Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve

There is something strangely poetic about walking back up the hill into SJI International, having graduated in 2018, except this time, with the green staff lanyard clinging to your neck instead of your student card in your pocket.

The SJI International campus feels the same, and yet completely different. The same fountain. The same picnic tables. The same hill that somehow still feels longer in the 3:30pm heat once the bell rings. The same sound of chairs scraping against the floor as students rush out of lessons. And of course, the same enthusiasm with which we sing “We are Lasallian” at every school event. 

But now, instead of handing in worksheets, I am the one handing them out, reminding students about Biology IA deadlines, answering last-minute meiosis or respiration questions before tests, and trying to remember to address my former teachers by their first names (calling Ms. O’Kane “Kellie” still feels ever so slightly off).

Coming back to SJI International as a teacher feels a little like looking at a diorama from a different angle. I notice life from a perspective I’ve never seen before. As students, we see a specific version of school life: from rushing from lesson to lesson as the bell goes — never having enough time to make it from the Sports Hall to the fourth floor Maths classrooms — to the assemblies, events, and activities.

As a teacher, you begin to see the invisible framework holding everything together: the pastoral care, the hours of lesson planning, requesting labs, meetings before and after school, the emotional energy poured into students every day… and, not to forget, the shocking volume of marking, staining the side of my palms in red ink.

Returning as a teacher has also made me think more deeply about the educators who once taught me. I think we carry small parts of the people who shaped us into the way we teach, speak, encourage, and care for others, and combined with our own experiences, become an amalgamation of something truly unique and special.

I see this in the way I teach, channelling parts of my teachers that I admired back when I wore the school uniform. But somewhere along the way, teaching also became a process of discovering who I am for myself, and morphing those moments of channelling others into simply channelling myself as a teacher. The more time I spend in the classroom, the more I realise that learning does not stop once you stand at the front of it, and the more I am reminded of our school’s motto: “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve.”

When I was a student, I understood “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve” as an instruction; as us working towards a future goal– learn now to serve later. A kind of linear journey.

Coming back as a teacher made me realise it is less of a straight line and more of a cycle.

I entered SJI International in Grade 7 to learn as a student, and felt like I finally earned the right to “leave to serve” when I graduated after IB. But now I have returned and found that learning never really stopped after graduation — from colleagues, from students, from mistakes, from lesson plans that don’t go according to the timeline. At the same time, I do feel like even in returning, that I have left to serve; teaching in itself is service. It is showing up every day for students, even when you are tired, trying to create a classroom where they feel seen and supported, and helping them navigate the same stresses and uncertainties you once experienced yourself. 

There are moments when I see my younger self reflected in my students: the last-minute panic before exams, the joy when they finally understand something difficult, or the counting of marks during a test, trying to calculate what their score might be. Having once sat in the exact same classrooms, the science labs with the wooden stools, gives me a sense of empathy that is hard to put into words. I remember what it felt like to be on the other side of the desk, quietly trying to make sense of something before class began, not always succeeding, but hoping the next explanation would help.

The older I grow, the more I realise that learning and service are not separate stages of life, but things that constantly shape one another. Maybe that is why the school motto never really stops applying to us. Even after we leave, we are still learning — learning so that we can better serve others, and learning so we can better serve ourselves.

For me, that is a big part of what makes coming back so meaningful. SJI International no longer feels like simply a place I graduated from. It feels like a community I continue to learn with, serve with, and grow with, and a place that’s consistently shaped my sense of identity, even after I’ve left as a student and returned as a teacher. 

In many ways, I think that is the beauty of a Lasallian education. The cycle never really ends with graduation. In my case, coming back to the school grounds was the catalyst to realising that, but it rings true for everyone. We are all constantly entering to learn, and leaving to serve — over and over again.

The hill up to SJI International still feels as steep. Only now, I understand more clearly what it means to climb it.