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Torbek hasn’t been teaching for long, or at least it doesn’t feel like he’s been doing it for long, only around five or so years now.
Sure, the days feel longer than the years that had passed him by, but it always feels as though he was new every time.
His kids in highschool tended to be quiet at first, they all tend to do that, until the second week of school starts, then they turn into the rowdiest bunch Torbek will ever get to meet for the whole term.
Whenever they asked him questions, he felt as though he was already failing them. Was he not explaining clearly enough? Were there too many distractions? Did he have to buy one of those speaker things Lethica sometimes used so that people in the back of her lectures could hear her?
Hazel told him that the students being so active during class was a good thing, that no one had ever had a whole bunch of children raising their hands to ask their teachers questions in rapid fire.
Jean Claude’s students never seem to do that, neither did Frost’s sometimes or Gricko’s, and they were some of the greatest teachers Torbek knew. If his kids were always asking questions, didn’t that mean they didn’t understand what he was saying?
“Well, have any of them been failing?” Frost asks, looking at him across the table of their flat. “Have any of them been slacking off or skipping class?”
That was also a problem because Torbek hated when his students failed, which was why his office hours in both high school and college were open so late so the kids could come to him for help. He also tended to be more forgiving to the teenagers and kept giving them extra credit homework to make up for any lacking grades for him to compute.
“Not really.” He drawls, looking down at his dinner as his ears lay flat against his head. It was just him, Frost, and Gricko tonight since Kremy and Gideon were out for the night.
Which also meant that they were having take out and leftovers for dinner.
“Then what’s the problem?” Gricko asks after cleaning Hootsie’s face when she had smeared orange chicken sauce on her cheeks.
“Torbek doesn’t know,” he groans, “What if Torbek isn’t cut out to be a teacher? What if the kids grow up and it turns out that Torbek didn’t teach them anything useful?”
“Torbek, I’ve observed students rushing to the registrar and fighting their counsellors to be able to be in your classes,” Frost says, serving them up more fried rice with his mage hand while he held his bowl and chopsticks up, “The kids and the law students adore you.”
“Plus, your classes have been keeping the academy in the district’s top ten for academic performance, that has to counf for somefin’!” The goblin smiled, reaching over to give him a reassuring pat on the back of the hand.
“And your previous students in law school have all passed the bar with only some of them having to retake it, you’re single handedly keeping the passing rate for your department in the ninety or so percent.” There was some pride in the tabaxi’s voice, both for Torbek’s accomplishments and also the fact that he won a bet against Booker for who passed.
Torbek’s ears perk up a bit at that, a small smile appearing in his face.
“But also, didn’t one of your chemistry kids win the national junior inventors’ competition last week after you helped them with a formula?”
Clapperclaw always did have potential, they just needed to use their head-...er.
“It still feels weird for Torbek to be seen as someone who can teach.” He murmurs.
He moves his shrimp around, missing the look Frost and Gricko shared.
Torbek didn’t even seem like the kind of guy to have two postgraduate degrees in some of the hardest professions to have, and yet here he was, a lawyer and a biochemical engineer.
Frost sighs, reaching over to hold one of Torbek’s hand as Gricko took the other.
“How about me and Gricko sit in tomorrow for both classes and we’ll tell you definitively if we think you’re doing a good job?” Frost suggest, feeling his tail twitch as Torbek beamed at him.
“You guys would do that for Torbek?”
Gricko returns his grin, “I don’f see why not!”
“What class do you have tomorrow anyway?”
“Uhhh…aside from basic chemistry, Torbek is teaching administrative law tomorrow…”
—----
“So, what did you guys think?” Torbek asks, wringing his hands together as he looks at his partners nervously.
He did his best to ignore them while teaching, and at some point he found his groove only for it to be wiped away when he saw so many hands raising their hands when he opened the floor for questions, doing his very best to answer each and every one until the next lesson, where the teenagers repeated the action afterwards. The law students weren’t any better, asking around two or three question per person and Torbek felt defeated in the end, but he also felt strangely fulfilled when he was able to answer them all.
It was as if the students were testing him.
“I can see why so many students try to get you as their teacher, Torbek,” Frost nods, “You haven’t changed your teaching system since we were in college together.”
Torbek tilts his head at that, “What do you mean?”
“Remember when I asked you to tutor me when you were getting your second degree?” Frost ignores the way Gricko’s head snaps towards him at that minor confession, “You managed to explain things to me in a way that I understood the subject enough to know which and what questions to ask.”
“It’s a sign, Torbek!” Gricko explains, shaking off his initial shock. “When kids understand somefin’, they usually wanna understand it more so they be lookin’ for more answers!”
“And that’s a good thing, right?”
“Yes!” His partners exclaim at the same time, making him blush, tail swishing beneath his coat.
“Huh, Torbek never really thought of it that way…” He says rubbing his arm.
“I say we celebrate this new found epiphanity with dinner!” Gricko says, taking both their hands and dragging them out of the classroom, Hootsie running out ahead of them. “To the Restaurant!”
As they head to To Dinner, And Did Someone Say Breakfast, What About Lunch, and Tea?, Torbek smiles to himself.
He’ll always feel new to teaching a bunch of students, but maybe that was the trick for him to always do his best.