Trials and Tribulations of a Teacher: Episode 1: Remind me again … WHY?
(Disclaimer: Although all the anecdotes I
recount are true stories that I have personally witnessed, or been part of,
they revolve around people I have met in different places where I have worked. I
have not experienced them all at my current working place. They are rather a
compilation of stories I have been accumulating through the years.)
Many a time I wake up from a reverie only
to discover that I have been daydreaming about being at one of those support
group meetings I see in Hollywood movies, but this one is not for cancer or
suicide victims or alcoholism or any other such addictions, for my addiction is
singular in nature. I imagine the moderator asking if anyone would like to
share; and amidst awkward silence, nervous smiles, fidgeting in chairs and
shuffling feet, yours truly would rise to the challenge. Without hesitation, I would
raise my hand; and after the moderator nods in my direction, granting me
permission to go ahead, I would stand up with my shoulders hunched (for my
posture has long given up on “uprightness”), clear my throat, take a
deep breath (or rather sigh deeply) and begin: “Hi, my name is Cherry and I am
a teacher of English!” – to which the circle of empathetic listeners would
respond in a monotonic lifeless chorus: “Hi cherry!” I would then proceed with
my story that reduces my audience of fellow downtrodden teachers to a mass of
snivels and sobs. Finally, they would give me a standing ovation and a group
hug. With the boulder lifted off my chest, I would go home feeling like Gal
Godot in Wonder Woman.
The story that instigated the daydream
today is actually three-fold. I arrive at school earlier than usual, on one of
the rare occasions that I didn’t have to spend half an hour in bed when my
alarm goes off on a soliloquy revolving around the theme of why I have to wake
up at the crack of dawn (when half the citizens in the country, including my
very own beloved students, are still fast asleep) to battle weather conditions,
impertinent money grubbing taxi drivers, 4 flights of stairs to my staff room
(while carrying my personal handbag, lunch box, laptop and briefcase) only to
be met with the lowest paid job in the history of the world, nonchalant
insolent students, demanding bosses (bordering on a hybrid between the Queen of
Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and Miranda
Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada), truly supportive colleagues who are either
jealous of me or who sneer at me (probably because they are jealous of me) and
parents who believe that I have a magic wand in one hand and a whip in the
other (that’s a topic for another day). Anyway, I arrive at my desk, huffing
and puffing and grabbing the stitch in my side. I stow away my bags under the
desk and consider the prospect of arranging a treasure hunt vocabulary game for
my first lesson, when I overhear a snippet of a conversation among several
colleagues.
Everyone had a horrified expression frozen
on their faces while they listened intently to a fellow teacher (Let’s call her
Miss. X) ranting about something. When I jumped on the bandwagon, I put the
pieces together. It turns out, Miss X’s teenage son and his friend (Mr. Y and
Mr. Z respectively) had gone missing for several hours the previous evening.
Mr. Y had called his mum explaining that they had taken a cab, whose driver
asked permission to take a little detour to fill up on gas from a specific
station. They graciously agreed. Then, the cab broke down and what with the
driver being an old man and both teenagers being truly chivalrous, they decided
to help the driver push the cab to the station, which was supposedly a few feet
away. They ended up pushing the cab around for 45 minutes. When the driver was
assured that they were both out of breath, he snatched their phones (which they
were using as flashlights because they were passing through a badly lit
suburban area) from their hands, jumped into the car, magically started the
engine and drove off! Miss X. gets a telephone call after several hours that the
apple of her eye is filing a report at the police station. Needless to say her
nervous system had already been frayed.
So far, the story is your ordinary horrific
mugging story. Luckily, no weapon was even used to threaten the gentlemen. However,
the tears that were, at that stage, only dancing at the corners of my eyes rushed
down my cheeks like an avalanche when I heard Miss X conclude her story saying,
“Involuntarily, I found myself hysterically instructing the son I spent years
raising to the ethics I uphold, to NEVER EVER help a stranger in distress
AGAIN!”
I
flashback to a dough eyed, plump 8 year old girl telling every adult who would
lend her an ear that she was going to become a teacher in order to help raise a
generation of youth who will grow up to be productive members of society. That
naïve little girl is locked up inside me, beating at the walls of my soul,
screaming, “Remember why you toiled for years until you became a teacher!”
Riddle me this: Why do I get out of bed at
the crack of dawn every day to sow, in the young fertile souls of the students
I cherish, the seeds of ethics that are destined to wither in the climate of
the jungle that we call our world?
Did you notice that I mentioned above that
there were three reasons why I started daydreaming in the fifteen minutes
before the bell rang for first class? Well, that’s a story for another day…
