I finally had some tools for my woodworking classes! I spent a saturday constructing a rolling stand on which the tools were stored by sets, one set for each workbench in the classroom. It was ugly, yet functional. I am not an aesthete if I don’t have to be. The boys drawings of the stools were done. I had demonstrated how to use the individual tools properly, issued wood, and the boys had gotten busy. 

I, too, had made a working drawing of the stool, a graceless yet strong design, which I hoped would withstand the abuse of classes of boys for some time to come. I finished the stool that I was making on the third day, while most of the boys were still sawing out pieces for theirs from the rough planks I had given them. As the class wound down for the day, I wanted to make a point to the guys, so I had them put up their tools, and put their stool pieces away on the shelves, and sit on the workbenches. I brought my stool up to the front of the classroom, and was extolling its virtues of strength and durability, like one of the women on The Price Is Right tv show. 

To make my point stick in their heads, I suddenly leaped atop my stool, and making karate sounds, I jumped up and down on top of it.

“Hyyyaaahhh! Ahooooah! Kawabunga!” I leaped up and down like a crazy man. “See! How! This! Stool! Can! Withstand! Abuse!?” I punctuated each word with a leap and hard landing. The boys were agog. But I had their atterntion, and felt like the idea would be one they would remember. I gave it one last leap, and spun around in mid air, landing facing the class, slightly out of breath.

“Ahem.” I heard a cough behind me, and turned and looked down from my lofty perch, to see the Headmaster standing in the doorway, with a smile on his face.

Me: Oh, Hi, Mr. Mbingo!

The headmaster: Hello Maseko, I heard shouting. Is everything ok?

Me: Oh, yes sir. I was just demonstrating to the boys 

the sturdiness of the stool that I just now finished.

I jumped down from the stool, which had not suffered at all from my abuse.

The headmaster: Oh, good, Maseko. Carry on.

And he walked away from the classroom.

Poise Matters