British teacher's eyes

Dr..

Kamal Abdul Malik

January 13, 2023

My Egyptian academic friend told me that after more than 25 years he met his British teacher, Miss Vanessa, at a Middle Eastern studies conference in Washington.

She was a teacher of English at the University of Alexandria, and is now a professor of Middle Eastern history at major British universities.

I asked him how he recognized her after a quarter of a century had passed, and he said to me, “My dear friend, eyes never age!”

And he started telling me about the eyes.

A person's eyes can reveal many emotions.

A simple look, a blank stare, or a slight squint can convey deep meaning.

The expressive power of the human eye makes it the perfect literary tool for character development in fiction writing.

The eyes are a window to the soul, as William Shakespeare said.

And Ali, with tears in his eyes, read a copy he had kept of a letter of recommendation from Miss Vanessa for the Canadian university he had attended to begin his graduate studies in English literature.

“I would like to offer my strong support for the request of so-and-so...to study in a postgraduate program at your esteemed university.

I had the pleasure of being this student's professor in the English Language and Literature program at Alexandria University from 1970-1972. He...came to the English language program with high GPAs from a public high school, but his competence was largely dependent on an education system that stressed in Often on memorization and repetition and test the student's ability to remember hundreds of poetic verses and grammar rules with explanatory samples.

This was not in itself without some value, but it did not prepare him to meet the strict academic requirements of reading, research and independent critical thought according to our British curricula that we came to the University of Alexandria to apply, which are the requirements expected in Western academies in general.

This may partly explain the mediocre levels of performance in his early semesters, but perseverance and good doses of academic guidance and encouragement led to this young undergraduate showing his true potential to reach high levels of academic performance.

I am sure that your acceptance of an application... and a scholarship would make him very happy because it would give him the opportunity to engage in a program of studies with your fellow countrymen, and he is eager to roll up his sleeves to begin his studies in the aesthetics of the English novel.

There is no doubt that he tends to study literature and creative writing, as he aspires to be a novelist one day.

In an academic writing course I was teaching, he would give me a short story instead of an essay on a homework topic.

For a while, he worried me because I discovered that he has no clear boundaries between reality and imagination, as he always seems dreamy.

He once said to me: “I cannot bear to live my life;

My real address is at 21 Al-Khayal Street in Al-Ibdaa District!

I tell you with confidence that... a promising student loves knowledge and does not hesitate to initiate a search for it wherever it is. If we imagine that the world around us has frozen, we will surely find this Egyptian who is the first to come out of the hiding place into the street to see if walking in the streets has become safe for human beings. .

In conclusion, I would like to stress that I am happy, even anxious, to extend my strong support to his scholarly endeavors and to recommend him without the slightest reservation.

Yours faithfully, Miss Vanessa.”

Visiting scholar at Harvard University

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