He was one of the first students I ever taught. Although, I now have a hard time remembering the names of BCIT students I had last term, I will never forget the students in my original class. As a freshly certified teacher, I went to Kuwait the September after graduating from college. I taught Grade 2.The bright and mischievous have always been the ones for which I felt immediate affinity. Jihad was my very first favourite troublemaker in 1981. Long ago, I concluded those times were just a part of my past. I held no hope I'd ever hear from any of them again. After all, that was not only decades and a great distance but also a few Gulf Wars ago.
The world really is a smaller place nowadays. After prompting, yesterday afternoon I joined a facebook group for former Al-Bayan school students and teachers. A former student had added photos which I'd once scanned and uploaded to flickr. She had marked many other students in it using facebook tags. (To see the whole class photograph, click the cropped image above. It's also available without a facebook account here.) Jad had left a comment under it. He tried to excuse his toothy grimace as being the result of my kung-fu grip. I added a message that implied he most probably deserved it. Last night, I got a direct message from him.
Facebook changes things. Who knows, maybe we can meet again someday. It would be very interesting as neither of us are kids anymore.