One of the most frustrating aspects of my life is that I do my best to take responsibility. Even in the tough times. I try to live my life as much as possible with my word being my bond. Responsibility is a two way street. It involves both the credit and the blame. People like to take only one side of the coin. Most people think there’s only two sides to a coin but that’s a blog post for another day. I remember an incident during my Leaving Cert year (last year of high school for you colonials). Our Maths teacher put on extra classes. He put on a lot. He put them on over a mid-term break. These weren’t short classes. They were about two hours long with homework thrown into the bargain. This made them almost five times longer than a normal school day class.
I remember the morning of the second class over the holiday period because I woke up and looked at my alarm clock for a long time. I then rolled over and went to sleep. The Monday morning came around and I discovered that if I had attended there would have been a quartet sleepily navigating their way though the sums and figures projected onto the wall. The teacher concerned addressed the class to the effect that he had been hurt and offended by the low attendance and would not be continuing with the extra classes until we had considered our actions and how to respond. I was in the top Maths class at my school. So we had a mix of smart people, Maths people, hard working people and people under a lot of pressure to perform – either from themselves or their parents.
I can only speak from my experience but I tend to look on in horror at the portrayals of stereotypical second level education in the USA. The cliques and infighting might make for good television but I don’t see how it aids a happy education. Several of the girls in the class came to me in a tizzy of sorts as the days went past and the collective failed to act. There wasn’t much discussion per se. It was common knowledge that an apology was needed but the method and the means were an unknown quantity. The most pressing question of all was who would deliver the apology to the stern disciplinarian; the vice-principal of the entire school; the gray haired, gray suited, monotone, monochrome man who had a nickname that played on an emotionless cyberkinetic android ?
I looked into their eyes. I was a boy of seventeen years. I had trouble with acne. I had glasses that an annoying twonk of a wizard was about to ensure no other human being could ever wear again. I’m pretty sure I was in the midst of major struggles with pornography at the time. It would have been when I was putting on weight as well. In most classes I would end up sitting on my own or else with the other people who didn’t seamlessly blend in. Happiest days of your life me arse.
They were prim and proper. Their faces were worried. I don’t want to say there was anything malicious but I felt there was a certain faux politeness almost. Would I do it? What if I said no? An expectation can be a terrible thing. An awful burden. The ones we place on ourselves even more so. Someone who wants to reach an imagined perfect standard can never, ever allow an admission of blame or permit a flaw to blot their copybook. A drop of ink into a jar of water and it is contaminated. “I’ll do it.”
The class commenced. I received anxious glances from the previous interlocutors as the class rolled on. Towards the end I stood up. I don’t remember exactly what I said. I do several things very well, so well that a specific instance doesn’t stand out in my mind or necessarily provoke any emotion from me. He thanked me and accepted the apology. He then said that there would be an extra class that Saturday morning and we were all expected to attend.
I got a few snide remarks as people left. “I wasn’t sorry at all.” “Who said you’d my permission to do that?” Those people attended the extra classes of course, as did the girls who didn’t even consult the rest of us when presenting the teacher with a thank you gift at the end of the year. They stood up at the top of the class smiling and shaking his hand marvelling at how wonderful they had been.
He was a good teacher. I feel disappointed that I underachieved by about 25% on my final grade in Maths and my Leaving Cert in general. Still well above average of course but I have my own standards that I choose to maintain. One question I’ve always had though: would he have accepted my apology if I hadn’t rolled over in bed on that second morning?
