**SCHOOL DAYS**** EPISODE 18 ********************************** So there he stood, Mr Olushola A.K.A Spring up, right at the front of the class patiently waiting for us to keep quiet. He was and still a really slim man who have to either have a tailor sew his clothes specially for him or must slim fit all his shirts and trousers if they were bought ‘ready-made’ unless he plans on wearing parachutes in disguise of shirts and trousers, I used to wonder how he managedto walk on the road when the weather was windy because I expected the wind to blow him away and that’s not an exaggeration. Another distinctive feature of the man was his complexion, he had that kind of complexion that would give ‘Baba Suwe’ a run for his money, yes! He was that dark, or I guess the word ‘black’ would be more suitable in his case. Anyway, as the class became quiet and everybody settled down, he went down straight to business. He walked to the teacher’s table and dropped his bag, he then looked at the class as if he was looking for someone or something, then for the first time in my life I saw him do something I never thought he could do or even know how to do, he smiled. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing because I have come across people who would smile at you and then stab you at the back almost immediately. ‘Are there any cross house boys in this class?’ Mr Olushola asked. ‘Yes!’ The few cross house boys in the class replied, all but Dolls replied. ‘Okay, good. As most of you already know, my name is Mr Olushola and I’ll be taking you on the most important subject on this earth, titled government. I’ll have told you all to introduce yourselves one by one but that would waste time, so let’s do it like this…’ He took a short pause to check if he had all of us attention, and he did, so he continued; ‘In the course of my teaching, am going to be throwing random questions at you all, so before you answer my question, I need you to do two simple things first. One, you spring up!… Who can tell me what I mean by that?’ A certain Jenifer raised her hand to signify she wanted to attempt the question, as soon as Mr Olushola gave her the go ahead, she sprung up from her sit as if it was hot, at first, everyone was shocked then the whole class bursted out in laughter, even Mr Olushola couldn’t help but laughat the girl action. ‘Good! I hope you all saw what she did? That’s what I want you all to do when a question is thrown at you, even if you don’t know the answer, still spring up, am I clear?’ He asked. ‘Yes sir!’ The whole class responded in unison. ‘Good! Secondly, when asked a question, you start answering by telling me your name. I don’t like sluggishness so when I ask you a question, you follow the procedure and tell me you don’t know the answer, am I understood?’ ‘Yes sir!’ ‘Okay, so down to business. Today, we are just going to look at the definition of government so that we can have a broad view about what this subject is all about. Who can tell me what government is?’ Various people stood up and gave their opinion about the case study, some silly, some wise, when they were done he went down to actually define government; ‘Government can be defined in three context, government as a field of study, government as an act of governing and government as…’ He went on and on, breaking down the definition to the least possible division then he gave illustrations too, that was the funnypart because he didn’t just give illustrations by just talking alone, he actually twisted his entire body and occasionally place his legs on a locker all in the name of illustration, it was funnyand yet understandable, or so I thought. 30 minutes later, he was done and as expected, he asked; ‘Do you all understand?’ ‘Yes sir!’ We all responded like typical Nigerian students who say yes even though they don’t understand any of the words that fell out of the teacher’s mouth. ‘Do you all understand?’ He asked again and we replied in the affirmativeonce again. He smiled and the next thing I knew…; ‘Angle 90! Spring up!’ He ordered me to stand up. ‘Chai! I don enter my own today’ I thought within myself as I sprung up with immediate effect. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Odoh Michael sir…’ I replied and could feel my legs shakinginvoluntary. ‘Do you understand all the jargons I just finish saying now?’ He asked with a smile. I didn’t really understand but I had a good memory of his illustration and was ready to illustrate back to him if he asked me to so I replied; ‘Yes sir’ His smile varnished and he asked; ‘In your own words, define government as a field of study’ ‘Ahh!!! In my own words?’ I asked as I wasn’t ready for that. ‘Yes!’ I recalled him saying we should say we don’t know the answer if we don’t rather than waste his time so I took a deep breath and swallowed some saliva as my throat had suddenly gone dry. ‘I can’t explain it in my words but I can give an illustration sir’ ‘An illustration or the illustration I gave you?’ He asked, emphasizing on ‘my’. ‘Your illustration sir’ ‘So you are trying to tell me I just wasted 30 minutes of my life in teaching you and you do not understand?’ As he asked that question he was struggling to remove his belt and walking towards me with speed. Dolls and Efe were wise enough to shift their lockers away from mine as what was going to happen next was highly predictable. I looked at the window by my side and mentally calculated if I could jump through it and run incase the belt he was trying to remove was for me. He successfully removed the belt and got to close to me, with the belt in his hand, he asked; ‘Odoh, define government as a field of study in your own words’ Watchout for Episode 19
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 05:36:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015