Punished in School

I WAS totally shocked when the teacher threw my exercise book at my face. She stood there glowering at me with her huge eyes. What had I done?

Next, the boy beside me got the same treatment. One by one the teacher repeated her nasty actions on a total of five boys. The whole class was dumbfounded by her sudden outburst of anger. We were merely kids and were terrified of her. The fact that she was the headmaster’s wife did not help matters.

Then we were sent to the headmaster’s office. The five of us did not know what we had done wrong, but it must be something terrible. Still, we walked bravely into the office.

“You are all trouble-makers, aren’t you?” the headmaster began. We looked at each other. What trouble did we make?

“I heard you never do what the teacher tells you. You are disobedient,” continued the headmaster.

We protested but were told to shut up. Chong, my classmate, had his hands in his pockets and the headmaster said, “Manners make the a man. You’ve got no manners boy.” Chong hastily took his hands out and stood at attention.

Then the headmaster went on to accuse us of not doing our homework properly, being ill-mannered and noisy, among other things. He was wrong most of the time. I admit that our work were not top-class material but the accusations were grossly exaggerated or totally unfounded.

Anyhow each of us received a cut of the headmaster’s cane. It did not hurt that much. What hurt was the injustice done onto us. We were punished for flimsy reasons but what could we do? We could do nothing but walk slowly back to the class and try to get along with the tyrannical teacher.

Meanings

Dumbfounded – so shocked that you could not speak

Flimsy – weak and difficult to believe

Tyrannical - oppressive