Some years ago when I was an English teacher in one secondary school , I gave the Form 2 students an exercise. The exercise was all about changing sentences from their active to passive form.
A sentence is written in active voice when the subject of the sentence performs the action in the sentence.e.g Edward is writing another hopeless rant . The passive voice of this sentence is when the subject of the sentence has an action done to it by someone or something else .Thus the passive form of the sentence would be : Another hopeless rant is being written by Edward.
Ok, now that I have refreshed your memory on Form two English let’s move on.
Teaching in English in the Eastlands part of Nairobi was a big challenge. I was teaching in an area where speaking in English was viewed as pretentious and for people who are fake . This was a school where the students thought the word ‘’bingeing ‘’ was the equivalent of a similar sounding sheng word with a naughty meaning. That was years ago so the word must have been long archived in the ever changing sheng vocabulary.
Back to that English exercise. There is a particular sentence that I still remember today. The students were supposed to change the sentence, ‘’The farmer shot the duck “ into passive voice. This young lady who clearly had not grasped the gist of the exercise wrote her answer as “ The duck shot the farmer ‘.I remember reading the sentence out loud in the staffroom and we had a good early morning chuckle with my colleagues.
After marking her work and not forgetting to put a huge cross along the sentence with an equally bigger exclamation mark, I walked into the class where I handed the books back to the students. Before I handed over her book I read the sentence out loud to the class. The students burst out laughing , while the poor author of the sentence hid her face with her shoe in embarrassment. At that time a duck would never be able to shoot the farmer. It was laughable, impossible.
If I met that girl today I would apologize, ask for her book back and reward her with half a mark. If she set the book on fire in an academic bonfire after she ‘murdered school ‘ I will offer her a drink , though I don’t know the equivalent of half a mark in drink .This is because only much later in life I’m I realizing that she was right. She might have been wrong in the context of the exercise but out here in the real world the farmer sometimes gets shot by the duck. In the school of life anything is possible as I have come to learn.
There are many spheres in our lives which we sometimes lose grip or control of. It could be in relationships, marriage, parenting or business. Just when you think you have everything in check and about to recline into your comfort zone is when everything goes bust. Each of us ‘farmers’ have been victims of shootings by the ‘duck’ some heal from the wounds while others die and get dragged by the ‘duck’ to the fire for a barbecue. When the duck shoots you , you rise up get hold of the gun shoot it and have it for lunch - show it who is supposed to be the shooter . I’m writing this from the bottom of my heart since I’m nursing a wound. A duck shot me but I’m glad I came out alive. Now as i sit here listening to Art Pepper's ''Bewitched , bothered and bewildered my favourite jazz jam in the whole world. I have my gun back but in the meanwhile thanks to my student for the lesson. Like a teacher can learn from the student, the duck can indeed shoot the farmer.
