An Interesting Lesson

Yesterday, when teaching at school, a boy kicked the boy next to him while he was reading his homework out, so of course I told him off. He then continued to subtly and not-so-subtly harass him (I'm not sure why, but it probably wasn't the first boy's fault and even if it was), leading to his 'victim', who also seemed to be his friend (to an extent) trying to escape from the situation by staring into his text book. Since it happening was right near me, (even though I'm technically an ALT and not in charge of disciplining the students) I made the 'bully' keep himself to himself. I pondered whether to temporarily move him, not really wanting to do anything overt that might lead to later recriminations of the 'victim', who might later be blamed for it when I'm not around. So, I decided instead to just dock his homework score by a point, however good it was. After all, interrupting someone else's homework is in a sense not being good at the whole homework thing:)

So, this I did, out of his sight, but he must have realised something had changed, as at that very moment, he accidentally kicked his own desk and said a loud 'ouch!' I looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and 'That's karma you little f***' and then from that point on he was very nice to the boy next to him, (who seemed to be his friend after all), offering to share his pens- a perfect result all around.


The incident made me think of the so-called 'Book of Life', in which angels are held to write the names of the righteous. What if all through life we have various tests and they mark us on them, just as I was marking my mark-book? What if these tests are not so much to see what we are already like, but more to transform us into something better, into more caring people, hoping for a better grade from such angels and the resultant promotions and blessings that come from such exhibitions of faith? Yes, our works may not save us, but our attitudes and how we respond on a moment-to-moment basis might. Every day, we are being helped along on this path- we just need to learn the right lessons.