Do You Sleep In Class? #MeToo
Syed Hassan Gillani (1st Year)
All this furore made up by various sects, parties, NGO's and other ilk about acquiring right to freed of life style, choice, expression, profession, ideas beliefs, ethics and moral codes suggested me that I should play my part in this movement of honouring the basic human values. My issue here is a real one. It is about right to freedom of choice. Am I free to sleep in my classes or not? To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question. (Thank you Shakespeare)
Let's see the issue at hand in a historical perspective. This problem dates back to my first day in the 1st Grade. I have an issue staying awake. I have been rebuked domestically for sleeping for so long hours as early as the history goes. In early ages, I used to commute to school by bus that took 90 minutes to take me to school from home and vice versa. And I used to sleep during this whole journey. But I enjoyed it. In fact, I loved it. There is nothing more beautiful than closing down everything and even your mind and just dream and live some cloistered moments (speaking of this, listen to "extreme ways"). The whole preamble was to tell you the fact that I was famous as "SOONE WAALA BACHA" (the boy who sleeps) in the area through which my school bus passed. How I came to know about this? Well, one day my father was in a grocery shop and my bus passed in front of the shop. The shopkeeper shouted to his colleague "WO DEKHO, SOONE WALA BACHA"(Look yonder, the boy who sleeps). And my father told them with pride "YE MERA HI BACHA HA" (This boy is my son). But I repressed my cravings and murdered my longings because I was told to do what THEY told me to do, that is - of course - not to sleep in the class. I literally had to give up on my dreams and suffer the insufferable bereavement of my wistful slumbers. But I accepted my ignorance about how things worked out in the real world and did my best to keep my eyes open.(trying not to roll eyes). The famous phrase employed in a variety of contexts (e.g. in spy movies) "keep your eyes and ears open" must have been originated with a school teacher.
Let's fast forward to the present. Today, my respected and favourite teacher motivated me to write about this forlorn topic. Today, I became the victim of power dynamics. My right to freedom of choice was violated. Today, oppression won and justice lost. Today is the day that will go down as one of the darkest days in history. Today I was thrown out of the class on the charges of sleeping during the lecture.
Let us go back again (not doing an infinite regress but to a point where it can be assumed that it is the first lecture). If I am hearing an entirely new concept here, how am I supposed to perfectly grasp it for the first time? Why can't you think and accept that maybe your way of teaching is a little old or boring or obsolete. Maybe your style involves too much redundancy ( G Nazis! Did I get "too much" right this time?) Maybe your lectures lack interactive sessions. Maybe you need to improve your teaching skills. Maybe you need to listen to our point of view that how we want to be taught. Your somnolent sermons don't appeal to anyone. Let's assume that I am an overly enthusiastic THEETA so I will be studying hard, searching google, watching videos and trying desperately to understand what you failed to convey. Naturally, this will take a lot of time and a whole lot of energy. So, if I am totally drained the next day and fall asleep inadvertently - despite my desperate efforts to stay awake - Am I to be blamed? Maybe. Maybe NOT. Stop victim shaming!
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| #MeToo |
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| #MeToo |
Let's see the issue at hand in a historical perspective. This problem dates back to my first day in the 1st Grade. I have an issue staying awake. I have been rebuked domestically for sleeping for so long hours as early as the history goes. In early ages, I used to commute to school by bus that took 90 minutes to take me to school from home and vice versa. And I used to sleep during this whole journey. But I enjoyed it. In fact, I loved it. There is nothing more beautiful than closing down everything and even your mind and just dream and live some cloistered moments (speaking of this, listen to "extreme ways"). The whole preamble was to tell you the fact that I was famous as "SOONE WAALA BACHA" (the boy who sleeps) in the area through which my school bus passed. How I came to know about this? Well, one day my father was in a grocery shop and my bus passed in front of the shop. The shopkeeper shouted to his colleague "WO DEKHO, SOONE WALA BACHA"(Look yonder, the boy who sleeps). And my father told them with pride "YE MERA HI BACHA HA" (This boy is my son). But I repressed my cravings and murdered my longings because I was told to do what THEY told me to do, that is - of course - not to sleep in the class. I literally had to give up on my dreams and suffer the insufferable bereavement of my wistful slumbers. But I accepted my ignorance about how things worked out in the real world and did my best to keep my eyes open.(trying not to roll eyes). The famous phrase employed in a variety of contexts (e.g. in spy movies) "keep your eyes and ears open" must have been originated with a school teacher.
 |
| #MeToo |
Let us go back again (not doing an infinite regress but to a point where it can be assumed that it is the first lecture). If I am hearing an entirely new concept here, how am I supposed to perfectly grasp it for the first time? Why can't you think and accept that maybe your way of teaching is a little old or boring or obsolete. Maybe your style involves too much redundancy ( G Nazis! Did I get "too much" right this time?) Maybe your lectures lack interactive sessions. Maybe you need to improve your teaching skills. Maybe you need to listen to our point of view that how we want to be taught. Your somnolent sermons don't appeal to anyone. Let's assume that I am an overly enthusiastic THEETA so I will be studying hard, searching google, watching videos and trying desperately to understand what you failed to convey. Naturally, this will take a lot of time and a whole lot of energy. So, if I am totally drained the next day and fall asleep inadvertently - despite my desperate efforts to stay awake - Am I to be blamed? Maybe. Maybe NOT. Stop victim shaming!
 |
| #MeToo |
What if I have attention-deficient-
You are concerned only with my performance in academics. If you had a profound influence on building our ideas and beliefs, if you had shaped our personalities, if you had guided us through the darkest of our times, if we admired you to a level where we could give our lives for you, only then you could have the right to ask of us something more than just our academics. If you are not like the one you should be and if I am giving that performance fine enough, what's the problem then? Why can't you sleep on that? If my methods of learning things are different from yours, why are you forcing me to go by yours? It will do only more harm than good. So as long as I am scoring good grades, you don't have a single reason to thrust anything upon me. The sole purpose of waking up so early (atleast for medicos, it's too early) and rushing to lecture halls is ATTENDANCE and not our eagerness to listen to those excruciating details about which carbon among 30 was responsible for the green colour of bile.Therefore, please try to understand stuff and try to fill this endless abyss of misunderstandings.
Many things left untold. Partly because I don't have the strength to write anymore and partly because you don't have the stamina to read further. And because there is a limit to how much brave a man can be. Because a wise man once said, "there is a thin line between being brave and being stupid."
You are concerned only with my performance in academics. If you had a profound influence on building our ideas and beliefs, if you had shaped our personalities, if you had guided us through the darkest of our times, if we admired you to a level where we could give our lives for you, only then you could have the right to ask of us something more than just our academics. If you are not like the one you should be and if I am giving that performance fine enough, what's the problem then? Why can't you sleep on that? If my methods of learning things are different from yours, why are you forcing me to go by yours? It will do only more harm than good. So as long as I am scoring good grades, you don't have a single reason to thrust anything upon me. The sole purpose of waking up so early (atleast for medicos, it's too early) and rushing to lecture halls is ATTENDANCE and not our eagerness to listen to those excruciating details about which carbon among 30 was responsible for the green colour of bile.Therefore, please try to understand stuff and try to fill this endless abyss of misunderstandings.
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| #MeToo |
Hum sab ka aik hi naara
Class mn soona haq hmaara
#MeToo
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| #MeToo |
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