Tribute To My Teacher

We all did have that Grade Seven primary school teacher whom we feared worse than ghosts and tikoloshes ( the closest thing I can think of are leprechauns) that wreaked havoc in the tales our mothers and fathers told us when we were young. This teacher was usually a man (no surprise there) and was famous for his agility in administering corporal punishment to the errant and insubordinate student, as well as to the well-behaved. I reckon that is where the consolation laid—no one was safe from this marauding beast. You could be doing something as innocent and necessary as adjusting your undies beneath your khaki shorts, and you’d be accused of “playing” and not concentrating.

   This bully-teacher would go out of the classroom for a few minutes and when he returned, anything as low giggles, the drop of a pen, silent whispers—or anything that his ear caught—would be classified by him as  abhorrent noisemaking. And by extension that would mean lack of discipline on the part of the defenceless pupils. Thereafter it would be game time. You’d be thrashed with a dry bamboo stick, whipped with an electric cord, or flogged with a leather belt. You see, the weapon of choice depended on the mood of the teacher; the great exacting educationist.

   Now let me make it clear that this kind of a teacher was a preserve—and a creation I dare say—of government or public schools. So as such, some of my friends and all those who went to private schools had no experience of this kind of education. They would listen to us in rapt attention, jaws agape, as we the unfortunate victims of public education, told our arresting stories of our Grade Seven teachers, who were sent straight from the dark and murky dungeons of hell— with compliments.

   With childishness, they’d envy (can you believe it!) us and wish that they were also in on the action that went down every day on the “public side”. Now when I think about it, I realise that they kind of felt isolated because the majority of us went to public schools didn’t find their teachers at the “private side” interesting. Hell, if anything, we thought private education was a bore! The punishments (that is what they called it) seemed bizarre and a bit of a joke: with all the two-hour detentions, time-outs (whatever on earth that is) and extra homework. So in our uncanny way, we were the heroes in the eyes of our friends who went to private schools and that kind of felt good. But the flogging didn’t.

   Let it be put in the open that there was always a heated debate amongst us who attended kaHulumende (government) schools, on who had the worst Grade Seven teacher. Each and every one of us within my circle of friends (there were three of us) would come back from our different schools to tell of the torture we’d undergone that day. We’d try to outdo each other in our stories and, no doubt, we added a bit of curry and garlic here and there in a bid to have the most tantalising story. And stories did come out. One of my friends would begin, as solemnly as he could: ‘Today I had a donkey-ride.’ Satisfied with the puzzled look we’d offer in return of this brief and indeed puzzling statement, he’d continue to tell us that the “donkey-ride” was a kind of punishment their teacher had inflicted on them, He’d then go into all the gory details and end by noting that after their teacher was done, everyone was crying, including the beard-shaving seventeen year old boy who sat at the front row. In fact, he’d add, this old boy had been the first one to “ride” and cried like a baby.

   There’s tonnes of these stories we shared amongst ourselves, but the most important thing when narrating your experience was to make it seem as bloody as possible, and of course, a scar, or some kind of scratch on your face, hand or behind; or wherever really, got you the bonus points. It was only then that we’d take you seriously. Notwithstanding my two friends’ ability to spin a pretty good and convincing yarn, I still held that I had the worst Grade Seven teacher. “You needed to be there bafethu,’ I would say resignedly when I realised that my story had not been very convincing. ‘You are playing man,’ one of my friends would answer back, smug as ever. This was normally the chap who a good story and evidence (scars and that sort of thing) to back it up. ‘You too have no idea what happens at my school.’

   The only time I recall having narrated the most-convincing butt-thrashing story was this one time when our teacher (from now on to be referred to as Mr Beast) pulled this unbelievable stunt on some of my classmates and I. I swear I am not making this up. It was a cold winter day and we were just a few hundreds of metres away from our school. Grade Seven lessons had been shifted to begin at 0700 hours sharp, to “cover lost time”, as it was customary in most public schools. Might I humbly add that there hadn’t been “any time lost” but just slacking on the part of our teacher, usually in the previous year. So now we had to accommodate that laziness and catch up. It was for our own good, he’d say, or the exam would murder us. No one wanted that, so we obliged. I digress.

   It was a bunch of us Grade Seven As and we were walking to the school, talking or should I say shouting about something that had happened the previous day at school. Then, out of the blue, a man clad in a greyish pair of trousers, a black shirt and a pink tie flapping in the cold and dry winter air over his shoulder dashed past us at full-speed. When he was about ten metres ahead of us, he looked back at us over his shoulder and his face had that unmistakable evil toothless smile that we both feared and hated. The man was Mr Beast. We tried running after him, and maybe catching up or out-pacing him, but in vain. He was a lean-built fellow with long legs like the spider a daddy-long-legs spider. The fact that he was already ahead of us and that we had heavy school-bags strapped on to our tiny backs didn’t help either.

   The long and short of the story really is that we found Mr Beast waiting for us in class with a bamboo stick lying in anticipation on the wooden teacher’s desk. We weren’t really late; it was not yet seven o’clock. But Mr Beast said that we had to be reminded that pupils must never come after the teacher in class. He had asked the pupils who were already seated in their red chairs whether that was not the case, and an all-resounding YES! Boomed and filled the four-cornered classroom. We had been charged, tried and pronounced guilty. It was time for the sentence. We were given twelve blistering strokes, four on either hand, and eight on the buttocks. From that day forth, I got to school at half-past six in the morning. Just in case.