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Many years ago, I was the teacher-librarian of a Calgary high school. Times were good and budgets were generous. In addition to two full-time assistants, I hired student helpers. The students were dependable and quick to learn whatever tasks I set for them. I paid them to shelve books, move equipment, find magazines and water the plants (they discovered that someone had started several marijuana plants in one pot, but that’s another story).
The library staff found every excuse to have parties, especially at Christmas, Easter and the end of the school year. Sometimes, we brought food and sometimes our students contributed. The party I’ll never forget occurred after my first trip to East Asia. While there, I encountered fresh lychee for the first time in the apartment of a nun I met on the street when I stopped her to ask the times of church services. The cold fruit was doubly welcome on a hot and humid day in Hong Kong.
I related my experience to a student assistant who had advised me on tourist sites in Hong Kong. He also told me that the gold pendant I’d purchased there symbolized
fertility—not
good luck, as I had believed. How was a single, nearly middle-aged woman from Canada to know that the two symbols meant the same thing in Hong Kong? No wonder my assistant blushed when he told me.
The surprise, and definitely the highlight of the year-end party, was when my student assistants produced fresh lychee. At that time, it was not commonly available in Calgary’s grocery stores. I was tickled pink that they not only remembered my experience, but that they acted on it.
I learned yet again that I should never underestimate my students and I should never cease to learn from them. Although I’ve long since lost track of my student helpers, I’m convinced they’re happy and productive citizens.
Anne Stang lives in Calgary.
