By Uwem Umana
Patience, patience and more patience is a virtue
‘Let go of my hand’
‘What are you gonna do?’
‘I said let go of my hand’
‘What are you gonna do?’
‘If you don’t let go of my hand, I am going to yank it off me and by the count of three…three, two, one…’
A little crowd had gathered to watch this drama unfold.
‘What is Mr. Small going to do?’
‘Oh mehn, Ian is not letting go’ and many more whispers and utterances going on.
SHS is an all-boys school and most of the kids were from disadvantaged backgrounds. The boys thrived on one form of mischief to another. They hated boredom. Sometimes I used to wish that they would display such enthusiasm on their academic work as they did on mischief acts. The head teacher Ms. Pickjo loved the boys. She wanted them to do well but they were a constant sourceof grief. They were a pain in the backside and in the heart. One day Ms. Pickjo burst into tears in the year 11 assembly.
She said ‘What have I not done to you boys and you keep treating me with so much disrespect and walked away’.
‘This has been the most challenging school in my over thirty years of education career’, she told Benkath.
Ms. Benkath, the Deputy Head Teacher took over the assembly. She was very cross with the boys and rained brimstone. She ended on a reflective note with the boys and this sobered them a little. However, the boys actually thought the whole experience funny. Put it this way, they seemed to have enjoyed seeing Ms.Pickjo in that situation. You know that feeling when you score a goal or your team scores a winning goal – it was a subdued version of that sort of elation. I thought that was very mean and sad of the students.They could not care less.
It was the next period after break, people were still streaming to their classes and my class was lined up by the wall waiting to enter the classroom.
The period after break is always very tricky. Getting all the boys to their classes as quick as possible is always a challenge. All hands had to be on deck. Shoving, pushing, being edgy, sweating after a quick footie game, separation of fights, keeping the students orderly, were all part of this great move. It was in the midst of this, that Ian Brown, the little git, chose to demonstrate his hormone overflow.
I am not particularly a small guy in size. I weigh over one hundred and twenty kilos and my bulk is quite commendable. Yet, Ian chose to ignore this and tempt me to commit a sin against teaching.
After managing to get my students into the classroom, Ian decided to flex his muscles further by switching off the power button on my interactive white board. I ignored it and went to turn it back on. Just after turning it on and facing the students ‘today we are going to ‘, snap, the board went blank and off. It was Ian again. Some of the students giggled while some were beginning to get peeved. I turned around to look towards the door and I saw a shadow escape out of the room.
‘Sir it was Ian, sir it was Ian’, chorused some of the students.
Calmly I turned around and switched on the IWB again.
Waiting for it to power on, I could feel myself telling myself, ‘be calm’, ‘stay calm’; do not be tempted.
‘Alright boys, sorry about that interruption, let’s get started’.
‘As I was saying before, today we will be’, blank the board went again.
At this stage I thought my last nerve has been tripped and God help me.
I bowed my head and heart in humility and said ‘God please help me before I do something that I will regret for the rest of my life’.
I called on young Adrian and sent an emergency note to the SMT on duty.
Frustrating times were setting in. After the initial incidence, I had sent out a call and nothing had happened. Here we were again in the midst of a major intrusion, obstruction to learning and deliberate peskiness without an intervention. Would it be until murder is committed before intervention would arrive? Did they intend to call the police or ambulance? What happened to the good old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’.
Well, give it another go, I told myself. I turned on the IWB and just as I was about to start off Ian walked boldly into the room and pulled off the cable connecting my lap top to the IWB.
The fact that I am alive today and not in prison and still in the teaching profession would attest to my patience. I never believed that I could be that patient.
