The Tip of the Iceberg

Lalitha K. Witanachchi

For more than twenty years I taught English in many schools in various parts of the island.
I can remember the faces of my pupils as I struggled to teach them a foreign language.
For years I coaxed, cajoled, goaded, threatened and berated them as they wrestled with the
slippery syntax of English. The tortures they must have endured at my hands studying the language
that had sometimes to be taught as a second language and sometimes as a foreign language,
according to the dictates of the Education Department.
Many were the seminars I was forced to attend. I was so befuddled with methodology that I
felt I was teaching a language invented by none other than Torquemada of Spain.
So, for the purpose of inspections, I kept my Notes of Lessons and Schemes of Work
immaculate according to prescription - red lines, aim of lesson, number of units per topic and so
on.
But as a treat, when there was no threat of inspection, I taught English the way my teachers
Miss Rigg, Miss Chapman and Mrs Innes taught me. I used short, simple words that communicated
the meaning.
So at Anuradhapura Central I spent five glorious years teaching The Tale of Two Cities.
Each year my job increased as with infinite patience my pupils learnt English and excelled in it.
Years passed. I was transferred from school to school, and finally I found myself in an
institution of learning in the suburbs of Colombo.
This had been a great school in its time. It was named after a great saint. But there was
nothing saintly or righteous in this temple of leaning.
“Nil Desperandum” read the motto at the entrance.
I walked through the narrow passage and entered bedlam. Four thousand boys were
cramped in this ghetto. Several monsoons ago the roof of one block had been blown away. Broken
furniture was heaped at one end of the playground. They served as playthings to these boys who
had no bats or balls.
Circumstances had made these boys a tough lot. Most of their fathers were unemployed.
Besides wrestling with the English language that hung over their heads like a sword of Damocles,
in school, these boys wrestled with empty stomachs at home, while their mothers groped for
coppers in their husbands’ empty pockets.
I was told that no work could be done here. If I kept an eye on the boys and maintained
some semblance of order, that was all that mattered.

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 “No inspectors come here, so don’t bother about Notes of Lessons and all that rubbish,”
said the principal. “But you may be able to do some little thing for these boys.”
I was in charge of fourteen boys in the Advanced Level class. Now it was my turn to endure
the tortures of teaching English to pupils who had neither text nor exercise books.
But there was one bright day of hope. I had also to teach Geography, my favourite subject.
Here my talents had not yet been stifled by regulations on the teaching of Geography, as my
English teaching had been crippled by the regulations of teaching English.
The boys were at my mercy, anyway I remember them with deep affection.
“Sam”
“Present”
“Rohitha”
“Present”
“Duminda de silva”
“Here”
“Costa”
“Innawa”
“Rodrigo”
“Hm”
I closed the register and began the lesson.
Like the doomed they sighed and groaned and sagged. They dragged their rickety chairs
and huddled together. Pimply faced, with a few wisps of beard they sat with lips tight, watching
me.
“Take out your books,” I said.
Rohitha and Duminda pulled out their battered exercise books from their trouser pockets.
The others had none.
“Can I have some chalk “I asked.
“No chalk” said Sam.
Life was not that beneficent in this forsaken temple of learning.
I removed my glasses and wiped my lenses adjusting my spectacles, I waited for him.
Silence descended upon the seated
I picked up the stub of chalk that was on my desk and wrote the word “Glaciation”

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 I could hear a groan and a sigh.
“Or the work of ice” I added, and I wiped the dust from my hand.
My pupils seemed a trifle euphoric.
I would tackle this subject the way I had done it in the other schools where I had taught.
I told them all about the cold arctic regions of snow, avalanches, and icebergs.
“You can see only the tip of the iceberg. Nine tenths of it is hidden under the water, so they
are a great hazard to shipping.”
Nothing is so depressing than having to copy a note read in a dull sonorous tone on
glaciation on a hot April afternoon. I had my own special private discovery, as all teachers have.
There was magic in example. It would free the class from boredom. The sensible teacher
creates examples within the student’s response. She helps them to form concepts.
My aim was to gently seduce and tantalize the pupils. I planned to provide a visual
experience to them without too many details of physical geography.
So, having described the formation of icebergs, I launched upon the saga of the brave
Titanic.
The boys settled own. Sam began to stroke his chin. Costa leaned back, de Silva stopped
fidgeting and I went on with my story.
“It was a luxury liner,” I said, “There was music and wine and many wealthy passengers
were on the ship that was going on its maiden voyage.”
Sam looked at Costa. I spoke slowly, impressively, almost with religious fervour. It was
not always that a geography lesson gives material of such momentous majesty.
“Suddenly, the ship lurched. Glass began to tinkle. Soon there was a crash.”
The fourteen boys caught upon the drama of the great voyage hung on every word, and
leaned forward.
“Water gushed into the ship’s hold, the ship had struck an iceberg. Remember nine-tenths
of an iceberg is hidden.”
On I went, recounting the immortal voyage.
“The ship had struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland. The ship listed…” Did I
see the suspicion of a smile on their faces? I must be mistaken.
“1513 passengers were drowned.” There was silence. A silence that was shattered by a
slight guffaw from Rodrigo. I thought I heard Costa give a squeak. But this was not a laughing
matter.
I told them of the brave resolve of the captain who did not desert the sinking ship.

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 Now they were openly sniggering.
There was a sound of pleading in my voice as I said softly. “But this was a tragedy.”
“But they were rich.” Shouted Costa, thumping on his desk. “They deserved to be
drowned.”
With the final thump the black button on his shirt flew off and rolled under my desk. He
darted from his chair and retrieved it as though it was something very precious.
Vaguely, I noticed that many boys in the class had black buttons on their shirts.
I was in no mood to go on with my story. I’d hurry and be done with it.
With infinite patience and restraint, I concluded. “And so while the Titanic sank, the band
played on.”
Like a volcano that had erupted, they roared with laughter.
The bell run and no one heard it. All except Sam. A light burned in his eyes. He seemed to
want to reach something that proved elusive. A demand for justice burned in his eyes.
The bell had gone. I dismissed the class and the whole of the Titanic and went home.
We did not have school next day or the next or the next. Not for a very long time. Nor did
I see Sam and Costa ever again.
But every April I remember them. Nor will I forget the day I had that lesson. It was the
fourth of April, the day before the 1971 insurgency.
I was told that the insurgents wore a black button as a symbol.
I had failed to as a teacher. I had seen only the tip of the iceberg.
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