School is a fun place to be a part of, the learning, making of friends, and other extracurricular activities all make our time at school memorable life long, reason why we can't stop hearing from our parents about their time in school even though their time was slightly different from ours, we still enjoy hearing their experiences. In the same way, we are going to retell the tales of our time too to our children.
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With all the excitement that comes with school, one aspect I dread the most is being punished, I was mostly a good student making sure to avoid acts that could lead to me getting punished but there is na way one can be all righteous, you will definitely have to be guilty of something, and mine was lateness, the reason for my lateness was not far fetched from my younger sister in the nursery class who I literally had to drag to school every morning because she didn't like going to school right from her first day in school, all tactics to make her like school were futile, so I was left with the burden of taking her to school as the eldest sister, which wasn't fun at all, no matter how early I wake up, I still end up late for school.
I was just in junior secondary school 3 at the time preparing to write my junior WAEC(West African Examination Council), we got informed the previous day that we would be having a mathematics class in the morning before the resumption time and a test afterward, so we were expected to be in school by 7:45 am and a latecomer like me how was I going to make it tagging my sister along, I couldn't leave her at home, my mum won't even let me.
The next morning, I woke up earlier, prepared myself, and tried as much as possible to get my younger sister ready fast too, no matter how hard I tried, we still ended up in school by 8:30 am and the class was far gone, I wasn't allowed to enter the class neither was I allowed to write the test, to crown it all, late comers were punished, we were asked to line in front of the class and ride in an invisible motorcycle, meaning we will squat as if we were sitting on a bike then stretch out our arms forward and folded also remain still for the duration given, this was my first time facing such punishment, usually, we were always caned on the palm for lateness, but this was totally different, the teacher was on guard to flog anyone who moved from that position, all my body ached, I cried my eyes until the one hour punishment time elapsed. I felt pain throughout my body the whole week, from that day, I always prepare and finish on time leaving my younger sister behind for my mum to bring her to school later, I didn't care if my mum was going to scold me, at least she won't punish me like my teacher did, from then henceforth, I was never punished for lateness again by Mr. Sylvester, my math's teacher and that was the punishment I dreaded and will never forget soon because of the pain I felt and the lesson it instilled in me.