The Narratives – Mohamed Miah

Looking back, I can say with full confidence—no teacher ever influenced me. Not because I never had good ones, but because I never trusted the system they worked in. School felt like an institution designed to control, not to teach. You could only think within the box they gave you, only speak the answers they wanted to hear. Intelligence was measured by how well you memorised, not by how well you understood. There was no real encouragement to question, challenge, or push boundaries—just a long road of obedience dressed up as education.

I was never one to follow blindly. Even as a kid, I saw the cracks in the system. Why should I take lessons from people who never practised what they preached? So many of them seemed disillusioned, just going through the motions for a paycheque, not because they cared about shaping minds. How can you inspire when you’ve already given up?

I wasn’t a bad student in the way they probably thought—I wasn’t rebellious or disruptive, just uninterested. My mind was always elsewhere, thinking about things that actually mattered to me, dreaming beyond the classroom walls. While they were focused on grading papers and enforcing rules, I was focused on finding my own way in the world. I was in the lowest set, always distracted, but not because I was lost—because I already knew school wasn’t where I’d learn what I needed.

Did I fail? By their standards, absolutely. But in life? I’m still here, standing tall, more resilient, more confident, and more self-assured than I ever could have been if I had let school shape me. Authority loves control, loves to define success and failure, loves to mould people into what it wants them to be. But I’ve never been one for control.

I’ll work. I’ll fix. I’ll build. I’ll help. But I’ll do it on my own terms—always my way.