STORIES (4) :The Story of A Deeply Remorseful Teacher : (For All My Dear Students)

The Story of A Deeply Remorseful Teacher

The year was 1996. I was the English Teacher of Class-V at Wandgichholing School, Bumthang, Bhutan. I still remember the names of some students of that batch of Class-V, Archana,Thinley and a few others. All of them were quite bright and have distinguished themselves in their own fields in Bhutan.

Anyway, that day I had 2 English Classes with them. As the second class was about to begin, I took them out to the ground within the school compound.

At that time the construction of a stage was going on. There were bamboo poles and planks lying all over not very far from the place where I had my class sitting in a circle. I was standing in the middle with the English Textbook held firmly in my hand.

I don’t remember the name of the story I was about to read out to the students anymore. I had rehearsed reading it out the night before as per the Lesson Plans. At the start of the lesson, I made sure that I had the undivided attention of the class by asking a few usual, attention-grabbing questions. Once the stage was set, I started reading it out to the class sitting in a circle under the bluest of the blue skies.

I couldn’t have gone any further than a couple of paragraphs when there came a cat call.

MIAOW!!!

I stopped to look at the students sitting in that part of the circle right opposite me. A few of them broke into a giggle while the more serious ones looked uncomfortable. You can take it from me, dear reader, that I was far from being in a jolly frame of mind.

I had to do some quick thinking. Was I to yell at the miscreant? Or, should I keep on reading as if I hadn’t heard the call at all? Should I give them the impression of remaining calm and composed still, no matter what had happened?

I decided to keep on reading out the story from the book.

Now, I was in my early thirties in those days and knew not much about the winning and calming ways and effects of a good teacher. I happened to be, by nature, very short-tempered as well. Truth to tell, I had lost my cool and composure the moment there came the interruption.

But teachers, I learned in due course of time, had to be great actors as well. So, without letting anyone know anything about my real feelings, I went back to reading out from the book again. Students are students and they must never try to take liberties with the love and kindness of the teacher.

I had a thought haunting me though – I had to find out the culprit at the earliest before things went out of control.

I forced myself into reading back from the book before looking at the next few lines. I started reading out the next line while my mind was thinking of a way of catching the culprit out for fun red-handed. Right then a great idea cropped up in my head. If I could memorize the next few lines and pretended to be immersed in the book, it might be possible to catch the culprit off guard.

By then, I had finished reading the next sentence and must have made the pupils think that I had my eyes glued to the book. I had hardly read out the next two words and was continuing with the next few from my memory when I was interrupted by the second MIAO…!!!

The unruly student couldn’t finish the sound down to the last ‘W’ sound. I turned my glance at him as soon as he had begun the cat call.

With my gaze fixed on him, under my glaring eyes, he cut a pathetic figure, looking guilty, frightened and helpless. Unfortunately, I had reached the end of my tether by then.

“ Go, get me one of those planks.” I cried out through clenched teeth to the Captain sitting on my right in a very calm and composed manner .

The Captain though, with a scared look on his face, got up and fetched me the plank within no time.

I dumped the book on the ground before catching hold of the plank with both hands. The rascal by then had risen up on his feet from his place and was trying to slither away from me round the circle of students.

He couldn’t get very far though as I was taller and because of my long legs. He zigzagged his way in and out of the circle like a pro Hadudu player. That was a mistake he made as I pounced on him from the outside.

The terrified fawn had fallen to the ground under the impact of the collision and was trying his best to get up when I brought the plank down on his head with all my might like there was no difference between the Devil and myself!

C – R –A — C —–K!

The plank had broken into two!

As the boy was kneeling down, his hands on his head, crying wildly at my feet, I regained my composure and lifted the boy back up by his arm.

Looking around, I knew that I had the support of the class.

Later, back in my quarters, I felt deeply remorseful as I realised my mistake of the day. I thanked God as the boy was safe and sound. Nothing serious or untoward had happened to him. Bhutan, the Happiness Country though was to ban all kinds of corporal punishment to the children by the late 90s.

No matter what, how much naughty a student might be, a teacher MUSTN’T use physical force on a child or loose his cool and control under any circumstances.

A teacher must try to win the love, affection and respect of the students by being a role-model, not by using force or displaying the power of his muscles or anything else.

The end