On Teaching, in Passing

I still occasionally tell my wife about an imaginary teaching session with ten thousand students at Mỹ Đình Stadium. There would be an enormous screen, and at one point I would turn toward the stands and ask everyone:

– What about the human body, everyone?

From far away, the crowd would roar in response:

– The human body is curved and diagonal!

It is hard to believe in a class like that, isn’t it? A place that exists solely for people to scream for hours, now filled with that many people sitting silently, listening to a lecture. My voice echoes through the space, and in a brief moment I look around, think about the past, and fail to recognize the present.

I do not know how far I will go in the next ten or twenty years. Perhaps I will still be teaching, but less frequently—maintaining only one class every two months with ten students, and one Advanced Class with around three people. Teaching at the advanced level is very demanding, but also deeply rewarding, because it is not only about teaching. I must understand what the person who comes to class every week truly wants, and what that desire is trying to express—often something they themselves have never considered—in order to give them something they never thought they could do. In other words, the issue lies with people, not with the lesson. People are full of risks and fluctuations, but I know I have succeeded when they achieve their first exhibition. It does not matter whether they draw, sculpt, or do anything else, as long as they are able to create what they want in the most professional way possible.

At this point, I am reminded of Nghiêm, my very first Advanced Class student. In fact, that class was originally taken by both Nghiêm and Chi, but she later withdrew, leaving just the two of us to carry on together. Nghiêm had already completed the online class, then moved on to the in-person class, and finally committed to the Advanced Class simply because he became deeply engaged. Nghiêm was not originally trained in fine arts; he works as an accountant and in business, and in the past he studied at the University of Technology. His only “fault” was that he loved drawing—and he also connected strongly with my way of teaching and drawing—which is why he stayed with the program for so long. Altogether, Nghiêm spent nearly more than twelve months studying with me. Everything I could give, everything I was able to do, I gave and did in full. My only lingering thought is still a quiet “if only”: if Nghiêm had completed every single homework assignment, he might have become even more formidable. I do not know what greater things he might have achieved, but I have already tasted the pride—his own, that of his wife Phong Anh, and of his younger brother—when he held his second exhibition. The task now is simply to maintain momentum, to keep hands and feet from growing slack, so that next year we can continue the struggle together with Sĩ tử 3.

On the day I saw Nghiêm off in the yard, as he rode away after the final class, I watched him disappear behind the wall. Suddenly, I felt a deep, quiet sadness, and I understood it as the feeling of someone who loves their profession intensely—a line of work that gives me an identity, and a form.