SCHOOL MEMORIES: Of succeeding but only in a dream

My Biology teacher told me that I was stupid. Okay she didn’t say it in those exact words. But when she caught me talking in class, she said, “I wish your brain could run as fast as your mouth.” She then gave a detailed account of my performance in Biology since the day I started attending secondary school. She kept demanding that I collaborate and respond in her story about my consistent failure. “Didn’t you get 20% in mid-terms?” “Yes.” “You failed the whole of ‘section A’ last term. Am I lying?” “No teacher.” I wanted to say, “No teacher, I got two out of 40” but then it dawned on me that zero, much as it is a smaller figure, was less embarrassing than two out of forty.” She shamed me and I received no empathy. The whole class burst out laughing. This was the exact moment when I learnt that when someone makes a snide remark about your intelligence, it hurts to the bone marrow. A raging fire of fury formed inside my chest. The fire turned into hot salty water and that water started burning my eyes. I wanted to give MrsKworoba a mean comeback. I wanted her to feel the wrath of my words. Maybe even challenge her to a brawl. But then I looked at her bountiful structure. And I looked at my bony form. I cringed just thinking of the way she could crush me to pieces. Then I thought of my mother. I thought of how she would get the pieces left by MrsKworobaand turn them into ashes. The thought of vengeance subsided and all that was left was anger. It was pointless. But thirty minutes after she called me stupid, she asked a question and no one offered to provide an answer. I smiled on the inside because I knew the answer but as punishment, I wasn’t going to tell her. I folded my arms and I crossed my legs and I stared straight at her. In the off-chance that she looked at me, I wanted her to see in my body language what I was too cowardly to express with words-that I was highly offended. Of course I realize now that trying to punish a teacher by feigning ignorance is like trying to punish a doctor by refusing to take medicine. They both lead to some kind of death. Anyway, when no one could answer the questione posed by MrsKworoba, I stood up and went to the blackboard. There was silence in the room. Envy and disbelief filled the air.I was proud to be me. I was finally going to prove her wrong. I was going to show her and everyone who had laughed at me that I was capable of becoming a renowned scientist. It made me happy to think that I would invent a disease that could selectively erase my enemies off the face of the earth. But then someone, for no reason, started to hit me in the back. I was irked. What form of devil had entered this person to disturb me at my hour of stardom? I turned to give them a blow to the face. And then I woke up to find MrsKworoba standing over me, hitting my back with a ruler. Thirty minutes after she called me stupid, I had fallen asleep in her class.

Education

SCHOOL MEMORIES: Of succeeding but only in a dream