NOVEL WEB Chapter 78: A Lecture
Upon Taro's return with Rita to the high school block, he was instructed by Mary to accompany her to the twelfth grade to talk some sense to the students. So, Taro had to do so, albeit reluctantly. Once he reached the twelfth grade, he understood that Mary and the teachers' claim about them being extra noisy was kinda true. However, if he were to give out his thoughts, he would probably reply that the echo of the classroom is the reason that their noises were amplified. Of course, their high-pitched voices were the icing on the cake. Taro didn't get why even the boys here have an extra pitch in their voices. He kinda gets why the teachers are advising the kids to talk less; they probably are annoyed by their voices.
Anyway, Mary had a bright smile as she entered the class which really paid little to nothing of attention on her arrival. However, she wasn't angry unlike the past few days. Instead, she glanced towards Taro, the one waiting outside the classroom, eyeing to him that what she said was absolutely right.
"Alright, students. I called in your class teacher. He would like to talk about a few things to you." Mary said as she invited Taro in. That's when Mary noticed that the students paid at least a bit of attention when it came to their class teacher, even though he had only been here for mere days. She felt kinda insulted, as she understood that the students clamoring in her class was due to her own shortcoming when it comes to crowd control… Or in this case, eleven or twelve teenagers. Although her heart readily admitted her mistakes, her mind didn't want to do that and thus continued to pin blame on the students, because that was the easier way out in such scenarios.
Taro scoffed. He knew that Mary expected similar treatment to him as she suffers from the kids. However, it was not like the kids weren't obedient and attentive to begin with. It's all about getting to understand that these are teens who might have extreme mood swings. He slowly walked towards the middle of the class and was about to say something, however then proceeded to stare towards Mary. The physics teacher didn't understand why the teacher was staring darts at her. Taro sighed, since it seemed like she didn't get his sign. "Ms. Mary, can you please give me five minutes with my students? I would like to talk to them. Alone." He made his point pretty clear. Mary tried to protest by saying that she wouldn't be able to hear what they talk about this way, however once she fell victim to Taro's cold stare, she thought otherwise and exited the class.
Once Mary exited the class, Taro closed the door, which made the already dim twelfth grade class even darker. He never understood why someone would pick such a gloomy looking room as a legitimate class. He believed that being in such a gloomy place could either make someone totally silent or extremely irritable. Unfortunately, the students before him fell into the latter. Anyway, while trying to close the door, he noticed that there's no latch on this side of the door, so he supported it with a desk.
After successfully closing the door, he walked back to the teacher's desk and sat on it while giving out a sigh. "You know, I've received complaints from like the entirety of the teachers from the staff room." He spoke. The students before him weren't dumb. They knew exactly why their Physics teacher would let another teacher in the class, when usually she's so stingy with time. This was not the first time that happened. Every teacher lectured them and it seemed like their current class teacher wasn't any different. However, they did feel good since this lecture took five minutes off the Physics class, which the students unanimously hated. Like, they used to think that the problem was with the subject. However, once they went to a tuition center and listened to the teacher there, they understood that Ms Mary was missing that passion that the other teacher had. Without any passion, it was simply bland in their opinion.
Seeing that no one raised their voice against him made him understand that they knew what sorta complaints is the ones that he talked about. And he understood that they were expecting some lazy lecture about how they should not do this and that. However, Taro didn't plan to do so. He thought that it would be weird to implant an ideology on someone's mind unless he himself believed in it. So, yet again, he sighed. "You guys can calm down. I'm not gonna eat you or something. Look, the teachers here asked me to lecture you about a whole lot of stuff, most of which I barely care about because it doesn't concern me. However, they did talk about how noisy you lot are, which I have to agree with." He didn't want to mince his words, so he decided to go with the straight forward approach. "You see, you could be extremely annoying in their eyes… Well, you are a bit annoying in my eyes too, not gonna lie. No one likes someone who just talks like literally every single second. The case in point would be myself and my roommates. No one really likes us. Even in this school, I became an outcast because I spoke something against the masses. Anyway, if people don't like us for who we are, it doesn't matter. However, that doesn't mean that you can ignore their voices; especially if they are meant to be your seniors or someone whom you're meant to respect. Look, I have no problem with you talking. Just respect the effort that a teacher makes to take a class for you. And the easiest way to do that would be giving the attention that they're looking for. It would be heartbreaking for someone to take classes and receive no attention for the work they do." Taro explained before stopping to take a breath. He wanted to say more, however after careful consideration, he decided that any more of this, and it would make a negative impact.
After a few seconds of silence from both sides, someone finally broke the silence. It was Ross, the kid who didn't make much impact in Taro's radar… until now. "Sir, what if the class is boring? What should we do then?" He asked.
"Well, if the class is boring or something you hate, try your hardest to listen to it and make sense of it. Even then if you find it boring… Well, act like you're interested or something That always works! That would give them an illusion that you're really interested in what they have to teach. Is this something that I have to say to you? It's not like you're aware of something trivial like this, right?" He asked to which the students nodded their heads in agreement. "Okay, since that's done with, I'm gonna go now and call your Physics teacher. Ciao." He opened the door and called Mary. She was waiting for him to come out as she kept a considerable distance from the classroom to give them their privacy.
Once she got in, she felt the difference from any other class she taught. The class was silent and attentive. It felt like they were listening to everything. She felt relieved of this atmosphere and wondered what Mr Sadanandan did to create such an atmosphere.
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By the time all the classes ended, everyone learned of the massive change of behavior from the twelfth graders. They talked it up like it was some big thing, however Taro didn't understand the reason for it. It was supposed to be the Teaching 101. Anyway, even though he managed to do something like this, not a single teacher in the high school block approached him and made him feel like an outcast. Taro hated this feeling. Every time he tried living normally, whether on Wados or Earth, he ended up being treated as an outcast. While the first two times was about his power, he didn't understand the reason for getting outcasted for the third time. Anyhow, since he was familiar with this kinda situation, he didn't find it weird. The only teachers who conversed with him were the ones who had classes in both middle and high school block, mainly because no one talked about the events to them.
Even though the events felt chaotic at some point, he felt at ease by the end of it. He still had people on the other block waiting to talk to him about what happened there and the second-graders English class was fun to teach as well. And back at home, he had John to talk about.... Well, it's been quite busy these days that Taro and the crew actually forgot to ask the happenings about John and Taro. Taro thought that it would be great if he could talk about it with him soon.
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