Dreamscape: Truancy presages abject failure

Why I was a truant

It is becoming like a haunting of my dreams, for in times past, I played truant. My absence from class could never be properly understood. When one school report included the word "truant," my mother, a secondary school principal at the time, took such offence that I had to check if we were sharing the same meaning of the word.

In secondary school, my truancy was borne of boredom: boring teachers, even more boring subjects, and a total lack of engagement. In my English class, for instance, the whole activity was pedestrian. I was probably not helped by the fact that English is my mother tongue, as opposed to a second language, even though it was the official language of Nigeria.

Later in life, I came to understand that while I naturally understood the language, I did not understand the mechanics of it. I knew why a sentence had to be a certain way, but not how the elements of language were arranged to make it so. This became evident when a Dutch teacher of English used my intuition as a native speaker to review his notes. I found myself learning about the scaffolding that gives English its structure and grammar.

The unpleasantness of bad English

Elsewhere, my disinterest was compounded by distraction. In certain classes, I was so clueless about what was going on that I drew a total blank. It would have been so helpful to have had a student affairs department that addressed emotional, mental, and psychological health; I might have been saved a lot of misery.

The worst culprit, however, was a lecturer in electrical materials. His teaching style rankled to the point of irritation, and how he ever became a lecturer in a tertiary institution baffles me to this day. If he had used sign language, I might have been more engaged. Nearly every sentence of more than two words contained a malapropism or a grammatical flaw, and I felt such an urge to correct him that I could barely listen.

I remember in primary school, a new pupil came to our class and announced, "Teacher told me to come to class." We all laughed, as it sounded different, strange, and odd. He ended up in another class, but we soon became good family friends.

Always found wanting in Maths class

The haunting that has invaded my dreams for a long time now is finding myself in an advanced Mathematics class with no idea of what is going on. The lecturer walks in expecting the submission of some homework and then continues a topic I cannot seem to grasp, with the final examinations only a couple of weeks away. It is never a comfortable place to be; in that dreamy world, you are left wondering how to avert the looming prospect of failure.

I do, however, remember one final Mathematics examination. On the Friday before, I was not convinced I had the wherewithal to tackle the subject to the best of my ability. I found a primary school blackboard and worked through each of the topics to fix the gaps in my understanding. By Sunday evening, I was sharing better proofs of equations and theorems with others. I got an 'A' in that subject.

Between the dreamland that occupies the present and the reality of old, where I got it all together, I think of copying my friend's notes to pay off the knowledge deficit. Yet, a niggling thought suggests that I will not be able to pull it off.

The dream never goes beyond the lecture class, but the foreboding of failure lingers. What is it in my life that is showing up as a parable of omission and unpreparedness in my dreams? That is the mystery, something to pray for insight about.