I want it that way
I have this one student. He is one of the difficult students I have ever had in my teaching life (only a few months of teaching life though). No matter how I tried to approach and persuade him to at least listen and do the work I have given, he tend to walk around the class and keep disturbing his friends. He would ask to go to the toilet and then he would never come back. He ate nasi lemak during my lesson even though he knew that it is not allowed to eat in class especially during lesson. He even smiled and laughed when I told him to stop. Oh gosh, I still remembered how I felt like taking that nasi lemak from his hands and smearing all the sambal on his face.
There were a lot of things he did and his name is often being mentioned in the small and informal meetings of the teachers who were and are teaching him. Due to that, I often had this dreadful feeling every time I went into his class. Just a glimpse of him made my stomach knotted. I used to think, "Oh my, he is here. Why did he decide to come today?". If he was to sleep in my class, I would be more than glad to let him do so. See, how bad I am as his teacher.
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."
One fine day, I tried to act upon the above quote. I told myself, "Hey, he won't be that bad every single day, will he? Let's pray and hope that today he will learn instead." So, I walked into the class with a smile. And the first person I made a friendly eye contact (I think I made that kind of eye contact okay) was him. He then stood up and quickly headed to the door. I thought to myself, "Oh my, he's gonna go out and disturb other classes this time. Oh well, off you go." But no, I was wrong. He went to the door and before I had to chance to ask other students to rub the board, he picked a piece of cloth that was on the floor near the door. He then rubbed the board.
"Stop hating someone for not being perfect.
If God wanted perfection, He would have made him or her an angel."
I was stunned and only God knows how I mentally slapped my face for thinking bad of him. I was so touched with the kind gesture that I totally ignored the other students at that time who were busy chatting and searching for their books (mind you they all were too noisy). He then said to me, "Teacher, sorry. I don't feel like studying today. Can I just rub the board and sweep the floor instead? Anything will do, but not writing in the book."
"Don't tell people to be good, instead, help facilitate goodness in them."
My heart went out for him. He is not that bad. There's still a part of him who wants to do good. He might be reluctant to study, but he might be glad to just do other work like helping teachers to do manual work. I don't know. I can't read him. I guess others too can't read him. That is why we tend to label him, judge him and punish him for our own judgement. I have learnt my lesson. Maybe one day I will meet this kind of students who what they need is not the formal lessons on subjects, but rather, the kind of lessons where they can learn to be a better person. Maybe from that kind of lessons only they will learn to learn.
: 19th October 2013.
: 12.46 p.m.
: Penang, Malaysia.
: Next week is the exam week. All the best!
