Assassination Classroom

I’ve watched plenty of anime series ever since I was young. But when adulting happened, I could barely spare a good night sleep for myself. When I lost my job, some would have thought I was lucky because I have my parents to provide for me, I had lots of time to review, to sleep, to do whatever I wanted. But they were all wrong. I couldn’t even read the books on my bookshelf, I had a hard time sleeping and always woke up tired. I couldn’t even eat on time. I was grieving. I was dealing with anxieties and breakdowns. I was a whole mess with a full mask on.

During this pandemic, some would even say I’d have it easy because I’ve been staying indoors even before quarantine. Wrong again. I’ve been experiencing writing and reading slumps, minor burnouts, anxieties, falling outs, pushing myself too hard to be productive just to keep myself from sinking back into a black hole. But when I kept a distance from people I got too used to and got myself off the radar from everyone, I asked help from some trusted friends, and did what I had to do: to truly take care of myself. Even if it was an illogical decision I’ve made for the best of my own well-being, or it meant to let go of a piece in my present to properly address my haunting past, I had to.

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I started off bit by bit. There are times that I still lose energy and feel some things to be repetitive. I started watching anime again and shifted from watching, to reading, to writing, to doing absolutely nothing. Then I came across Assassination Classroom after months of it being stagnant on my desktop. Its where students assassinate their own classroom teacher, Koro-sensei. But, their teacher is no ordinary creature. He is a powerful one that they have to assassinate or else he’ll blow up the earth.

At first I really found it funny. But if you look at it closely, it has a profound message of being a teacher on a bunch of students you get to see in real life. Somehow, this anime series hooked me a lot compared to The Promised Neverland and The Demon Slayer. Well obviously (or not), it’s because I could very well identify myself to Koro-sensei as a teacher.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. But my mom won’t let me, given her experience as one, plus I have a really bad eyesight haha. Even if I wasn’t able to take up Education as my major, I still ended up teaching. When I started teaching, I was going through depression. I never thought highly of myself just because I was a teacher. And it came to a point that whenever my students didn’t listen to my lectures or got really low grades I would always blame it on myself, and that I was incapable. Maybe because of how I looked, or because I really was incapable. Or how some of my students had dared to question me or crossed the line. Or maybe I crossed the line.

But despite struggling to keep my sanity intact, some students really left an impression on me. Some made me love to teach, some made me hate it.

For 3 years, I did the best I could that didn’t seem enough. I lost myself in the process. I made myself feel too responsible for everything that it made me lose the passion of helping, even teaching. I experienced burnout and anxieties. When I lost my job, the mention of job opportunities, or questions of what I would do next stirred anxieties that I had a hard time controlling. I started dreading teaching and counseling. Just thinking of facing the crowd made me dizzy. This happened for a year.  

Watching Assassination Classroom, more than a comical story on assassinating Koro-sensei, made me realize a whole bunch of things and sparked a fire which I thought was gone. It reminded me why I wanted to teach.

Some would think being a teacher is about a stable job, being able to avenge yourself on students of what you have gone through from your terror teachers, being able to sleep soundly at night, or even demanding respect from students, thinking you are way smarter than them. Wrong. Its more than that.

Being a teacher is no matter what kind of students you have, you are there to guide them through and through with their strengths and weaknesses. It’s not all about the salary and its glory. But of how noble that job is. That seeing your students grow into people they never thought could be, is very gratifying.

It’s to remind them to keep their feet on the ground when they achieve something or start getting so full of themselves. When they fail, you remind them not to give up, to keep their head held high and take a step to do better next time. That teachers can’t help their students if they don’t do something about themselves either. Students complain, but teachers complain too. I complained too much either haha. But despite complaining, I never gave up on my students, no matter how demonic we seemed to each other sometimes hahaha.

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Students may be trying hard for themselves, but they should remember that their teachers are working hard for them too. There’s a feeling of being a proud parent or a sense of achievement while seeing them learn as they rise and fall.

Teaching is just like any other relationship, you can’t cultivate it, if it’s only one way. The students are not the only ones learning from their teachers. Even teachers learn from them too. Teachers try to improve and educate themselves every day to pass it on to their students.

It’s got different colors just as how colored Koro-sensei’s expressions are. It can be as vigorous as yellow with smiles and nonsense, but as depressing as blue when you feel like it’s not enough. You might feel as fiery as red from losing composure and as sick as green from working too hard. It’s always ups and downs. It’s never perfect. Methods and principles differ. Even students themselves. But when you go through it and learn, the most gratifying sight to behold is to see them grow in their own perseverance and a genuine thank you to suffice from the sleepless nights of creating tricky exams, to long hours of lectures.  

Students might not know this, but teachers are also concerned with how their students see them. Just like Koro-sensei, how my students viewed me mattered. Whenever they got to see a side of me beyond my blank, strict exterior, it made me think and worried that they might change the way they saw me, the way I taught. But whenever some of them reached out to me or still greeted me with respect, even when I wasn’t teaching anymore, is just heartwarming. Well, except to some who have dared to cross the line, spouted profanity at my face, or dissing me behind my back, forgetting where they’re coming from hahaha.

I know I’ve always loved to teach, even if it meant to jeopardize my own well-being.  Like Koro-sensei, no matter how hard, I had put my students first before me. But in a realistic, practical sense, I can’t really afford to lose myself again and hate what I’ve loved ever since I was a child just because I couldn’t take care of myself. This means teachers deserve to rest too when they get tired of teaching sometimes.

With this pandemic right now, I’ve been doing my best to take care of myself, integrating lost parts of myself bit by bit. It made me realize that I can’t always think about other people and how they feel. That somehow, I need to check on myself too. That I can’t be a teacher when I’m in a bad shape. That it’s okay to be exhausted and take a step back even for a moment.

Koro-sensei mentioned that, sometimes, it’s okay to run and hide. It hit me. That it’s okay if there are things beyond my control. It’s okay to run away from feeling too responsible for everything. That I can’t help everyone who won’t even help themselves. It’s not like losing hope for them, but to also have them fend for themselves, have their own choice and support them with that, even from a distance.

Nevertheless, I know I had my mistakes, and I know I still have room to improve myself for all the mistakes and hardships I’ve gone through as a teacher for a span of three years. And I’ve come to realize that I did teach students under my care who have a big future ahead of them, who still remember what I’ve taught them despite my methods and the time that passed.

There might be students who were ungrateful, some might’ve even forgotten me already, some who might have disliked or gossiped behind my back. But one things for sure, I’m thankful of how all my students made my life as a teacher worthwhile, may it be good or bad. I may not remember all of them, nor have liked all of them, but I’m thankful of how they reminded me to keep my ground as a teacher. Imperfect as I am, they helped me hone my conviction and skills as a teacher. 

Even if the administration couldn’t recognize my hard work as a teacher, I’m still glad some of them have recognized that hard work from my strictness during exams, to my attending classes while being tolerably sick. I may not be as perfect as Koro-sensei in getting their grades up or as intelligent as any teacher in their lifetime, but I do hope they always remember that everything is not all about grades, but of what they learned. And I do hope they did learn from me.

I may not be able to teach a whole classroom anytime soon, or even in 2-3 years. But I do know that after taking care of myself more, I would love to teach again. That I shouldn’t work too hard and forget about my own well-being. To my future students, I’d probably say the same thing: that it’s gonna be hellish, but it will always be what you learn and not just your grades.

This series really hit me big time. I didn’t even expect to cry a river, not even write this draft right after watching while thinking “if only the end could’ve been different.” But Koro-sensei was right, the fun ends in the classroom. The end of any class for a year, or a term could be overwhelming and sad, but it meant for a new beginning of the end.  

P.S. To all my fellow teachers, not to question your abilities, but I do hope you always remember why you’re teaching and remember to take care of yourselves. To future teachers, you’ll cross the bridge when you get there, so just hang in there haha. But always do remember to keep your ground. To all students, I do hope you respect your teachers no matter how much you like/dislike them. You can voice your opinions out of learning, not out of sheer arrogance.  Remember, you still have a long way to go.

 

Writer,

Thin Girl