Without a schedule in the first few weeks, it was anyone's guess what we had each period. One day as we sat through chemistry class our teacher, Mr. Adeli, was showing us the periodic table, capacities of elements and how they combine. He explained how we had to switch the capacities for the elements when they combined (for example hydrogen with capacity of one and oxygen with capacity of two produced H2O1 or H2O). He did a few examples and then combined sulfur (with capacity of four) with oxygen (with capacity of two) and wrote it as SO2. He then asked the class how many of us thought that for this scenario sulfur had a capacity of two. A few students raised their hand. I was writing the material on the board and thus I ignored the question. He suddenly turned to me and said, "Well you didn't raise your hand. That means that you must think sulfur doesn't have a capacity of two. Why do you think that?”

Completely caught off guard I said, “Excuse me sir? Could you repeat the question? I didn't understand it.”

His hand swung in the air and smacked me as he said, “That's because you're not paying attention!” The unexpectedness of his action helped divert my attention from the initial sting of his slap. Chalk dust stirred and floated around his hand and my face.

I tried to explain. “I was writing down the material on the board.”

“I would have given you time to write it afterwards.”

He turned to Kambiz. “Why did you think sulfur didn't have a capacity of two?”

While Kambiz said much he never answered the question but rather danced around why he had delayed in forming an opinion about the answer. Seeing what the wrong response might result in he kept on babbling until Mr. Adeli had had enough and turned to Kourosh. Kourosh said he actually thought the capacity was four.

“Come here,” Mr. Adeli ordered him.

Kourosh hesitantly got up.

“Step forward, to the board and show me.”

Kourosh inched forward, bracing for impact, and in a barely audible tone explained that he thought the two capacities had been reduced as they were both divisible by two. 

“That's correct,” Mr. Adeli said and sent him back to his seat.

Later on I realized that it wasn't so much as me being thought of as not paying attention in class that got me smacked but rather Mr. Adeli simply wanting to smack someone the first day of class. That way from the get-go everyone would know not to cross the line in his class as they would recognize him as a teacher who would not hesitate to get physical with students who were out of line.