The important life lessons I learnt at school : Part 1

Class 9th was one  of the most important class of my life because I was it was the class where I met the 2 greatest teachers in my life

This incident is my encounter with one of them

It was class 9th, where we had an option to either opt for Sanskrit or Hindi, I was (am) a lazy student and Hindi always haunted me, so as an escape route, I opted for Sanskrit.

but Sanskrit required a lot of brain to process and too many recent rules that required logical reasoning skills, consequentially, our sections got shuffled and all the brains across all 5 sections ended up together, forming the class of 9th A

It was a fresh experience, unfamiliar faces all around, study pattern had changed, tuition classes had started and there was fresh competition in the class to create an impression.

We were at the peak of our “stupid teenage” where we did stuff for no apparent reason, just to look cool in the eyes of others.

I had a mentality that going mischievous stuff in class made us look cool  (because the people; I thought were cool all had mischief in common).

These things involved making troubles for teachers, doing weird gestures when getting punished in the corner, interfering with the CCTV cameras by throwing foil paper balls, writing on desks, etc...

I seldom did that stuff myself but always thought that’s what cool/famous people do. It all changed the day I got one of my life’s most important lesson by my Social Science Teacher (Mrs. Sunita Sharma)

Her lecture was scheduled in the 3rd period, we didn’t know much about her as it's been only a week since our new class started; it was a summer day, our class was filled with heat and noises of the windy fans. In the zero period, I saw 3 students of my class littering the bench, teachers used to sit on and they became heroes and got cheered by the newly formed class because the teacher had to waste some 10 minutes of class’s time to get those benches clean and replaced.

We knew our SS teacher was more comfortable teaching while sitting, so as you guessed, the evil-clueless-teenager me planned to replicate the bench-littering-heist that was executed in the morning but there was a catch. I had to execute it within 2 minutes and 24 seconds (the time it took for teachers to switch classrooms).

So, as soon as the 2nd-period teacher left the class, I along with my friend rushed to execute the mission. We took the green board duster, erased the board so that chalk dust could get collected and then tapped the duster onto the teachers’ sitting bench and table plus my friend jumped onto the sitting desk to leave his footmarks on it.

but there was a flaw in the plan, Our teacher arrived at 2 Minutes and 20 seconds...

We rushed back to our desks as if nothing happened and thought she did not see us.

She came in, kept her notes on the lectern and stood by it.

With an expression of composure on her face and with a pitying tone, she called out my name without even looking at me and in a way as if she were addressing the class. I got chills running down my spine and I imagined the worst outcomes. I realised the gravity of this misconduct for which they could have called even my parents to punish me for this offense.
I feared the consequences.

My teacher continued (and I remember the words and the tone in which she spoke):

“I was observing this student from the window before entering the class. He littered the teacher’s Bench with chalk dust, and shoe prints. (Now looking at me while making eye contact)

 Beta, is this your respect towards your teachers?”

I realized hard! I never saw its moral significance until that moment when she made me realise it.

“You knew I  teach this subject while sitting down” she continued “and yet, you did this. I can punish you, take you to the principal, call your parents, etc... that’s an option, but I won’t. I want you to actually realize your mistake. I was feeling unwell today, but now, I will have to take your class while standing up, thus adding to my discomfort”

She took a pin page from the girl student closest to her and wiped the bench clean herself. And said: “I am cleaning this for the teacher who is supposed to come in the next period. I will not sit on it today, ill deliver your lecture while standing up. Now you can sit down”

After the class ended, I went up to her and felt sorry for my actions, she replied, “be better”

I learnt the following things with this incident :

1. Never let your shallow emotional instincts take over your moral values.

2. Just because the cool/popular kid does it, doesn’t mean it will be right.

3. Always attach an action to a motive, ask yourself, why are you doing this? Will this get you somewhere or is it just an empty action?

4. Your actions define who you are and the decision-making process behind that action reflects your upbringing.

5. Punishing is not the best method if you want to teach a lesson.

This was one of her teaching lessons which changed the course of my personality and made me what I am today.