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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
It has been a while
It has been a few months since I last updated. People asked me why I havent, and the answer was very clear within me:"There had simply been so many events and emotions that intertwined that no words could describe the events nor the feelings". It is very true that a picture can speak a thousand words and I wish I could replace all the postings with pictures that could say it all.
God is always trying to test us, with the objective of making us strong. Sometimes He does that by placing difficult people in our lives. Now, there are 2 difficult people in mine. One is within my home, the other within my volunteer circle. The one within my home is beyond my control; whereas the other one is within my control.
There is this "volunteer" who has been harrassing and attempting to torment me this one month. He is 30 this year but guess what? His favourite line is:" I am not a man, I am a boy, hee hee hee". Do you feel like puking? Well, i did so many times. There were so many occasions during the interactions with him when I suddenly felt so grateful and proud of all the students whom I had taught before. Hendersonians; ALL of you are so much much more mature than he is. And his favourite criticism on others? "You are not fit to be a volunteer." Ya we arent fit, so you as the 30 year old BOY is fit. The phrase "pot calling the kettle black" fits him perfectly.
During this one month, he tried all ways to antogonise me, in order to get a response from me. All the messages were defamatory, full of allegations and fabrication of untruths. I knew at once that he meant to make me angry, but I chose to hold back my reaction and responded with zero replies. He was unhappy, thus the attacks intensified. he would send one sms in the morning and one in the evening. See his intention: To unsettle me before I start my day and also after I ended my day. Such malicious and unscrupulous intents he harboured and one such message from him even read:" No wonder you are looked down by your ex colleagues. Start acting like a real teacher if you really wish to contribute to society". You know what is the biggest contradiction in this message? He wasnt even a teacher so how he even know who my ex colleagues were? When he failed to incite me to reply his appraently provocative messages, he sent even more attacks.
Should I tolerate because he is a very childish person who resorts to using words to psychologically harrass someone who crossed him, or should I see that justice is done? That was the biggest dilemma I faced this one month. Definitely I am no saint. I may have taught 800 students before but I am a human afterall. Does this mean that teachers have to be holy and allow others to verbally accuse them, insult them and antagonise them without fighting back? To him, a reply is never to my advantage. If i had responded to his attacks angrily, he would accuse and judge by saying:"call yourself a teacher. You are a disgrace because you are bad tempered." If i didnt, he will say and he did :"What a coward. Call yourself a teacher." In any way, he has the upper hand should I respond because he didnt have any civic responsibility whereas I have. But what is the message that will be given to him if his actions were left unpunished?
"No one said Im wrong so I should and can continue to launch such attacks on my enemies"
As an educator myself, I want to see that justice is done on my part personally. But from another perspective, it is about passing the correct message. Not all who comes down every Saturday to spend their time with the disabled is considered a good person by default. Does that mean that because Im a teacher, someone who is supposed to be held in high esteem, has the rights to insult and humiliate my students if they had crossed me? Never in my life had I branded any of my student stupid, nor had I openly shamed them in front of the others. My conscience is very clear on this. So to be criticised by this "man" regarding my professionism and character, is indeed a very big insult which I cant possibly take it lying. If a person is just and with clear conscience, even though the other person is an enemy you envisage, would you say something like:"hope you fail your assignments and exams you coward"? It is really very disappointing that such was the product of the highly credited education system of this country. To have not produced excellent academic results is ok, as long as one strives to work hard as a person beyond studies, that person is viewed as valuable. But to behave like a scum and hooligan and go around bringing down opponents like what politicians in other countries do, is really a hopeless case.
It was rather tough on my part. While he is constantly harrassing me, I had to hold back and not react. To react, I would lose this battle. This is not a battle of pride, but a battle of making the message clear:"You dont get your ways all the time. You have the freedom to speak, but you also have the duty to be made responsible for all the words that you used. So choose your words wisely or you shall face the consequences." To all who are reading this, do ponder on times when you got so angry with someone that you wrote your emotions on your msn nick, Facebook nick, blog or through smses. He had done it all. But what do you get in return? Loss of image? Loss of character? Loss of self and other respect? In whatever case, we ought to exercise restraint. To him, he sees that I had hurt and angered him deeply because I had not supported him but instead supported others whom he had attacked verbally first. By standing up for others, I became his new target. However, no matter what "wrong" I had committed, does it make him right by launching scathing verbal attacks on me? A very simple example to illustrate my point. Student A said words that hurt Student B, so Student B hit A. In retaliation, Student B hit A back even harder because he was hurt. Both were brought to the discipline master. Conclusion? Im sure all students who are mature enough will know the answer.Both students will get punished because two wrongs doesnt make one right.
My decision on this issue is to resolve this episode in the adult way and make him be held responsible for all the actions and words he chose without consideration. We must all grow up.
