Chapter 13 "Istanbul" happy and monotonous school life

The first thing I learned in school was that some people are idiots and the second was that some people are worse than idiots.I was too young to understand that educated people should be blind to such fundamental disparities, and that the same courtesy applies to disparities that may arise from religious, racial, gender, class, economic and (recently) cultural differences.So whenever the teacher asked a question, I would raise my hand naively. After several months of this situation, the teachers and classmates must have sensed that I was a good student, but I still felt the urge to raise my hand.Now the teacher seldom calls me, preferring to let other children have a chance to speak.Still, my hand involuntarily goes up whether I know the answer or not.If I was putting on airs, like a man who wears a fine piece of jewellery, despite his everyday attire, it might as well be said that I was eager to please because I admired my teacher.

Another thing I was very happy to find in school was the "authority" of the teachers.At home, in the crowded and sprawling Pamuk apartment, things have never been so clear.At a table full of people, everyone speaks at the same time.Our chores, our love for each other, our conversations, meals and radio time, these things were never debated - they just happened.My father had no apparent position of authority in the family and was often absent.He never scolded my brother or me, nor did he frown in disapproval.He later referred to us as his "brothers" when he introduced us to friends, and we thought he had a right to say that.My mother was the only authority I recognized in the family.But she is not a strange or alien tyrant, her authority comes from the desire to be loved by her.So I was fascinated by the influence my teacher had over her twenty-five students.

Maybe I see the teacher as my mother, because I just want to please her. "Put your hands together like this, and sit quietly," she said, and I sat with my arms close to my chest, patiently, listening to the whole class.But the novelty wears off, and after a while, the excitement of having an answer before someone else or solving a math problem ceases, and time starts to slow down annoyingly, or even stop flowing altogether. My eyes averted the silly fat girl who was writing on the blackboard, and she was smiling the same flat, trusting smile at everyone - the teacher, the school porter, and her fellow students.My eyes drifted out of the window to the tops of the chestnut trees that rose between the apartment buildings.A crow sits on a branch.Because I was looking from below, I could see a small cloud behind me, which kept changing shape as it moved: first a fox's nose, then a head, then a dog.I wished to be like a dog all the time, but it kept going and turned into the four-legged silver sugar bowl that my grandmother always kept locked in her display case, making me long to be at home.Once the reassuring shadow of silence in the home was recalled, my father would emerge from the shadow like a dream, and our family would take a small trip to the Bosphorus.Just then, a window of a certain apartment building across the way opened, and a maid, shaking a duster, gazed absently at the street I couldn't see from my seat.What happened in the street? I thought to myself.I heard the sound of the carriage rolling over the cobblestones, and the harsh voice called: "Eskhi—" The maid watched the second-hand dealer go down the street, then drew her head back, and closed the window, but then, at this window Next to it, I saw a second cloud, going as fast as the first, but in the opposite direction.But now my attention was called back to the classroom, and seeing everyone raised their hands, I couldn't wait to raise my hand: Before guessing what the teacher's question was based on the students' answers, I had a vague feeling that I knew the answer.

Knowing that my classmates were different individuals, and discovering how they were different from me, was both exhilarating and sometimes painful.A melancholy boy, every time he reads aloud in Turkish class, he skips between lines. The mistakes made by this poor boy are unconscious, just as the laughter of the classmates is also unconscious.When I was in the first grade, a girl with red hair tied into a ponytail sat next to me in the class. Although her schoolbag was full of half-bitten apples, "sesame rice", sesame seeds, pencils and hair ties, in her schoolbag, there was a lot of miscellaneous piles. There is always a scent of lavender around her, which I like very much.Her gift for talking openly about the little taboos of everyday life fascinates me, too, and I miss her when I don't see her on the weekends, though another petite and slender girl fascinates me just as much.Why does that boy keep lying, knowing that no one believes him? Why does that girl casually tell others what happened to her family? There is also a girl who is really crying when she reads the poem about the father of the nation?

Just like I have the habit of looking at the front of the car and observing the nose, I also like to look at my classmates and see what kind of animal they look like.The guy with the pointy nose is a fox, the big guy next door to him, like they say, is a bear, and the guy with the bushy hair is a hedgehog... I remember a Jewish girl named Mary telling us all about Passover - her grandmother's house There were days when no one was allowed to touch the light switches.Another girl said that she was in her room one evening, turned quickly, and caught a glimpse of an angel's shadow - and this horrible story followed me.A long-legged girl in very long socks always looked like she was about to cry.Her father was a government minister and when he died in a plane crash and the PM escaped unharmed, I'm pretty sure she was crying because she knew in advance what was going to happen.Many children have teeth problems, and several of them wear braces.The top floor of the building is the dormitory and the gymnasium. It is said that there is a dentist next to the health room. When the teachers lose their temper, they threaten to send naughty children there.When the crime was less serious, the teacher punished the students to stand in the corner between the blackboard and the door, with their backs to the whole class, sometimes standing on one foot, but because we were all anxious to see how long we could stand on one leg, we couldn’t even attend class. This punishment rarely happens.

In his memoir, Faraka and the Night, Rahim writes in detail about his school days, when Ottoman school teachers wielded long canes and beat their students without getting up from their seats.Our teachers encouraged us to read these books, perhaps to show us how lucky we were to have escaped the pre-Republic, pre-Father of Turkey days of "falaka" (flogging).But even in the affluent Nishantashi district, in the privileged Ishik Secondary School, the old Ottoman teachers found new tools for oppressing the weak in some "modern" technological innovations: the French ruler we use, especially It is the thin and hard mica strips embedded in the sides, and they are expertly held in their hands, just as effective as "falaka" and rattan.

I can't help feeling amused whenever someone is punished for being lazy, uneducated, stupid, or insolent.It made me happy to see a gregarious girl chauffeur-driven get punished; she was the teacher's favorite and used to stand in front of us singing "Jingle Bells" in English - but she was criticized There is no leniency when homework is done sloppily.There are always people who don't do their homework and pretend to do it, pretending that it is somewhere in the workbook and just can't find it for a while, and they will cry, "Teacher, I can't find it now!" Delaying the doomed fate, only to be beaten more fiercely by the teacher, and his ears were pulled more fiercely.

These rituals of humiliation have been perfected after the change from the lovely, kindly female teacher in the lower grades to the angry, sad old man who taught us religion, music, and sports in the upper grades, and the sometimes boring lessons made me dislike what was offered in the classroom. Happy for brief entertainment. There was a girl whom I admired from a distance, perhaps because she was petite and charming, or perhaps because of her tenderness—when she was being punished, I saw tears in her eyes and flushed face, which made me want to rescue her.When my fat blond boy, who tormented me during recess, was caught and beaten for speaking, I watched with dispassionate pleasure.There was a boy who I judged to be a complete fool, no matter how severe his punishment was, the boy would resist it.Some teachers seem to send students to the blackboard not to test their knowledge, but to prove their ignorance;Some teachers get angry when they see the wrong color of the book wrapping paper in their homework; at a loss; some—these are the people I admire most—will tell the teacher what else they know, even if they don't know the answer, in the foolish hope that it will save them.

I watched the movement in front of me—first a scolding, followed by a torrential rain of books and homework, while the rest of the class sat silently refusing to make a sound—thankful that I was not the one who was branded with shame One of the unlucky students.I share my luck with a third of my class.Given the variety of backgrounds at this school, the lucky ones might be more distinct, but this is a private elementary school and every kid comes from a wealthy family.On the playground during the break, our childish friendship made us inseparable from each other, but every time I watched my classmates being beaten and humiliated, I was like the intimidating figure sitting at the teacher's desk, and I couldn't help asking myself why Some kids are so lazy, misbehaved, weak-willed, insensitive or dumb.The comic books I started reading couldn't satisfy this hidden moral exploration: comics always painted bad guys with crooked mouths, and my dark childlike heart couldn't find the answer either, so I had to let the question fade away.It gradually dawned on me that so-called schools do not answer the deep questions of life, but rather prepare us for the full-scale political brutality of "real life."So before I enter middle school, I'd rather raise my hand and be a good student.

Still, the main thing I learned in school was that it’s not enough to just accept reality as it is, you have to marvel at its beauty.When I was in the lower grades, the teacher stopped the class as soon as he found an excuse and taught us to sing and play.I lip-sync to these songs in English and French - I don't understand and don't like them, although I like to observe my classmates (we sing in Turkish, the lyrics are something like: guard dad, guard dad, today's day off, let's blow the whistle) .The pudgy boy who had been teary-eyed because he forgot his workbook at home half an hour ago was singing cheerfully with his mouth open.The girl who tucks her long hair behind her ears all day long no longer worries about her hair when she sings.Even the fat guy who beat me up after class, and his cunning and vicious friend at the same table, who knew the secret divide well and made himself a good student - even they were smiling like angels Immerse yourself in the fluttering music.While singing, the tidy girl turns to see if her pencil case and workbook are still in order.After the break time, when I lined up to go back to the classroom two by two, the smart and hard-working girl who would silently extend her hand for me to hold when I asked her to be my partner, even she sang; The petty and fat boy who stretched his arms around the test paper like a baby to avoid being seen by others danced; even the hopeless idiot who was beaten every day spontaneously sang along.I realized that the red-haired girl with the ponytail had noticed too, so we looked at each other and laughed and sang.I can't sing the song, but when we get to the la la la part, I join in and sing as loud as I can.I look out the window, calling to the future.After a while, just a while, the bell rang for the end of get out of class, and the whole class rushed out.I fled outside with my schoolbag, saw our apartment housekeeper waiting, and took his big hand.He walked my brother and me home, and I thought that by the time I got home I was too tired to remember everyone in class, but even so, the thought of seeing my mother soon made me pick up my pace.