AN OUTSTANDING BOY IN A LOCAL SCHOOL

AN OUTSTANDING BOY IN A LOCAL SCHOOL

After many years of not schooling because of school fees, I can still clearly recall the first day when I was bullied.

“I remember it was drizzling that day.  The sky looked Gray and seemed ready to tumble down at any time. This was a scene that a twelve- to thirteen-year-old poor local boy should be scared of. I wanted to let it go, let the sky fall.”

It was my first year in a local secondary school in Ibanda after a two year sit down since my I last sat my PLE examinations. I had very short grey hair and looked like a skinny boy.  Other boys would scream when I went to the school toilet, saying that I was a girl and should not enter the boys’ toilets. Shy as I was due to long time staying in mountains with monkeys for three years, I did not know how to defend myself and when things got worse, my classmates asked a teacher to intervene.

It was a female teacher, towering over me like an iron tower. I trembled. The teacher scolded me, warning me that I had to use the girl’s toilet, otherwise she would call my parents. I was in tears, trying to explain that I was a boy, and they could check the student roster. But I just froze, not able to utter a single word.

As I grew up and went to a counsellor to address the trauma, I realized that I had been in a state of paralysis, a common reaction to conflict or danger know as the fight-flight-freeze response.

On that first day, I did not dare visit the toilet at all and refrained from drinking water so that I don’t get tempted. But still, at the end of the day, I could not help myself and peed my pants, wetting the floor beneath me.  That few seconds seemed like a century. Short as I was, looked like am a five year kid. All I remember is that many students saw and were laughing hilariously. It was my world, not the sky, that tumbled down that day.

Later, I tried to seek help from my class teacher Mr Tumwebaze, who did not seem to listen but told me to “look like a boy” and to put on reasonable clothes. My heart was silently telling me to leave school but I remembered my goal of becoming the shortest professor of Linguistics in Uganda. I didn’t disappear but definitely was not in good mood of continuing. I had to call my mum to quickly come for my rescue not forgetting to bring for me roasted sweet potatoes. It sounded strange to a teacher who had set automatic recording in his phone for whoever uses it for a call, he discovered I told mum to bring me roasted potatoes. The same teacher again didn’t stop laughing but before I reached class for his English lesson, the whole story was circulating.

Heartly, I knew even when I asked a bread, mum wouldn’t afford. a poor man’s child never

dreams a bread, what was obvious on our daily meals was sweet potatoes, unready banana, mingled millet with doodo sauce and probably slight best meal we used to eat on Sundays after church and that is mushroom and silverfish.

Senior one class sounded prison for me but had to persevere since I was told perseverance is success. I was waiting for success. The story of how i finished my S4 is another episode but hopefully its God’s grace.

I did not take the advice, and the trauma accompanied me for the whole school year. Until the day I left my hometown (Ibanda) to further my studies, I remembered the ridicule. “You are a freak.”

In a similar story, Obot also looked different from his male peers, with his hair covering his eyebrows, delicate facial features and two tiny dimples when he smiled. He spoke softly, not yet developing the deeper voice of his peers.

When he talks about his experiences being bullied in those “dark days”, he is not angry or displays a grievance, a calmness he credits to the support he received from his psychology teacher at the time.

Obot’s “dark days” were when he left primary and came to a high school. Older boys idolized masculinity, flaunted their muscles, ran around the playground and skipped classes to play ball. Unathletic and quiet, not having a passion for sports, Obot did not seem to fit in. He wanted to be himself, but other boys would not leave him alone. They made fun of him by mimicking his voice and pinching his cheeks, and sometimes took his things without asking. I was told some one boy bought for him a bra that if he grows old, he might need it. It was a tragedy for where to keep it and was afraid of even reporting to school for as long as it’s done, that would be the end of him. He vividly kept the bra.

It was traumatic condition when the school announced return property assembly and the order from the domestic office would be checking suit case per suit case. Obot had a bra secretly inside named Grace. Grace funny enough was his desk mate and would all-over the time be together discussing for better grades.

The senior man and the team had arranged with other teachers to go for check up. Obot was checked and found with a bra in the names of his desk mate. Obot didn’t say anything but fell down in tears lacking how to explain the incident.

When I was given that narration, i felt at home and started chasing my professorship goal.  I went to my psychology teacher for help. Teacher Galiwango was a gentle and experienced teacher and former social worker, who is also one of the core teachers in guidance and counselling. He first counselled me, helping me to recognize a basic truth: “I am fine. I am just not accepted by others.” When I was absent for personal reasons, Tr Galiwango conducted lessons teaching students about school bullying, about practicing empathy and how to avoid conflicts through effective communication. The students seemed to start reflecting on their behaviour and when Galiwango returned to school he sensed a different attitude and my classmates stopped making fun of me.

There is strong evidence that violence and bullying at school, including cyberbullying, can be prevented and effectively addressed. School communities and the broader education sector must work together to prevent and address bullying, through a whole-education approach spanning robust policy frameworks, training for school staff, systems for reporting bullying and providing support to those affected, and involving everyone in the school community, including parents, in prevention and response efforts.

I, A short boy looking like a girl came from local school and finally am chasing my goals. Iam Outstanding. After the jury had convicted Socrates and sentenced him to death, he makes one of the most famous proclamations in the history of philosophy. He tells the jury that he could never keep silent, because “the unexamined life is not worth living for human beings”

Plato “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” “If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.” “All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one workman.” “Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.