Sensei began today’s lesson by apologising to a student. The latter had disrupted his lesson by randomly standing up in the middle of a previous lesson and sweeping the classroom. In hindsight, Sensei realised that the student could have done so because he wanted to decompress from the shock of receiving his test result.

With that preamble out of the way, he proceeded to go through the answers for several comprehension questions. Now, comprehension answers were not the most exciting thing in the world for way-too-energetic pre-teens to endure, so he did something radical. He didn’t even bring his students’ test scripts to the classroom because he wanted to remove distractions. Instead, he stood in the middle of the classroom and took the class through the thinking processes they needed to demonstrate in order to arrive at the answer. Writing down the steps on the board, calling on various students to focus on listening to his explanations, imparting exam-centered tips. It was a more authentic engagement, he felt since he was talking to his students directly instead of being sidelined by the exam passage.

The minutes flew by, and he then had to give Spelling to his students. A student with ADHD had a sudden meltdown and wanted to charge at his classmate. Sensei held on to the student — and tried to carry on with dishing out the spelling words. For a while, he was successful. However, his student grew increasingly distraught — enough for Sensei to tell him that he was behaving like an animal. Eventually, he had to leave the class with the student and seek help from the school counsellor. He left his best orator in charge of announcing the spelling words.

When he came back from the counselling room, he picked up the pieces and read the remaining words — like a boss. His forehead was glistening, his back was soaked with sweat but he was just carrying out his lesson plan and that was all that mattered.

Teaching. Every day is different.