Statement of Teaching Philosophy
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
By Amritha Selvarajaguru
everyone's grandmothers die in november. that's just
the way things go: the leaves turn ochre and pattern
the ground like so much dappled sunlight over dark
soil; classrooms empty of their warm young bodies;
and grandmothers trip and fall, grandmothers succumb
to illness, grandmothers pass on peacefully in their
sleep. i don't question it. i offer tissues, shoulders for
bracing and weeping, deadline extensions. i avoid
putting zeros in gradebooks for as long as i am allowed.
it's not that i am naive; i just know how the world works.
how the end of fall turns us all whip-thin and haggard
as orphans, how everything feels so empty when sunlight
goes to hibernate. i know it's hard. i know. call me cruel,
but i don't care how many grandmothers die. i would
rather they die every november from any number of
terrible causes, over and over, lazaruses beholden to
the cycles of marking periods and finals schedules,
phantoms slaughtered again and again and again if
only i could be sure i'd see you back in my classroom.
Amritha Selvarajaguru is a first-year grad student working towards her MFA in Poetry at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago, who aspires to be an English teacher one day. She is deeply inspired by her time student teaching, tutoring, and working with children. Selvarajaguru admires the works of writers such as Ada Limón, Louise Glück, and Ocean Vung, is terrified of cockroaches, and always eats M&Ms in rainbow order from red to brown.
