Archives

Recollections of an unforgettable teacher

by Melva Perera

The troops of the IPKF were not the first Indian soldiers on Sri Lankan soil in the recent past. When we returned to our school, St. Benedict's College, having run away from Colombo earlier in fear of air raids and bombs during World War II, the school buildings were still occupied by huge, bearded, turbaned Sikhs who look very fearsome and impressive. The temporary classrooms were in various nooks and corners all over the surrounding area. Ours was a cadjan hut at the edge of the large compound in front of St. Lucia's Cathedral, alongside the roadway where people were constantly passing by.

It was in that year of deliverance from Japanese aggression that Mr. Peterson became our class teacher. What that class was called is now hard to recollect as class designations have kept changing over the years from standards to forms, and from grades to year this and year that. Perhaps, it was standard four, five years before what was then referred to as the University Entrance Class.

Mr. Peterson was a big man, so it appeared to us then, and it was re-assuring to have as a teacher someone who could physically match the soldiers. He was dark in complexion, with a fringe of scanty hair above the ears, encircling his otherwise bald head. He wore a coat as all teachers did then, and a necktie.

But the necktie was not around the neck as it was meant to be, but round the waist instead, to fix his trousers on his ample waist. Mr. Peterson travelled daily from some distant place and was often late and as often in trouble with the authorities. Due to Mr. Peterson's travelling problems, his class was usually berserk in the early hours of the school morning. As he turned up with a big smile the class settled down, temporarily.

The class teachers then knew and taught everything, except in Mr. Peterson's case, Sinhala language which he did not know well enough, even the little that was taught in those colonial times, and religion which he was probably incompetent to teach. But he did teach English, Latin, History, Geography, Arithmetic, Geometry and everything else considered necessary for the mental development of adolescents, and he was good at them all.

In his English class Shakespearian characters came alive as he moved around and read with a changing voice. He was an actor once, he claimed, and one day, to the delight of the class produced an old photograph of himself dressed up as Caliban in "The Tempest", with his head sticking out of a hairy bear like costume and his long hands dangling on the side. For a few weeks thereafter Mr. Peterson was called "Caliban".

Latin was a compulsory subject then, a policy that changed the very next year, and Latin was and soon to be forgotten, giving fresh meaning to the refrain of a boy trying to pre-empt punishment, taught us earlier by the music teacher.

In Mr. Peterson's class though, Latin was still serious business. Those strings of Latin words called declensions rattled off without hesitation at high speed, which he aptly called "speed drill" was his favourite exercise. Since speed was the essence one could often get away by memorizing the first and last words, muttering something in the middle. But not always, as Mr. Peterson would unpredictably say, "Stop, now repeat that slowly".

What was even more fascinating than his teaching was his novel technique of chastisement which changed with the subject he taught. "I will make you stand on your hypotenuse for the rest of the day", he would declare to his geometry class.

Now, how could one ever forget the ancient Greek geometrician Pythagoras and his theorem of the right angled triangle, when faced with the threat of having to stand on one's hypotenuse! In his history class a non responsive student would be, "You Egyptian Mummy", and in the English class, "You blundering booby". The alliterations sounded like music and the lessons stuck. But towards the end of the day, perhaps genuinely tired, he would simply stare at the offender, clench his teeth and menacingly move his lips, no sound, no words. To be miming thus, he probably was a good actor as claimed.

The hard worked teacher then had to prepare no just end of term reports, but weekly reports, continuing assessment to the limit. Every Monday was like a day of judgement when the Director appeared and distributed the reports which had to be then signed by the parent. As for other subjects, marks were given for conduct. With Mr. Peterson's method of assessment, it was not difficult to get zero for conduct which resulted in dire consequences. Each and every transgression, even the smallest one, earned one dot against conduct in what he called his "Conduct Book".

Ten such dots resulted in a zero and in the weekly report the zero appeared with a dot in the middle, like some additional bonus dot. Puzzled at the start, we asked him, "Sir, why do you put a dot in the middle of the zero?" The answer came promptly, "Because then you cannot change it to ten and fool your parents." But there came a day when Mr. Peterson confused our parents, not we.

Extremely annoyed, he ordered some,"Don't come to school tomorrow. Ask your fathers to come." With fear and trembling, the message was conveyed, and so it came to pass that on the next day our fathers went to school and we stayed at home, awaiting whatever damnation that was about to befall. That evening our fathers returned from school and work, but nothing happened. We just went back to school. It took us a while to discover that Mr. Peterson had wasted the time of the school going fathers only to tell them, "They are not bad boys, just mischievous", and sent them off to work, late.

Corporal punishment was then, as they would now say "no big deal". You could get caned in school by day and thrashed at home by night, sometimes for the same reason. There were no fundamental rights, human rights activists, child abuse monitors or child psychologists to come to your rescue. One teacher even had his own private cane, coiled in his coat pocket.

As he extracted it to administer justice, the cane uncoiled and with it bits of paper which he carried in his pocket fly off. Mr. Peterson was averse to any form of physical punishment. The most aggressive Mr. Peterson got was when he summoned Sellathambu, the littlest one and the most garrulous in the class, and from his perch on the high platform picked him up and dropped him.

Sellathambu may have even enjoyed the sensation of being picked up and dropped. But Mr. Peterson stopped doing even that when one day, as he came charging from his seat, his head struck the low crossbeam of the cadjan roof.

As the classroom was by the roadway, people kept passing by all the time, and seated on his platform Mr. Peterson interacted with them too, even as he conducted his classes. He would smile with one and wave at another. When he once smiled with a young lady, he thought he owed the class an explanation, "I know her farther", he said. But the major interaction with the passing world outside occurred on the day the vadai vendor walked into the classroom with an empty pallet on his head and vociferously demanding payment.

He had paid the penalty for illicit trading with students through a hole in the cadjan wall. Unlike on previous days when fair transactions had taken place, on that particular day all the goods came in and went around the class and no money went out. Mr. Peterson used all his charm and skill and sent the man away with both pallet and wallet empty.

Too soon that exciting year was drawing to a close. The students out of genuine affection decided to make a collection and give Mr. Peterson a gift. But when deciding what should be bought, the devil got hold of us again. We wrapped the gift, a bottle of hair cream for his bald head and a necktie for his waist and gave it at the last moment of the last day and quickly went away.

Today, regretfully, we can only hope that he appreciated the humour that generated that unkind thought and deed.

Here then was a scholarly, erudite, elderly man, entrusted with the difficult task of teaching troublesome adolescents, who did his job with dedication, understanding, sympathy and humour, matching the mischief of students with his own brand of mischief.

We did not see much of Mr. Peterson as he left the school a short while thereafter. He must surely have gone to his reward, as his wards of long ago are not far off theirs. Sadly, he could never have known that whenever those salad days come to mind, thoughts ... invariably drift towards him, and in the quiet of solitude, memories of him and those distant days bring on a joy in the heart and a smile on the face.

Not far from where that cadjan hut once was, there stood a plinth, and on it was inscribed "They that instruct many unto justice shall shine as the stars for all eternity". To which we say "Amen", so be it.

STONE 'N' STRING

www.ppilk.com

www.crescat.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager