In 2016, I began working as a primary school teacher at a school named Kingsway Kids Academy. In the two years I worked there, I witnessed the headmaster’s maltreatment of teachers and cleaners. Whenever I taught, the headmaster entered the class and in front of my students said I didn’t know how to teach. The headmaster never appreciated my work, neither that of my fellow teachers. I never understood why. Students were satisfied with the lessons, and often told me they valued the way I taught. One of the headmasters’ worst habits was his arrogance and rudeness. I greeted him every morning but he only replied by shaking his head. Almost everybody who worked there knew him for that.
“Chris, you have not done a good job because you copied the same exams that you wrote last semester!” he shouted one day after we had submitted exams for him to be checked up.
“Are you sure of what you are saying? I am pretty sure that I wrote something new and the last time exams are not included.” I asked in surprise.
“Follow me into my office right now.”
Inside, we checked all the questions that I composed for exams, comparing them with those for previous exams.
“You are lucky that all the questions are not the same otherwise I would recommend you should be fired,” he said when he was done scrutinizing my exams. I was so upset, I left his office without saying a word. The headmaster recognized his mistakes, but he kept on talking unnecessarily instead of apologizing to me.
He continued being rude to people at the school. We regularly organized open days where we invited people from different places to tell them about what we were doing and to share the results of the students after they finished their exams. When the headmaster was called by the moderator of the event to come to the front, he addressed everybody present.
“You are very stupid!” he yelled. “You are telling me to come in front like I am your friend, you should tell people to clap hands for me while I am approaching the stage.” The moderator got angry and left the stage.
On another occasion, the headmaster visited one of the teachers in class during lessons and said “You are a coward and you don’t deserve to be here!”
“Why are you calling me a coward and what wrong did I do?” the teacher asked.
“I am calling you a coward because you deserve to be told you are one.”
When I returned to work the next morning that teacher resigned.
Another day, the headmaster called us for a meeting in his office. The whole staff was there. “We are heading toward the end of the year,” he said, “and I want everyone to suggest ways how to improve our services at this school.”
“You should stop molesting teachers at school and you should respect them,” said one of my brave colleagues.
The headmaster fired that teacher on the spot. The rest of us remained quiet while looking at the headmaster in shock.
“I’m upset and you’re all stupid,” said the headmaster. “This meeting is over.” He left the room while still insulting the teacher whom he just fired.
The next morning, a visitor entered the headmaster’s office. “Who are you and what are you doing in my office?” “I do not want to see people like you on my premises.”
After hearing this, the man was shocked and angry.
“I am the owner of this school,” he replied. “You are rude and arrogant because of the position you have and for your information. I have been hearing about your bad habits and the way you maltreat teachers at this school. At first, I thought you were a good person for the testimony I got from my brother who employed you but now you have shown your true colors.”
The headmaster was fired the next morning. He begged for the owners forgiveness, promising it would never happen again and that he would change, but he didn’t get his job back.
Soon after the incident the owner of the school called us all for a meeting and told us that he fired the headmaster and that they’d never see him again. We were all excited and appreciated the owner of the school for having done that.
15 January, 2023
