Sometimes a teacher has to go with the flow. There are times when students can't concentrate, and it's best not to fight against the tide. One Saturday evening at YTC, I decided to ride the wave of my students' excitement when they fidgeted and fought their inability to concentrate with all the strength they could muster. "What is going on?" I asked. "You're not yourselves." Ashton said, "We're going to see a movie. Outside." Once a month, Stephen Doobal, a graphic designer and media consultant, came to YTC to show a movie on the giant screen he set up in the middle of the playing field. He had already shown The Blind Side to all the lads and that week he was going to show Karate Kid.
The thought of watching a movie outside under the stars on a Saturday night-after lockdown, I might add-was too much excitement to channel into a formal English class so I decided to cut a deal: "The CXC English language syllabus says students should be able to analyse movies. Besides, movies give us visual references for everything we have to learn for this test. So, we'll go to the movie. You'll write a review, and we'll do one writing exercise-a paragraph-before we go. You have five minutes to tell me what this means: "The pen is mightier than the sword." Here's what my students wrote: "The pen might not be as deadly as a razor-sharp sword, but trust me the famous quote, 'The pen is mightier than the sword,' is as true as it gets. In that one statement we see many different views on life. The pen could be David and the sword like Goliath. We all know what took place there. Small things or good things are always used to show the strength of a people. In this case, 'the pen'." -Marc
"The pen is very powerful. It depends on how you use it. The sword is also powerful when you use it physically. The difference is with the pen, you can express yourself without anyone getting hurt. You can write something like history on paper and someone in the future can read it. I want to give you my view: when you kill someone with a sword you'll go for trial and the pen will sentence you." -Sherwyn
"The pen symbolises education and the sword, weapons of destruction. Both items can bring about many different forms of power to the beholder, but one also comes with a tremendous amount of negative consequences. The sword is meant to bring control to law-breakers, but it is the pen that makes the laws. The pen is the backbone for any great ruler. Any unlawful sword will be put to an end by the sword of justice, which is the sword of the pen." -Jahmai
"The pen is mightier than the sword because the pen can do what the sword can't do. For example, you can kill a man with the sword, but you can do mightier things with the pen like write a letter. That means a lot to people." -Kheelon
"The pen is mightier than the sword is an adage that has two or more meanings, but the most common meaning is this: by using the sword, you are engaging in violence where you might end up dead or tied up with the law, and by using the pen you most likely become someone positive in life like a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or a prime minister." -Kern
"Some say that the sword is stronger than then pen, but to me it's the other way around. The sword leaves marks on the outside, but a pen leaves marks on the inside. So put down the swords and learn to use a pen and you will know things on the inside, not the outside." -Stephon
"In terms of being used to do immediate, grievous bodily harm, this phrase can easily be untrue because of the sword's abilities to chop and slice; however, if one realistically examines the abilities of the pen, one would recognise that while the sword can be used to commit physical harm, the pen has the ability to write the spoken word and also show our most heinous thoughts which, if written, read and executed properly, can cause harm, not only physically but mentally and emotionally." -Ashton
They wrote fast and furious so they could head in the direction of the humming popcorn machine spitting out fluffy kernels gathered in white paper bags and served with Coca-Cola. Some guest speakers and performers including 3-Canal came to our version of movie night. Wendell Manwarren asked me what I was doing in YTC and when I told him, "Teaching CXC English language," he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?" "I need novels," I said without thinking. Wendell made good on his promise to buy 12 copies of VS Naipaul's Miguel Street for the students I had at that time. Wendell turned one magical movie night into many magical nights of reading about Bogart and Hat playing patience.
• Next week: The story of Kheelon and his extraordinary gift
