Wadana Kakakhel, Grade 12
UWCEA Moshi Campus
There is an exceptionally great amount of knowledge to gain both inside and outside classrooms at UWC. One of my favorite courses is English Literature, and despite my preference of having a relatively smaller class size, I find the conversations in the biggest class I’m a part of incredibly insightful and enjoyable. We read books and have discussions while reading in class or ask questions regarding the assigned reading if the book is read individually. The first book I had read with the class was Disgrace by J M Coetzee, a novel set in post-apartheid South Africa about David Lurie, a 52 year-old Romantics professor, and his life after allegations had been made against him about sexually assaulting one of his students.
One of the greatest lessons I learned from this book was the gray area when it comes to morality. It is extremely easy to judge other people from a moral high ground but what becomes difficult is learning to understand. The conversations spurred while reading this book in class often steered away from the context of the novel and often made us think about our own lives and how we tend to treat other people. A major theme of the book was Lurie’s redemption arc and after reading detailed accounts of his interactions with his student, it became hard separating the David Lurie that we had already convinced ourselves he was, and the more complex character that we discovered him to be.
Without giving any spoilers, after reading a particularly interesting part of the book, the class went into a debate about good and bad, and the whole concept of second chances. We had made out David Lurie to be a vile individual and to me, the idea of forgiveness seemed inconceivable at the time. As people pitched in with their thoughts, my mind wandered off to all the people I had subconsciously categorized as “good” or “bad” based on my preconceived notion of who they were. For a moment, I was absolutely horrified. I knew I was cynical to some extent but actually recalling how many times I distrusted people felt like a major reality check.
Disgrace taught me that there is no such thing as good and bad people, just people who do good and bad things. Occasionally, I still find myself having a hard time trusting people because of my mind’s constant chatter of everything that could go wrong, but I’m slowly learning to let go of that. When I look back on my classes at UWC, one of the main things that keeps me engaged is either meaningful conversations or interactive games where we have to think and reach a conclusion based on everything learned without the teacher’s input. In the English class, most of our time is spent discussing different ideas and sometimes the class steers off into something unrelated to the novel but incredibly valuable to think about.
These conversations have allowed me to enjoy the lack of a rigid structure limiting class time and truly learn how to critically think and talk about complex topics.
Image Courtesy: https://medium.com/@constycastor/disgrace-7c7920184312
One of the greatest lessons I learned from this book was the gray area when it comes to morality. It is extremely easy to judge other people from a moral high ground but what becomes difficult is learning to understand. The conversations spurred while reading this book in class often steered away from the context of the novel and often made us think about our own lives and how we tend to treat other people. A major theme of the book was Lurie’s redemption arc and after reading detailed accounts of his interactions with his student, it became hard separating the David Lurie that we had already convinced ourselves he was, and the more complex character that we discovered him to be.
Without giving any spoilers, after reading a particularly interesting part of the book, the class went into a debate about good and bad, and the whole concept of second chances. We had made out David Lurie to be a vile individual and to me, the idea of forgiveness seemed inconceivable at the time. As people pitched in with their thoughts, my mind wandered off to all the people I had subconsciously categorized as “good” or “bad” based on my preconceived notion of who they were. For a moment, I was absolutely horrified. I knew I was cynical to some extent but actually recalling how many times I distrusted people felt like a major reality check.
Disgrace taught me that there is no such thing as good and bad people, just people who do good and bad things. Occasionally, I still find myself having a hard time trusting people because of my mind’s constant chatter of everything that could go wrong, but I’m slowly learning to let go of that. When I look back on my classes at UWC, one of the main things that keeps me engaged is either meaningful conversations or interactive games where we have to think and reach a conclusion based on everything learned without the teacher’s input. In the English class, most of our time is spent discussing different ideas and sometimes the class steers off into something unrelated to the novel but incredibly valuable to think about.
These conversations have allowed me to enjoy the lack of a rigid structure limiting class time and truly learn how to critically think and talk about complex topics.
Image Courtesy: https://medium.com/@constycastor/disgrace-7c7920184312
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