, let’s put aside the gifts. Heat the Dolma.”
I often pass by the store where Baghik works. It is on my usual way. All his friends greet me with a bow. I am “their Vagho’s teacher”.
***
Jorge Luis Borges …
Zoro had no interest in studying, particularly reading books. Borges’ name sounded more than strange from his lips.
“What have you read by Borges, Zorro?’, I say with irony.
“… Labyrinth”, answers he seriously. I get sober.
“How did you come to the idea of reading Borges?”
“You assigned it in the 10th grade and insisted on reading it in your presence. Did you forget?”
I couldn’t continue speaking for a while. To what extent had my self-confidence reached that I assigned Borges to a 10th grader who had just entered the educational complex, without even knowing him?
Once I met Zoro in Northern Avenue. He was with a very pretty girl. I thought he wouldn’t notice me. But suddenly he noticed me, brightened up, and came over, we hugged each other and…
“This is my wife”, he introduced her. I got happy. I wished them to be happy in their marriage life.
***
Are there many teachers who can boast of a legend woven around them?
After having wandered in the streets of Gyumri a lot, and after having visited a number of museums, we thought that it would be better if we ate some fruits. We were nearby the market, and I suggested buying some fruits, and the children said that they had apples about them but they had no knife to cut them. So we had to buy a knife. The apples were very tasty. It provided us with energy until lunchtime. It would have been forgotten amidst the impressions got in Gyumri, were it not for such a thing in Zvartnots in summer.
We were returning from the museum to the bus stop at the hottest time of the day. There was no water around. One of the children could no longer resist the thirst.
“If only we had something to wet our mouths with.”
We still had some apples but there was no knife again. And the Gyumri market was too far away.
“Let me see,” I say. I take the apples and divide them by hand (some varieties of apples allow this). While I divide and give the pieces to the children, Mariam and Anna look at me in surprise.
“Ms Hasmik, why did we buy a knife in Gyumri?”
I didn’t expect them to remember that insignificant incident that had happened six or seven months before. And the legend began: the excited girls presented their teacher’s incredible ability: supposedly I throw three apples up, and before they fall down, I rotate around my axis three times, then with a wave of my hand I immediately divide all the apples into four parts, directing them towards the children standing around me.
Sometimes it seems to me that I have appreciated my students for that legend.
So, they grow up, go to the army, return (or don’t return, like Garik, Soghomon), get married, sometimes marry each other, become specialists… You look at them and you are happy inside, just as the gardener is happy when he sees the fruit on the trees.
Life flows like a river. And you know that the river is eternal. But you also know that it is never the same river.
This is our undeniable wealth.