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TANGENTS

School Days

BY IHTISHAM KABIR
In his brilliant and thought-provoking novel In the Light of What We Know, novelist Zia Haider Rahman observes that a bad mathematics teacher can leave a lifelong burden on his or her students because mathematics builds on itself and the effects of one weak year accumulate over the following years.
My experience in school was the converse: a good mathematics teacher can change your life for the better.
But 1 am getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.
I started my school life at Blue Bird School in Sylhet. At that time we lived in a bucolic home in Lamabazar where I was blissfully whiling away my childhood. When informed that I was old enough for school and that it was mandatory all week, I was not pleased.
The initial reluctance gave way to happiness as I made friends quickly. The school was on a hill with plenty of outdoor space to wander around during breaks. None of us liked the tiffin given from home, so throwing it out the back slope of the hill became a ritual.
After a few years the school moved to a new location. It was a large three-storied building with little spaceoutside. We were forced to spend the breaks inside the building. I was an avid reader by then, but now 1, exploring the school library, I fell in love with picture books.
Blue Bird School ended in Class Five. My parents decided to move to Dhaka to offer me appropriate schooling. I continued to disappoint them (and myself) by failing several admission tests. Then one morning, at Brother Gerard's office in St. Joseph's High School, I miraculously managed to pass the admission test and finallyentered Class Six.
This was a year of big change for me. Coming from a small town to a big city like Dhaka and giving up all my friends was traumatic enough. Additionally the environment of the school, while friendly, was different from Blue Bird's. For example, you were allowed to speak only in English in class. Those early days, the highlight was the two Rupees that my father gave me every day for tiffin. A burger and a Coke cost one Rupee. 1 spent the rest on Chatpati or treating a friend.
That first year at St. Joseph's it was difficult to make friends. That was because most of the others in the class had been together since Class Three. It was only after the Liberation War, in Class Eight, when I started playing basketball, that 1 found my stride in the school. My height helped. After having failed in cricket and soccer, I found that I excelled in basketball.
One day the mathematics teacher was absent and a substitute teacher showed up. A few students including myself were completely entranced by the way he taught. We found out his name and later, as a group, went to see him to ask if he would tutor us mathematics. He readily agreed. In the
months that followed, I learned to love mathematics from Mr. Shawkat Hussain.
The passion for mathematics that Mr. Hussain ignited in me has stayed with me all my life. It helped me excel in studies, win scholarships, learn engineering and build software in Silicon Valley. Thus a good mathematics teacher made a lifelong difference in one student's life.www.facebook.com/tangents.ikabir