Class 4A 15:30 - 16:15

As a class, it would be easy to take 4A for a ‘right little bunch of bastards’ – to borrow a phrase from a former teacher of mine – but this would be extremely unfair on the vast majority of the kids in the class. There were some very sweet, well-behaved girls who unfortunately had enough on their plate putting up with the disruption, slowness and general apathy of their less industrious classmates – and it was for them that I always made sure to enter the classroom with a smile on my face and the best of intentions in my mind.
More often than not, the smile would be gone within 10 minutes after I’d already had to tell them to shut up or stop beating several times. The class’s two big problems were that most of the boys were none too bright, nor motivated and the bunch of older girls at the back of the room were just too cool for school – consequently the class lacked leadership. Unlike my other classes, the bright, nice kids in 4A were not possessed of particularly strong personalities and, as such, could do nothing but sit their in resigned silence while these other kids made trouble. The one girl, Manjita, who was both bright enough and strong-willed enough to be a leader, was probably the most unpleasant kid in any of my classes. She had a nasty, spiteful tongue that was unleashed on all and sundry with little reason or warning at frequent intervals. She thought nothing of grassing up her ‘friends’ or laughing when people couldn’t answer a question (usually shortly before crowing it for everyone to hear without being asked) and I’d seen several of the other girls reduced to tears on a number of occasions.
Every cloud has a silver lining and, as I’ve already mentioned, some of my more difficult students from this class gave me cause for real enjoyment in the after-school extra lessons. On top of this the better-behaved kids like Dolma, Ang Doma, Maya and Hena (girls) as well as Chitiz and Kuldos (boys) tried their very best to make up for their errant classmates so I never really lost my rag with them completely. It seemed a little unfair that these kids had to put up with the rest and I was hopeful that the good and bad elements of 4A and 4B might be better matched the following year…although I can only imagine the kind of hellish class this type of tampering might produce. All I can say is that I was always relieved when the bell went to signify the end of my lesson with this lot.