There was this year that I was a form teacher of a Sec 1 Normal Tech class. They were a rowdy bunch and every day there was drama. Every day some weird stuff happened or someone fought or someone got into trouble...I could only relax at around 4pm.
Once, I was so angry with four kids (three boys and a girl) for accumulated wrongdoing that I blasted them as we walked down the staff room to the ground floor. Every floor, I stopped to blast them. They were silent because they were in the wrong and I was very very angry.
It was Teachers’ Day later and I received this huge card from them. The card is, sadly, lost. But I have a photograph of it! They all wrote words of repentance such as “I will try to change my attitude next term.” Another wrote, “I am sorry for all the trouble I have done in 9 months.” “I am sorry for disturbing in your class, make fun of people and making you angry in class and I hope you can forgive me for all my wrong things.” “So sorry for everything…Hope you can forgive me for all my wrongdoing.”
I can tell you that all four of them continued to do nonsense stuff after this card was written, but that doesn’t mean that they were not sincere when they wrote the card. Human beings are a work in progress. We try and fail and try and fail and try and fail...again and again and again.