In the dark, dank classroom of 3B, I stood
in the middle of two lines of students whose shadows had blocked out the rays
of the morning sun. We were doing an activity called "Cross the
Line", and it was my third Civics lesson with them. It was only 2 weeks
ago when the school timetable changed again; I walked into the class for the
first time this year and introduced myself to them as the brother of a girl who
shares the same age as them. I wondered, then, if that fact intrigued them as much
as it caught me. During that first class, they requested that I teach them
English instead of 'boring Civics'. Encouraged by their love for the language,
I told them I'd try to do both as their new teacher.
I understood their dislike for Civics –
it’s not a ‘main subject’ -- and in the bigger scheme of things, not as
important as English. Still, I relished the change of teaching something
different, something less ‘academic’. Today’s lesson on national unity was
going to involve an activity inspired by the movie “Freedom Writers”, and I
wondered how everything would pan out eventually, as I stood in the centre of
the classroom, under the gaze of 35 pairs of young eyes.
"For today's Civics lesson, we will
play a simple activity called ‘Cross the Line’. There are only two rules to
this activity: firstly, that you must be honest to yourself, and secondly, that
you must remain absolutely silent and respectful towards the others who are
obeying the first rule."
I warned them that the activity would get
increasingly challenging as it went on, but assured them that nothing was going
to compel them into responding to the statements except for their own honesty.
I told them that this activity had a purpose, and that we would talk about the
lesson of the day at the end of it.
And so, we began.
As I read the statements, pockets of
students made their exodus from one end of the classroom to the other, crossing
an imaginary line at the centre. There were beaming faces, cheeky smiles and muffled
whispers. The statements were neutral at first, and my students had no problems
owning up to them by ‘crossing over’.
"I have two parents"
Everyone rushed through the rows of tables
and chairs to reach the other end.
"Sometimes, I hate coming to school"
A few boys gleefully ran across the classroom.
But soon, the statements became a little
more difficult.
"I've seen fights that happened before
my eyes"
"I've witnessed a friend being bullied
terribly"
And they became more personal.
"I’ve been bullied”
"I've been betrayed by someone I
trusted"
"I've seen my mother cry"
There were less people crossing the
imaginary line now, as were the smiles.
I felt a lump in my throat as I braced myself for the next few statements:
"It's difficult at home, because we don't have enough money"
A pause – and then about 20 students moved.
"I've watched a loved one die"
5 shocking students paced across the room, as their
classmates looked on.
Suddenly, I realized that no one was
smiling anymore. An unusual hush had fallen upon the same classroom that been
so accustomed to being the place of teenage jests and loud chattering.
I cleared my throat and told the students
that the next statement would be difficult to say and even more difficult to
admit to, but there was no compulsion to cross the line if they felt
uncomfortable to do so. And then, I read it:
"I've been abused"
A moment of hesitation elapsed. Then a girl,
with pain all over her face, took a small step towards the other end of
the room. A handful of other students followed her and broke away from their lines,
walking silently. Never had I fully realized how far away my home was from this place, till then.
I instructed them to return to their seats,
and as the students moved away from the windows, the classroom seemed brighter
than before. How did a topic like national unity relate to what we had just
done? How could one of the vaguest, most politically-contested terms in our
national discourse possibly be taught to a group of 15 year-old students, whose solemn faces betrayed their own individual stories of pain and loss?
How could I prove to them that despite what
our parents, teachers and media have been showing to us, we are truly the same:
a people? That beyond the politics of race and colour, the different cultural
norms we were born into and the diverse mind-sets we were raised to hold, we
are simply and merely humans in need of each other and a Creator, and nothing
much more? And that because we are inherently the same – broken – we should be
a little more humble about who we are and what we deserve?
I couldn’t. And so, Pain became the teacher
for the day, reminding us that we aren’t so different after all, that despite
the innumerable variations between us, we
have more to gain by being united and empathetic -- than being comfortable in
our own isolated shells of familiarity and apathy. That’s where national unity starts: looking beyond our
own walls of differences and serving others.
Maybe Civics isn’t going to be so ‘boring’ after all.
