There is something about Senior Two

My grades had dropped significantly in Senior Two and my mother’s complaints were getting much louder.
She was now threatening to take me to one of the low-end schools in her village. Although I was alarmed by her threats, the final nail was the fact that the following year, we were going to be grouped in classes according to performance. There was an infamous class of the least performing students that many of us dreaded.
We protested the move, a thing that many found strange. But we fought hard and when the New Year started, teachers did not group students according to performance.
That was such a big relief. However, I was not sure I had survived that class completely, with its stigma coupled with poor grades.
The matter was not yet sorted yet because one of the new teachers was going to be my class teacher and I wasn’t about to let her see me with below average performance.
I gave it my best shot and for the first time, my grades improved greatly and I jumped into a more comfortable position. That is when my mother stopped complaining and threatening.
The same momentum saw me up my game for the whole year and helped me set a precedent for excelling at O-Level examinations.
The other day, I had one of those difficult talks with one child, whose grades were demoralising.
I was alarmed. I told him how disappointed I was that a person of his calibre would exhibit such an alarming performance. He was known for being exceptional and brilliant.
I told him that I had since withdrawn my offer for him to own his own bass guitar, as a gift for the year because he was not demonstrating its value.
He would look at me for different intervals. My words were deliberate. They had a strong touch but I delivered them with love and affirmation.
I was saying that I knew he had so much more potential than he cared to show. And I told him I was not budging. He had no choice but to style up.
That is what it takes to sow deliberate seeds of wisdom. Nurturing not just for ‘now’ but for the time beyond tomorrow. May Lord help us.