THE MISSING "U"
(AVOID GOING WITH THE CROWD)
"Shaka!" "Shaka!" "Shaka!"
That was the history teacher's marker on the whiteboard doing justice, running instead of writing as though been pursued by the military.
Mr Nonso was transferred to our school, St. Michael's International School, not too long ago. He is a Corper and doing his primary assignment here. He was just-too-fast for a teacher.
He taught quickly,
He spoke quickly,
He assessed quickly,
Infact, he gave no room for sluggish attitudes.
"hmmmm..."
This is me trying to decipher a line and get it down as a slow writer that I am.
"This man is a devil. God knows I hate him(Don't get me wrong, this hate developed from the fact that he doesn't even consider my kind of people. Infact, cleaning the board, getting it filled with notes, cleaning them again is his hobby). If not for the fact that I've got to submit my note to be marked immediately after this class, or choose to be flogged and called out on the assembly ground, I wouldn't bother,"
I kept soliloquizing, trying to make out the symbols on the board.
The class as silent as a graveyard, pens dribbling on sheets, got distracted by a boy, Ifeco.
Ifeco happened to be an intelligent child and the noise he caused was as a result of trying to get up and walking to the board for a little task.
"Sorry Sir, but, you omitted a "u" in this," Ifeco, pointed directly on the board.
Mr. Nonso looked keenly and understood his omission in this word, BEAUTIFUL. He didn't get to show any emotion, but was really proud of the young lad. He just nodded and insisted he goes to correct it in his book, rather than correcting on the board,
"Go and write the correct one."
The class stopped writing. Everybody exchanged glances, then, continued writing.
No one made any correction because, everyone was scared of doing it right, using the teacher's manner of response as a yardstick.
Only for the teacher to pick up his stick after ten minutes and asked us to open our books.
"Koin!"
"Koin!"
"Koin!"
"Koin!"
The sound of the teacher's stick banging each heads.
"But, what did we do?" I tried to think of something we did but, none presented itself.
"O my God!" That was my response to the stick on my head.
"Mr Nonso certainly wanted to break my head". "Ouch!"
I tried to massage the area.
"What!"
Almost left my mouth, but, I cautioned myself else, I'll get another bang.
"But, what just happened?"
"The teacher jumped No! passed Ifeco without no bang on his head. hmm... What does this mean."
Fortunately for my thoughts, the teacher disallowed it from cracking puzzles, setting straight before us the reason for his exercise.
"Hello listen up. All of you except Ifeco were just scribbling letters down without checking it's meaningfulness. It only means, you do not learn. Make it a habit to read while writting. You may not know, indirectly, it helps your retention memory and reading skills. He refused to follow the crowd and he got it right...he lambasted us.
I was busy nursing my already added head(swollen) whilst the teacher continued, "I asked him to correct it himself in his note, with hopes of getting everyone to make the correction, Still, no one did."
finally, turning to Ifeco," Well done my boy, you found the missing "U"."
With this been said, he left.
Sometimes, you need to leave the crowd to understand those things missing out. One thing, cannot work for everyone. It helps.
Avoid same protocols, same result.
Why not try something else?
Share your thoughts friends.
Maybe, testimonies if, it has worked for you.