In a classroom that darkened my heart, I found a light today.
Knowing that it is good to be exposed to various styles of learning, and wanting to obtain experience in different class groups and grades, I observed another English teacher’s class today. The lesson was on a South African drama that I did not know too much about. This lesson was also for a Gr.12 class that I had been warned about, but had not encountered yet. Call it morbid curiosity if you will, but I needed to know what I would likely encounter in future.
It was horrifyingly mesmerizing to see just how unruly a senior class could be. I would liken it to watching a horror movie: it scares the life out of you – but you just have to see how it ends! I could not fathom how any one of those learners could have the foggiest clue of what was going on in the drama. Or anything at all, for that matter! And that’s where a pinprick of light surprised me.
I was asked to put a question to the class, and could only draw from my limited knowledge of the drama, my own framework of the period (which I had lived through) and the reading that had been done in that lesson. I decided to look for evidence of subtext-sensitivity, and asked for additional themes that ran through the text – expecting the usual stock answers of love, betrayal, friendship etc.
One boy, at the back of the class, bowled me over when he picked up on “the trouble with freedom”. There was a kid with a brain, an understanding, and a willingness to think further. Even in the midst of a cacophony of apes.
This solitary soul showed me that there is always a fleck of sanity and hope in the midst of anarchy.
Always look for it, nurture it, and find peace in it. Because if it is not about lifting up the few, how can it be about uplifting the many?
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