|| T H E F I R S T L A S T G O O D B Y E ||

           

  I’m writing this post as a token of appreciation to the Grade 12 students that stuck around and stayed loyal through the major fluctuations my writing club faced. This past Wednesday was their last meeting with the club, and I was only made aware of that when my Chief Editor (whose name I will conceal) approached me and asked if I had thought of a replacement for him yet. His question, although it unnerved me, made me realize how loyalty and faithfulness in the little things often times go unnoticed. I realized that I was too busy racking my brain on how to get the club approved, acknowledged and whatnot that I forgot to cherish the time I had with my Grade 12 writers. But first, let me back up and tell a little bit of the background.

            A year ago (or should I say last Academic Year) I started a writing team in hopes of making a mark in the school I’m currently teaching in. I started with the vision of hopefully uniting a school with 1,000+ students in it with writings that encouraged honesty, independence, faith, and interdependency. I envisioned uniting and weaving the community through the power of the written word, and I was so excited to get started that I overlooked the details. I had been asking my colleagues who currently are leading successful student-focused groups how they started, and their answers rang all the same. They told me to recruit, run, and hope for the best. So I started recruiting, not knowing the full price I had to pay.

            For the initial team, I shyly recruited six members last academic year—all of them Grade 11 at the time and two Grade 10’s. I recruited two months before the last Academic Year ended. When I approached them and told them of my ambition, I appeared cool and normal, but when they left after they agreed, I kicked myself out of embarrassment. I didn’t think this would work. I didn’t think this would last two months. But I had to give it a shot.

            As time passed by and the academic year changed, the Grade 11’s became Grade 12’s and the Grade 10’s 11’s. Our writing club also grew from six to ten, from ten to twenty-one active members. Three months into the new school year our numbers fluctuated drastically due to members either not showing up or forgetting to pull their weight. Finally, a month in to this semester (January, I believe), I took the courage to kick people out of the club—those who haven’t shown up in four months or more, and I managed to narrow down the twenty-one back into a meager eleven members. Alarmingly, save for two students, the original Grade 12 members that I recruited stayed, performed, and continued to be loyal.

            A few months into the second semester, I gathered enough courage to post recruitment posters. Since then, the club has had new members with a fresh fervor and passion for writing that was missing in the cohort that I had to kick out. But that’s not my point here.

            This past week was the seniors’ last week in school before they head out to take their National Exams and their long-awaited internship, and I was baffled at how unprepared I was for their leave. For the club, I was focused on regeneration—I was zooming in on how to recruit Grade 10 and 11 students so that the club would stay alive and running. Yet I think I focused too much on regeneration and too little on appreciation.

            So, to my Grade 12 writers who stayed faithful even when the club organization’s not that ideal, thank you. Thank you for committing every Wednesday 3:30 to 4:00 PM through thick and thin. Thank you for submitting articles even when you’re not really sure if they’d be posted in time or not. Thank you for sticking around and helping to improve the club's organization so that it could continue to be better for the next generation of writers in this school. Thank you for supporting the club and for giving it your best shot albeit the club being unofficial and independent. 

Thank you, Grade 12 writers. May you continue to cherish the written (or typed) word.