It was a normal day as a 7th Grade student. I walked into humanities class and saw that the teacher had a plastic water bottle filled with a dark reddish liquid sitting on the edge of her desk. When I saw that I thought of the cranberry juice that my mother has been drinking lately. Then pointing at the dark reddish drink, I asked the teacher, “Is that cranberry juice?”
The teacher looked at the drink and looked back at me and said slowly, “yes.”
I was happy that I was able to guess what was in the bottle right but also a little confused as to why the teacher used a 7-Eleven plastic bottle instead of a reusable water bottle. Then, I watched as my best friend walked into the classroom and she suddenly raised her nose into the air like she smelt something weird. As she sat down next to me, I asked her, “What are you doing?”
She replied, “The room smells like wine.”
I didn’t think much into what my best friend had just said and started to concentrate on the teacher as the class began. That day, the humanities teacher was different from her usual self. Normally, our teacher was stern and had strict rules due to her being a new teacher. But as she introduced us to the itinerary for the upcoming class trip to the River Kwai Bridge, I noticed that she would repeatedly giggle like a little girl.
Then the teacher projected a black and white picture from Google of a group of soldiers at the River Kwai Bridge. She pointed at one of the soldiers in the picture and said, “This is my grandfather. He was a soldier during World War 2. During the war, he became a prisoner of war to the Japanese and was made to work on building the River Kwai Bridge. Which is the place that we will be visiting during our trip!”
It’s hard to believe that she could find a picture of her grandfather on Google. In my mind, I could sense that she was lying about the man in the picture being her grandfather. If it’s a picture of her grandfather, why did she not show us a picture from a photo album but a picture from Google.
She then continued to say, “I’m so excited that we are able to go visit the River Kwai Bridge!” and started jumping up and down squealing like a kid that received a present on Christmas Day.
This action was stranger than the teacher giggling at the beginning of the class and caused the class to start raising their suspicions about the teacher. At first, the class was just enjoying the fact that the teacher was in a good mood, not thinking much into her weird behavior. But when she started to jump up and down squealing, we knew something was going on.
After the teacher cooled down from her little squealing session, we continued to watch a movie we didn’t finish in the previous class called: “The Boy in Striped Pajamas”. On a normal day, the teacher would not allow the boys to lay on the ground while watching the movie. But that day, the boys in our class took the chance and asked the teacher if they could lie on the floor to watch the movie. The teacher responded with “Because I’m so happy and excited to be visiting the River Kwai Bridge in the upcoming trip, I will allow you boys to lie on the floor today.”
Other than allowing the boys to do things they weren’t allowed to before; the teacher was being extremely touchy and physical with some of the boys sitting in the front. I would see my male classmate awkwardly sit while the teacher puts her hands on his shoulders and occasionally put her weight on him or sitting on his desk with her butt facing towards my male classmate.
When the teacher stepped out of the classroom to use the restroom, my best friend took this chance to walk up to the teacher’s desk, opened the plastic bottle filled with said ‘cranberry juice’, and took a good sniff.
She then said one word, “เหล้า” (alcohol).
“It’s definitely wine.”
Since all of us were still underaged, someone asked, “How do you know the smell of wine?”
My friend then answered, “My father works in the wine industry and my house is filled with multiple wine cellars, so I for certain know what wine would smell like.”
With this statement, everyone began to believe that the teacher brought wine into school in disguise of “cranberry juice” and got truly drunk during class time. With little class time left, we all decided not to do anything yet.
As the bell rang, I left the class and found my classmates coming together to discuss what had happened in our humanities class. We had to decide.
To tell the administration or not to tell the administration.
“What do you think made her bring wine into class?”
“I don’t know but I saw her take her bag to the parking lot and came back an hour later with more wine in the bottle.”
“Do you think someone close to her died?”
“How would we know? She didn’t tell us anything.”
“What should we do? If we tell the administrators, they will fire her.”
“I say we don’t tell anyone.”
“Why?”
“She is a new teacher. We should give her another chance.”
I knew that this idea was not a good idea, but the majority of the class did not want to tell the administrators about our drunk teacher. So, in the end, our class decided to give the teacher another chance. Together as a class, we swore not to tell the other teachers or the administration about what had happened in the humanities class.
The very next day, the whole class was called in by Khun Varnnee, the director of the school. In our school, we have a hierarchy of students, teachers, coordinators, dean, vice-principal, principal, and director.
In the past, when our class got into trouble, only the principal came to lecture us about our wrongdoings. But hearing that the director had called for a meeting with the whole Grade 7, something was terribly wrong.
We were then escorted to the same humanities class where our teacher was drunk teaching us the day before. Walking towards the room, everybody in my class was asking each other whether or not they tattle taled on the teacher. With the question “Did you tell?” and the answer “No” being heard left and right.
As we settled down in the humanities classroom, we went all silent when Khun Varnee stepped into the room. The class representative then stood up and said: “นักเรียนทำความเคารพ” (“students pay your respect”). The whole class put their hands together and wai (bowed) at Khun Varnee saying, “สวัสดีค่ะ/ครับคุณครู” (“Hello teacher”) and recited a statement promising to have love and compassion to help everyone at all times.
Khun Varnee then started off the meeting by saying, “So there was an incident with one of our teachers where the teacher was not setting a good example to our students. The administration and I have discussed this issue with the teacher. And after careful consideration, the teacher decided to leave the school on her own accord. Now that you guys will not have a humanities teacher, we will be inviting back our retired humanities teacher to come and teach your class until we find a replacement.”
After this meeting, I never saw that humanities teacher again. No one knew what made her do what she did or knew where she went after leaving. Over time, I forgot what she looked like and even forgotten her name, but all I can remember was her being drunk in class.
Later, I found out that it was the 6th graders who told the administrators about our humanities teacher getting drunk in class. They had humanities after us and experienced the same situation as my class did. But they decided to do the right thing and report to the administrators while our class wanted to give our teacher another chance.
Now looking back as a future teacher to be, I know that the 6th graders made the right decision to tell the administrators about the teacher being drunk in class. It’s not just about giving the teacher another chance, it’s about the teacher setting a good example to students.