In retrospection: My time at school

At school I was always the high-achiever; although I seldom worked hard at my studies. There were occasions when I wouldn't feel like doing the work I was supposed to do, did it half-heartedly, and still received a 'Well done!’ comment from the teacher. One such incident from kindergarten is still fresh in my mind. The class was doing a Picture Composition - a  writing activity which required us to write and draw about a picture of a seal performing in a circus; taped to the blackboard. I happened to be in a bad mood, and purposely gave my worst to the task; making sure I coloured outside the lines in the picture I drew. However, to the teacher it was quite satisfactory, and I got a smiley-face for it. This was one of the first impressions the school gave me: you had to satisfy the teacher, your own standards of satisfaction were irrelevant and unimportant.

Although I was mostly a very obedient student, bitter experiences happened to me as well, some of which still stick to my memory. One such event happened in sports class during first grade. A friend and I had been giggling over something hilarious for quite awhile - when we were supposed to be quietly standing in a row - when the sports teacher (who - I was later told by another student - was known to have a great sense of humor, but I never actually saw him use it,) noticed us laughing our mouths off. He gave us a nice scolding, and told us he wouldn’t let us go home after school as punishment.

Nothing of the sort actually happened, and I really doubt something like that ever had to any student in that school (it was a good school, where students weren’t usually given punishments of this kind); it was just probably a harmless threat to discipline first graders. But we didn’t know that, and of course we believed him, and for the rest of the day I remained extremely uncomfortable.

After that, I realized that half the punishments teachers threatened to give us were merely threats, the teachers never would actually punish us, and that I need not worry about such a thing if it happened again.

But it would certainly have been much better if they hadn’t lied about it - that only gave us one message - school teachers could not be trusted to do what they said they would.

Another similarly strange incident happened to me one day after school in second grade, while we sat cross-legged on mats waiting for our parents to come fetch us. I remembered I had a sheet of stickers in my bag, one I had bought on a visit to a stationery shop the last evening. I brandished it out from my backpack, and the rest of the class - all eager to have one too - gathered around me, each asking for a sticker. Deciding that it would be unfair to keep them all to myself, I began distributing them, giving them all the ones they wanted. After most of the kids had gone home - I was still there waiting for my mom to come pick me - the assistant teacher who was supposed to look after the kids during ‘home time’, came up to me, and asked me whether it was true that I had bought a sticker sheet with me. I replied in the affirmative, and was told that if I ever did that again in the future, my stickers would be confiscated.

I nodded solemnly, wondering why she wanted to confiscate a sticker sheet that wouldn’t even be of any use to her. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with what I’d done: I had shared my stickers with the rest of the class as well so that none of them felt deprived. Nevertheless, I knew better than to bring one to school again.

Another similar incident would happen whenever one arrived late at school. A delay of five minutes, or after the assembly had began, meant you could not stand in the row where all your other classmates stood, but at the very back. The teacher standing there would always ask why you had arrived late - a question I found quite difficult to answer - and would then insist you stand in the back row, which was meant for students who arrived late. I remember feeling tense in the car whenever it got past 7:45 am on the way to school, knowing my inevitable fate when I would finally reach the place. Although this wasn’t really a great big punishment - my sister remembers she was once sent home from school just because she arrived a few minutes late - it was disgraceful all the same, and it made me anxious. I strongly suspect this practice was carried out to teach children a lesson of punctuality and to discipline them, but I don’t think it was a very successful idea; at least it didn’t inculcate in me the habit of arriving right on time everywhere - I still reach places late more often than not - despite having gone through this process during my three years of education at school.

Even though I always adhered to rules and rarely broke them, mostly they felt stifling and rigid, without any understandable rationale behind them. For example, the rule about only speaking in English at school - except in front of the Urdu teacher - , or raising my hand when I wanted to say something. No such thing happened at home, or, as far as I knew, anywhere in society; it was just an unnatural structure that existed only in the confines of the school building. There were other rules that made sense, such as no packaged foods allowed for lunch, but rules such as taking permission whenever I wanted to speak, drink water, or use the restroom were just plain illogical, and they always made me slightly nervous.

I would not say my time at school was terrible. I guess it was similar to what all kids go through during their school lives, and despite all that happened to me, I developed friendships. There were things I loved about school, the library, the games we would play during recess, and the end-of-school-year parties. I have memories of school that still bring a smile to my face. But I would not say in the least bit that I miss school, nor do I desire to return to it once more as a student, I’m very happy the way I am, thank you very much.