School, In The Time Of Leadership

In my primary four, I was the class monitor and the privileges that came along with that title were equivalent to being a semi-god of the whole class. I mean, I was in charge of; availing a cane for the teacher, producing two separate lists of names: one for vernacular speakers another for noise makers, drafting a sweeping roaster, collecting books among other small tasks. Like the title monitor. That was it!

With that great power and several responsibilities, every pupil in the class was bound to befriend me or else face the wrath of my administrative tools – noise makers list, vernacular speaking list, which both had separate punishments without fail from the teacher. I wasn’t like this but, the things school made me do *sighs*

Source: Internet, Flickr Images

In class we had Ronnie (not real name) who was taller than most of the pupils and masculine. Everyone was afraid of him even me but, Ronnie, also feared me for the great power I had. Besides that, I was a bit smarter than him. A week after I was selected as the class monitor, Ronnie came to me and we discussed a proper strategy to conquer the whole class.

The plan was; He was to protect me – from pupils that wanted to seek revenge. All the time, while at school and on my way back home from school. But of course there was a catch, I wasn’t supposed to write his name on the any lists and also I supposed to help him with homework. Given that I was a skinny short guy and did my homework without difficulty I signed off the deal with Ronnie.

Our regime had just began, at break time, we always sat in some corner and different pupils brought us; cakes, drinks, biscuits, bananas and other snacks. At free will, like thank you gifts to us. Those who didn’t bring those gifts, were supposed to surface on the lists irrespective of their behaviors that day. But the gifts sometimes where humongous, but, I could eat and eat and eat, maybe that explains why #IamAlwaysHungry.

I enjoyed misused leadership at such at tender age, for selfish reasons. Like I said, I wasn’t like this, but, these where the same practices which were done by other class monitors of different classes. Literally I was just conforming to the patterns of the school. Being a bright kid, somehow I realized what I was doing wasn’t right and I had to either change or stop. I could see, fellow pupils not happy and I felt concerned somehow.

I called Ronnie for an administration meeting, explained to him everything and how I felt, (In primary four, I had too much compassion) and surprisingly he didn’t beat me up rather, he welcomed the idea. So, the new strategy was to tell the teacher and also to resign from being the class monitor. I was so done. The teacher, upon hearing the minutes of meeting, acted according to the plan and selected a new class monitor with immediate effect.

In many schools, they entrust many pupils with great power but these pupils misused it, and many pupils actually take on this kind of path even in life after school, no?

This blog was curated on ugbloc.com