Two days ago, on Friday, my whole Biology class took our teacher out for lunch.
There was about 20 of us and after our lab was over at 11:30, we all hopped in each other's cars and drove down to 5th Street Bar and Grill where we spent most of the afternoon, talking and laughing. It was really lovely.
The occasion for all this? Our Biology teacher, Bill, announced last week that his cancer has returned and that he would be going into chemotherapy next week, and thus would no longer be teaching our class. When I heard this news, I was absolutely shattered, as were my classmates.
Bill has been incredible to us this semester, he is one of the most amazing teacher's I've ever had:
First of all, he us utterly brilliant.... he has a PhD in molecular biology and has written several books, he was also part of the team that discovered how a sperm propels itself. He has taught at various prestigious universities, but soon made more money than he could possibly want and retired. He and his wife moved to Victoria, and she got a job as the Head of the Nursing Department at Camosun. It wasn't long before Camosun was short staffed and asked Bill to teach a Biology class. He was growing bored at this point and accepted.
Second, building off the first point, he loves his job. He's not there out of necessity or with research as his main goal. He's there because he loves to teach and he loves the subject. When we met him on the first day of class, we all thought he was a bit crazy because of how passionate he became while talking about the internal structure of a cell (organelles, etc). But over time we grew increasingly fond of this quirky, lovable old man. His teaching style is unique and very effective, I've learnt an incredible amount from him. He's also not an evolutionist, but reminds us often that evolution is only a theory and there are other options to consider. Finally, he teaches us more than the subject matter... he'll usually spend the first half hour of class showing us new research on this or that natural remedy and what it will do. He believes in holistic and natural health, and prevention as opposed to treatment. All this I really appreciate about him.
With heavy hearts all week, knowing Bill was sick and was leaving us, we planned a farewell lunch at 5th Street, and passed around a giant card in which everyone wrote words of encouragement and love and appreciation.
Knowing all this, it's understandable that the news Bill would be with us until the end of the semester because he couldn't get into treatment was met with mixed feelings of joy and concern. He told us Friday. Joy because now we could continue to see him and learn from him daily... concern because we want him in chemo as soon as possible so he can beat this thing!
Regardless, we took him out to lunch anyways and gave him the card and a small gift. He hugged us all and talked excitedly about the material we'd be covering in the next few weeks. He seemed happy to be staying.
Afterwards, back at home, I thought about how it would feel to be a teacher in his position, and have your class take you out to say goodbye. You'd know you were doing something right... and he certainly is.
