WHO IS A TRENDSETTER?

I find myself traveling to my past a lot these days. I guess it is when I discover that time is moving so fast and there is the risk of forgetting important things and people in my life.

 I was thinking about trendsetters in high schools.

 No school lacks a trendsetter. One of my sisters told me a story about trendsetters in her school the last time we were together and I really laughed.

 When she transferred into that school in form two, she did not imagine that things like trendsetting existed because she believed that, it being a private school with a small population, everyone was their own boss. But she was mistaken. I was already laughing by the time she got here because of the tone with which she spoke. She is one of the best story tellers I know.

"I met Halima and her gang the second day in the dining hall." She said. Like her, Halima was in form two but the two had not spoken to each other before. She immediately noted that Halima and her group were always together.

"You must be a new student." Halima asked with what sis says was an irritating-fake accent.
"I am. As you can see I don't have the proper uniform." That was the reply sis gave.
"We want you to be one of us." Halima continued.
That conversation was long and boring, according to big sis. And as I expected, she turned down their invitation.
"Why didn't you want to be part of them? They were the know it alls." I asked knowing fully that I was not getting anywhere with that kind of statement.

"I had seen such kind of groups in my former school and they did not impress me." She said and continued to lament about how tedious and moneyless trendsetting was as a job.

My sister said trendsetting and wanting to be noticed for no useful reason was really useless.
"They did so many useless things. They laced their shoes in a certain identical way, their skirts were ironed in the same manner, their blouses were always tucked in in the same way, their food had the same spices...it was so tedious for them I think."

"Did they manage to set the school's trend?" I asked.
"Maybe they did. I wasn't really keen on their progress; our tables in the school hall were close and that was why I could see them all the time."
"Did the group hold until the end of form four?"
"Unfortunately it did not. The group originally comprised four girls. Two of them transferred at the end of form two, one left in form three leaving only one. Halima."

"So how did you end up with Halima as your best friend?" I asked because Halima was the name of my sister's best friend throughout form three and four."

"It's a long story." My sister said laughing. "But she had to drop all ambitions of being the school's trend setter"

Halima's experiences as a trendsetter? Sis says she doesn't know much; all she knows is that Halima used to laugh at other trendsetters and then say, "I wish these girls could see themselves in a mirror."

Of course the story is longer and more humorous.

But there is another type of trendsetter. This one does not do anything to attract attention, in fact she doesn't even know that she is drawing attention by what she is doing. We had this kind of trendsetter in my high school.

I spoke to Anne on phone for over an hour yesterday; just laughing about incidences that took place. Anne Francisca was the silent trendsetter in my school. Although she never did anything unique, everybody seemed to be in competition with her for something. I am thinking that maybe her beauty had something to do with it. Anne is a rare breed of beauty with a skin color that is hard to come by. So girls in my school and especially my stream disliked her. I don't know why. The most interesting bit was that, whenever Anne came to see me in my class(she was in a different stream) or another friend, my classmates would want her to just say hi to them. But immediately she left, most of them would start saying all sorts of bad things about her.

Though no one admitted it, Anne was a trendsetter in my school. Someone was always trying to walk like Anne. Others wanted to have as many boyfriends or rather draw as much attention from boys like Anne did. Others wanted to wash their clothes with gloves, just like Anne. Another group wanted their school uniform to fit just like Anne's...

We laughed so hard with Anne.
"And why were the two of us ever friends? How did it happen?" I asked Anne as we approached the end of our conversation.
"Daisy, I truly don't know. We are so different in many ways but similar in a mysterious way." She said hanging up. Like with most people I call friends, the phone call was lengthy but it ended just when we were supposed to have started talking.

Trendsetting! trendsetting! Trendsetting! Who is qualified for the job? What do they stand to gain apart from short-lived attention and 'admiration?'

THE PROBLEM WITH STEREOTYPES

A friend reminded me about something when we were chatting online today and I started laughing. Laughing is almost always my first reaction and I have gotten into trouble severally.

One of our classmates started behaving weirdly when we were in form three. Her name is Lydia. The first time, we all thought she was simply being cheeky, after all teenagers are expected to have a kind of stereotyped behavior. If my diary is correct, then the first incident happened towards the end of May in 2008. It was during the night prep.

Lydia stood up and drew everyone's attention with a bang on her desk. Our prefect was not the joking type and she immediately ordered her out of class.
"Lydia, you cannot disrupt the class like that! Go out and meet the teacher on duty." Nelver said.(I picked that sentence from my diary, that is why it is accurate)

But Lydia ignored and continued to make a crazy announcement.
"My boyfriend asked me to write him a letter before end term. Who knows any nice words?"

We all burst out laughing including the class prefect. I was surprised at the enormous ideas people had in that class. The only trouble was that people started talking about their own boyfriends instead of sorting Lydia out. After five minutes, the whole class had become rowdy with people turning their books upside down in the process of locating a love letter to show off. I have always been an observer, so I was quietly seated just looking around. Those are some of the instances when my desk mate labeled me abnormal. But I am not complaining.

Just like I had expected, the teacher on duty passed by our block and asked all of us to go and kneel at the parade square unless all the prefects in that class produced the list of noise makers. I was a prefect as well but I had never thought of writing anyone's name for noise making.

The whole class was punished.

In the next incident, Lydia suddenly rose from her desk and started declaring her love for my desk mate Sharon. We found that strange but her statement did not strike us as lesbian at all. As usual, there was a loud burst of laughter in class with a few courageous ones asking her why she loved Sharon. Sharon on her part was chocking on laughter. I miss her laughter so much. I laughed too but I knew that as a peer counselor, I had to somehow step in. I had to either report to the guidance and counseling mistress or try to find out from Lydia what was happening because Lydia was not acting sober at all. She had been my classmate since form one and I knew her quite well. It was completely out of her character to behave in that manner and especially disrupting the preps knowing fully well that the consequences were dreadful.

 I saw the madam in her office the following day.
"What brings you to my office, Daisy? The day is still young."
"Good morning madam." I greeted her politely before taking a seat opposite her. It had not been easy to get used to talking to her especially being the reserved person that I am. I find it intrusive to talk about other people in their absence. But I had learnt the art over time.

I narrated my concerns about Lydia and to my surprise, madam asked me to ignore her.
"Lydia is just being the teenager that she is. The next time she makes noise in class, inform the teacher on duty so that she is punished. We will only come in when there is evidence to show that she is in deed a lesbian."

I was dissatisfied with that answer but what was I supposed to do?

There was a series of other shocking incidences but I managed to ignore her. She was caught severally by the teachers on duty, got punished and that was it.

In the last incident, Lydia was found sleeping in class by one of the no-nonsense madams in the school. But Lydia stood her ground and said that no one was going to punish her. Lydia preffered a  suspension.

As disturbing as it was, Lydia was given a suspension and she did not show up until very many weeks later. One of her older brothers who was a medical doctor had sensed something wrong with her immediately he set eyes on her. He took her to hospital and she was put on medication.

As we continued chatting with my pal, she asked me a question I would have asked her if she didn't.
"Would you blame the teachers for being ignorant of Lydia's illness?"

I did not answer her immediately but when I did, this was my answer.

I would partly blame the teachers and partly not. I would also blame her classmates(us) partly and partly not. I think we all have mindsets of some sort. By the time we are ten, we begin hearing terrible stories about adolescence and puberty. We read about how rebellious we'll become and et cetera. Only rarely do we get both sides of the coin and so in most cases we don't approach life and teenagehood the way we would if we did not have the societal expectations in our mind. That must have been the reason why we did not suspect anything beyond mischief in Lydia's character. We all knew her as a moderately active classmate, we should have raised an alarm immediately she started acting 'hyper'.

Our teachers too had their own stereotypes. Perhaps if they did not have a standard behaviour for teenagers, our guidance and counselling madam would have looked into Lydia's issue more keenly.

But thank GOD for her brother who did not act from what he thought about teenagers.

I want to end with a quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete."

ARE SOME TEACHERS MAD?

The very first time I saw him, I concluded one of the best teachers in chemistry.
There was something extraordinary about him that made everyone revere him. He was also the departmental head of Science in the school.
Where I come from, age is respected but balding is venerated; so the fact that he had a huge bald on his head made me respect him with all that I had.
He was also a teacher of class and he wore suits from Monday to Friday. Unlike all the other male teachers, his desk was always neatly arranged with books in a spic and spun order.
He was our subject teacher from form one to four. He gave me a very firm foundation in Chemistry and I was not surprised the day I scored a whole 94% in the end of the year exam in form two. I truly enjoyed his lessons. He was to be precise, a gifted teacher. He encouraged all his students to ask as many questions as possible. His door was always open for consultations.

I managed to maintain the position of the best chemistry student in my class until one day.

We were tackling a topic in calculation. According to our predecessors it was a topic that required both the soul, the body and the holy spirit to be tackled. The topic was called THE MOLE and surprisingly, despite my wanting performance in mathematics, I had no problem understanding and even presenting a well done sum.He summoned me to his office one afternoon and expressed his delight in how first I understood the topic. He went on to say that, he wanted the two of us to work together in order to help the other students come up as well. That was a very beneficial responsibility.

Two days later, he called me to his office to explain how far I had gone with the group discussions. As he asked this, his hands wandered over my fingers that were resting on his table as usual. I wouldn't have suspected anything queer had his eyes not started looking strange. At some point he stood up and put his hand over my shoulder. My antennae rose; what was this teacher doing? I got his hands off me and ran to class.

I could hardly believe what had happened. I felt cheated and sick. I wanted to be alone. That day marked the end of my consultations and full participation and concentration in chemistry.

Although I do not like blaming people for my problems, I must say that the incident was the beginning of my deteriorating performance in chemistry. I never bothered with chemistry. I sometimes never listened to that teacher when he came for his lessons and when I could get away with it, I skipped his class. Within a month, chemistry had ceased to be the cup of tea it was for me and by the time I sat for my final exams Chemistry was no longer footwork and I ended up with one of the lowest scores in my result slip.

Perhaps I have no audacity to speak against our honourable teachers. Perhaps it is not right at all for me to insinuate anything negative about the people who have moulded most of us to where we are now. Such people without a doubt deserve our respects. But it is disturbing to note that we have a few individuals who, inspite of being honored with the unique responsiblity, have shifted their crowns to beggars.

This is a very long debate and I know everyone has a different thought. But whatever it is, morality and discipline is paramount to the success of any institution.