Thanksgiving to Those Who Have Gone Before Us
Lynne Fukuda
Instructor of Anthropology
Central Texas College
E-mail: lfukuda@hawaii.edu
Dedicated to all learners of the world—may they all be given the gift of learning and the opportunity to learn in the best conditions possible. May they never be discouraged and continue to learn all their lives.
I am a bundle of nerves. From the young age of nineteen, when I began to teach children, until the present day, close to thirty years later, I continue to shiver and have white knuckles when I approach a teaching assignment.
One day, as I prepared the third graders for First Communion, we discussed our future saint, Father Damien, who worked with the Hansen’s Disease patients of Molokai. I told them:
“Imagine if he were so afraid he would catch leprosy that he would have turned and run at the sight of the first patient who had a nose or fingers missing.” I continued, “But like doctors and nurses, who are constantly exposed to scary diseases, Father Damien’s love was so overwhelming that it overrode his fear of disease and of death.”
This is similar to how I feel many years into the teaching profession, fearful of my new class, of my new students, of my new work. It is my overwhelming love for teaching and the great fondness I possess for my students that enables me to overcome one of my greatest fears.
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