They say variety is the spice of life and, if I’d wanted a bit of a change from 4B to liven things up, then I certainly got it with this lot. 6A were my first all-boys class and, after the novelty and the WWF jokes had worn thin, they mostly turned out to be a big pain in the neck. Most of them never missed an opportunity to copy their neighbours work or, while my back was turned, to offer a solid thump between the shoulder blades of their nearest enemy. (‘Sir, Sir…he’s beating me!’ was a cry too-often heard in this lesson.) There were a few exceptions to the rule – mostly the younger or brighter kids – but the vast majority of this class of 18 just didn’t want to be there. As I grew to learn more about the school (from Uttam) and got to know all my children, I came to realise how unusual this attitude was and thought all the less of the main trouble-makers for spurning the opportunity they’d been given. It was also very frustrating to see them spoil things for the kids who did want to be there and, unfortunately, my metaphorical stick saw more action here than in all the other classes put together. Conversely, it was very rare that 6A got chance to play outside and this really was a shame because, on these rare occasions, the child inside even the older, surlier ones often showed his smiling face. For all there bad behaviour and lack of respect, most of the kids were reasonably bright and spoke reasonable English. Of those that were a bit thick, Udip and Dipendra had easily the sweetest natures in the class and, in the end, became two of my biggest success stories. Udip, particularly, spoke very little (intelligible) English and also found it extremely hard to understand what I was saying most of the time and was in fact the catalyst that pushed me into offering extra lessons after school. After just two weeks, I could see that he was never going to pass an exam without a lot of extra help and one-to-one tuition. More importantly, he needed an undisturbed learning environment away from the squabbles and disruptions of his classmates. Dipendra also needed the extra work – but mainly to fix the vocabulary in his somewhat sketchy memory.
Thankfully, there were plenty of characters in the class to lighten my mood so it was a very rare occasion when I left them feeling totally drained. There was Ganesh with his bizarre hip-hop dress-sense (this being one of the few classes in which almost nobody wore their school uniform), which often had me in silent stitches. His main competitor in the cool stakes was Kapil with his ‘Westside’ lingo and gangster poses – although, in terms of cool, Ganesh had to be a hands-down winner as Kapil was both bright and keen when it came to studying. Sanjay always made me smile with his wide-eyed innocence and unfortunate air of undeniable culpability whenever there was trouble and Gaurav always had a cheeky grin and a knowing twinkle in his eye, which made it impossible to feel really angry when you caught him cheating or ‘beating’. Of the bright kids (other than Kapil) Rajesh was the quietest while Razu had the brightest, most endearing personality. Unfortunately, being bright in this class seemed to be a recipe for being bullied and these two often caught it from their less industrious classmates. Kalden too was a bright spark with a cheeky grin but spent so much of the time disrupting and sulking that he managed to disguise his obvious native wit from both me and the other boys. He and Dukpa (a tall, sullen, short-tempered oaf, often given to swearing at me in Nepali) gave me by far the most trouble and spent more time than most performing their squats and staying inside instead of playing.
As the term drew on the class moved painfully slowly towards completing the syllabus I’d devised and, in the end, I’m pleased to say, they all passed their exams…although for some it was a bit of a scrape.
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