My sister's partner recently died from cancer. It was a particularly aggressive form of cancer, and from diagnosis to death, there was less than a year. A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving to work, I was reflecting on this: that from when he was diagnosed to when he died, was a very short timeframe. I was also thinking that despite not knowing it was there, didn't change the fact that it was silently growing behind the scenes. Secretly devouring all of the good cells in his body, and leaving infected, malignant cells in its wake. In essence, the lifespan of the cancer was much longer than his knowledge of its existence.
A quick search1 shows that the word malignancy can have a number of definitions. When used in regard to a tumour, it means that said tumour is more likely to invade normal tissue or is more likely to reoccur after removal. When being used in reference to disease, malignancy means highly virulent or infectious, and when referred to in most other circumstances, it can mean that something is evil in nature or malevolent. Essentially, regardless of the context, the state of being malignant is not very pleasant, and further to this, having something malignant in your life is not necessarily cause for joy.
As I thought about malignancy in its more commonly used from, I had a question begin to gnaw at the edge of my mind. As it percolated a little and slowly took form, I found myself contemplating the idea of malignancy in a different context altogether. I started to wonder if malignancy was not just a term that should be reserved, primarily, for medical reasoning, but whether there was justification for using it in more common settings - in everyday life.
At the time of thinking this, I had somewhat of an understanding of the term, and how it related to cancer, in particular, and as such, it seemed to fit with life in the broader sense. My idea of malignancy was that it was something that was bad and not easily fixed, but it wasn't until later that I actually investigated a more formal definition of the word, and found that it aligned better than I had first thought with my idea of how it might fit with some areas of life.
I guess what I was contemplating, was something along the lines of the following: how do the malignant 'things' in our lives affect us, and how do we get rid of them, or at the least, stop them from growing? Really, all I did here was take any other words we might have used for the rotten areas of our lives and replaced them with the word malignant, but it's not that simple in my mind. To me, in my reasoning, malignant means so much more than something that is invasive or evil. When associated with how we choose to live, it 'feels' as if it takes on a whole new persona. (Like I said, complex in my mind, and difficult to explain in words.)
Let me try and illustrate this. Imagine you have a desire to be a public speaker, but you are an introvert. You can speak in front of people, but you find it difficult to hold the audience's attention because you're afraid of what they'll think if you become emotive or animated in your expressions. There's something there that is holding you back and stopping you from living your dream. Call it what you will - fear, anxiety, trepidation - whatever you choose to name it, it's there and it's going to stop you from reaching your potential as a public speaker until you do something about it. It's malignant because if left unchecked, it will continue to invade your life until it has taken over. You could blame being introverted, and resign yourself to the idea that you'll always be this way. Or you could do something about it - fight it until you're able to realise your dream of public speaking.
I chose public speaking because that's something I've always struggled with. Ironic, right! A teacher struggling with public speaking, but it's more common than you probably realise. I'm happy to stand in front of 400 students and make an utter fool of myself in the name of education, but put me in front of the faculty, or a group of 10 adults, and I become the most boring public speaker known to man! I, like the example above, am introverted but unlike the example above, I'm not really interested in turning public speaking into a career. However, I do want to be confident enough that when needed, I can step in front of an adult audience and deliver a message that they will remember for a long time. That requires dealing with the malignancy in my life. Finding the problem, working to stop it spreading and taking control of my fears. It's not easy, but how freeing it is, once accomplished!
That day, when I had this thought, I was teaching some Year 7's Math during the last two lessons (yeah, great time to be teaching Year 7 Math!) and as they were working through some problems and I was wandering between the tables, I got to thinking again. What malignancies were these students carrying? (In some cases, growing undetected, like the cancer my sister's partner had.) What was eating at them; causing them distress?
The students in our classrooms today, live in a world where the news cycle is constant and they are carrying all the information they want in their back pocket, available for them to look at as often as they want. How thankful are you that you grew up in a time where the news was relegated to a morning paper, an hour at 6pm, and some scattered news updates across the course of the day? When I was in Year 7, I had no idea what was going on in the world. My biggest concern was making sure my BMX had an oiled chain and where I'd get the next tyre from after I'd done too many skids and burst the current one I owned.
I'm not sure what we can do to help our students remove the malignant areas in their lives. I guess, that we can just keep on supporting them as we already do. Making sure that if and when they need, we will be a trusted person whom they can talk through their worries with. Maybe we offer advice, maybe we just listen and silently support them as they work through their issues. Either way, I think that by being one more authentic presence in their lives, we are at least offering them options for the time when they feel ready to reach out.
1Malignancy meaning
Cover Image Background - Joel Fillipe via Unsplash
