In Continuum.

Murder By Rulers

Through the conversation we had last night, Kenzie and I came to the conclusion that she is not going to send her children to Singapore anytime soon. Or, at least that is what was implied from the conversation we had regarding Singapore's education, and the amount of violence involved in it. Unless you want hell unleashed upon you, you shouldn't even think about touching Kenzie's future children with a strand of your hair, because she is very particular about physical discipline in schools, especially on her children. And true enough, America and Singapore have very different education system. That I already learned, through the very course I am taking now. However, even when it comes to punishments, it seems like the children here have gotten the worse treatment than the ones from anywhere else.

It's interesting how Kenzie wasn't able to come up with one example of a good teacher in her life, because there were simply too many to name. And as for me, I couldn't come up with one example of a good teacher in my life, because there were none. At least my teacher did not hop onto the table to illustrate his idea during History classes. The teachers here are too unadventurous, and follow the rules as if a slight stray from the guidelines will cause a nuclear explosion or something. People here can be too uptight at times, but that is not the case when it comes to applying physical education to the students. When it comes down to teaching the students a lesson, they seldom hesitate twice with those rulers waving in their hands. As a child of much mischief, I was the victim of many different types of rulers. Long rulers, short rulers, metal rulers, wooden rulers. Been there, done that.

I think I received the most physical abuse in Primary School, simply because I was too childish, and perhaps too stupid to follow the rules. If that is the case, then I can be fully blamed for everything. However, there are times when teachers simply hit you for the sake of hitting you. You almost picture the teacher going "Just in case!", when you look into their eyes and ask yourself "What was that for?". There are times whereby they don't tell you why you were punished, and you'd be lucky if they send you off to the corner to think about the mistake - if there was a mistake in the first place. I was the victim of such unfair treatment for a lot of occasions in the past, and here's the first story about Ms. Normalla, or at least that is what I think her name is spelled like.

Despite her name, this teacher is not 'normal' at all. I remember the time when I was in grade 3, and she went about the school with her pregnant body and looked pissed off half the time. You know how pregnant women can have their hormones bounce around irregularly, and that causes their tempers to be unstable. But as children, we didn't know much about pregnancy, or sex, or anything that is related to the source of babies. Anyway, there was a particular day when somehow, the whole population of boys in my school got onto her nerves. So as the crowd gathered to go back to class, she ordered all the boys from my level to go to her classroom after recess to see her. We didn't know what we did, or why the boys were being targeted at all. All we knew was that Ms. Normalla was pissed, and pissed badly.

We lined up in a neat row in front of her classroom, a queue that stretched all the way from the front door and passed five other classrooms because there were so many of us. The girls remained in class, while the boys waited anxiously to see what happens at the front of the line. The boys that came out from the classroom emerged rubbed their palms, while others hand their faces buried in their arms, crying their hearts out. But the queue kept on moving, like the conveyor belt that leads eventually to a blast furnace, we looked like bags of trash or diseased chickens. In our hearts, there was a blind fear of what to expect at the end of it all, and as I got nearer to the classroom my heart was on the brink of self-implosion.

My turn came, and I entered the classroom. She was sitting there behind her table with a giant feather duster in her hands. She was holding on to the part with the feathers, so the metal handle pointed towards me as she yelled "Next!". I strolled forward, all the while trying to justify her actions because we were taught that teachers are always right about...well, everything. But I couldn't come up with an explanation for her madness, and there I was in front of her class being slaughtered like a cow. Down came the feather duster, the sound of it slicing through the air echoed through the walls of the classroom. Natural reflexes caused my hand to jerk backwards, and that was when I made her even more pissed off. She held onto my arm, and down came the handle of the feather duster once more. This time, it hit me point blank in the center of the palm, and the pain surged through my veins and into my bones. I think there was a drop of tear as I stepped through the door, not because of the pain but rather the sense of betrayal that I had. What we were taught to believe and to trust, shattered just because some crazy teacher got pregnant. Great.

The award for the most untidy kid in class went to me at that time as well, as I was the same kid that squashed all my papers into my bag without a file. I remember my Maths teacher telling my mother that I looked like a tidy boy, but never had the handwriting to match my looks. Honestly, she was right - I had the worst habits in the world when it comes to tidiness. Thinking that it was a smart thing to do - and partially inspired by MacGuyver - I poked holes in my homeworks with the rings in the hardcover files when I couldn't find a hole-puncher in class. So when inspection time came, the teacher saw the holes punched and snatched the file away from me. With a swift move, she slammed the hardcover file on my head that sent me into a dizzy spin on the spot. I'm sure that she wasn't pregnant at that time, and probably did not offend her to the extent that she had to put a file to my skull. She was probably just a bitch, and she had the face to match the name too.

There was this other time when there was a stupid rule in school that limits the number of times a student can go to the restroom. That rule was set because some boys would ask to go to the restroom and never return until the end of the class. So some idiotic teacher came up with the rule that every student was allowed to go to the restroom just once for every period of class. But of course, they never considered the possibility of a student falling ill to terrible surges of stomachaches, or the students with bladder problems.

I for one, had a particularly 'watery' day I remember, and already used up that one chance of going to the restroom to relief myself. On the second try, the teacher rejected me outright and ordered me back to the seat. However, the bloated feeling in my lower stomach was too much to bear, and it was much worse than the one before. I hugged my stomach for the most part of the period, afraid to ask the teacher once again for a chance to go out. But the pain was too great, and it was stretching itself upwards into my head until the whole room was swirling and spinning under my feet. I had to do something about the pain, something other than asking for permission...

I relieved myself in my pants, I admit that happened. But I was in grade school, so I guess that's forgivable in a way. However, those teachers who came up with the ridiculous idea, and the one who didn't allow me to go to the restroom again shouldn't be. I was a child, and it's not like I knew that it was OK for you to just run out of the classroom without permission if you really are urgent. The idea that teachers stood second only to our parents may seem ridiculous now, but the ruler-wielders were the kings of our world, the evil ruler(Pun unintended)of the schools. And wetting my pants isn't even the worst part of the story.

Immediately after that period, the bell rang and it was time for the assembly. We were all lined up in neat rows on the car park, waiting for the national anthem to be blared from the speakers above and the flags to be lowered. I was there, standing at attention with my urine dripping down my pants and legs. The green shorts turned into a shade of dark green, and the smell wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world. The teachers, who stood behind, started sniffing the air for the source of the awful stench. And their investigations ended when the same teacher who didn't allow me to use the restroom, pointed me out to everybody that I was the source of the smell. Their faces contorted into looks of disgust, and there was suddenly a circle of magnetism around me that repelled them away. One of them came and asked if I wanted to go to the restroom and change up. If I am in my shoes back then, I would've shouted into her face," Do I look like I have extra pants to change? And oh! NOW I am allowed to go?"

I ran all the way up the covered walkway, and the children all laughed at the kid with the darkened shorts. The wet shorts stuck to my buttocks, and even I could hardly stand the stench. But I stayed strong, and avoided the glances of the parents that came to fetch their children home by running on the grassy slope next to the walkway and down towards the main gate. Jumping into my father's car, he immediately noticed the smell in the air and turned back to asked me what happened. I was silent for a while, and wasn't able to answer him. "Wet your pants?" he asked with much concern. It was then, when I broke down into tears and he said little afterwards.

I took off my shorts in the toilet alone, with my mother on the other side of the locked door asking me what happened. But all she heard was the sound of running water and myself sobbing away, half naked. I was scrubbing the pants under the running water, and I squeezed so much soap that the bubbles overflowed the basin. But I cared little for the mess around me, but rather the mess that I caused on my shorts. The smell couldn't be washed off, and even my hands now smelled like my own urine. I cried even harder, and gave up soon after I threw my shorts into the dustbin and collapsed into the bathtub.

Things got better, in a way, in Secondary School. At least my pants remained dry throughout my four years there. However, I had my fair share of physical abuse there as well. I think I was talking too much in class one day during Home Economics class, and the teacher asked me to the front out of the blues with a vibrant display of colorful rulers in her hands. They were arranged in such a way that it looked like an opened fan in her hands, and I was asked to pick a ruler out of the ones in her hands. I thought I did something good in class and won a prize or something. Though the prize was a ruler, I still appreciated her generous efforts and decided on the best ruler: A metal one.

She took the ruler from my hands, asked me to clench a fist, and she whacked my knucles with the metal ruler. I jerked my hand back and stared at her, bewildered. However, she gave little attention to my obviously shocked face, and continued with her lesson from where she left off. Sure, I talked in class and was probably not very attentive. But if you are going to hit me, hit me. Stop putting up shows before the slaughter, it's not like it is going t make the killing any less painful. If it was meant to be a joke, I didn't laugh afterwards and I am still not laughing now. Bitch.

So you see, I have a long list of encounters with these bad teachers in my life. In a way, it does make school life a little bit more interesting. You tend to start finding ways to avoid these teachers, and they are almost always the target of our gossips and jokes during after class hours. Compared to the teachers in America, they probably sent the teachers from Hell to Singapore. If only my mother knew about all those, I'm sure she'd unleash hell upon my school like a bloody tidal wave. Why? Because moms, rule.