To Teach and Learn

Students can go to amazing imaginative limits to create nicknames for teachers. They are sometimes arbitrary but sometimes quite logical. The word soera means gift in Dzongkha. Twelve years ago, I first heard the nickname Soera . I was a student then. It was a nickname for Lopen Gembo Tshering. Over the years his nickname has changed to shakam (dried meat) because of his lean physical stature. I am not sure whether the students today still know him as Lopen Soera but when I was a student many only knew him as Lopen Soera and not his real name. Like anyone with a nickname story, Lopen Soera also had his. Every time his students misbehaved in his class, he would smile and tell them to come and receive their soera . His old face would conjure a tired smile as he flexed the bamboo stick. His other soeras were also unique and became quite popular with the other teachers. During study hours if he caught you polishing your shoes or combing your hair and not studyin...

‘’Why do we sometimes write about ourselves and expect people to be interested? Because our stories are usually not about ourselves. It is about everything, and everyone, around us.’’ – Within the Realm of Happiness, Dasho Kinley Dorji. I first met Sonam Gyeltshen five years a go when I first came here to Punakha HSS as a teacher. We were new to the school only as teachers having been here as students before. He came on transfer from a middle secondary school but it was my first placement as a teacher. He got a transfer, I later found out, because he had some problem with the principal who according to him was not so nice. Sonam Gyeltshen AKA Jackal is one of a kind and like any nickname-story he has his story too. When studying at Zhemgang High School he danced to a Michael Jackson song, and he got the name Michael Jackson. Over time Michael Jackson became Michael Jackal and by the time I met him he was only Jackal. Jackal is an interesting man, someone you would call a...