One of the texts in our book was an article about psychiatry. Before reading it, Mr. Sadeghi gave us a bit of background regarding the history of psychiatry and that it did not only apply to humans but that animal psychiatry was a complete field of its own. He stressed that we did not need to learn what he was explaining but rather was doing so as he felt psychiatry was something that would interest us and that we would enjoy having a casual conversation about it. Perhaps he was wrong about the level of interest in the topic. Or it could have been that since it was the last period of the day we were all tired and inattentive. In any case as Mr. Sadeghi continued with his talks, many of us also began talking amongst ourselves, prompting Mr. Sadeghi to hush us repeatedly. After doing so a number of times he finally lost his patience and slammed his book on the bench in front of him.

“This material isn’t even in your book. I’m doing this because I thought you would like it and I’m going out of my way to provide you with useful information. This is how you show your appreciation? If you don’t want to hear about it, that’s fine. Forget I said anything about psychiatry, human or animal. In fact the way you guys act it would probably be a good idea for an animal psychiatrist to come and examine you.”

Ordinarily his last statement would have produced chuckles but sensing how we had genuinely hurt him as he had attempted to a do a completely voluntary favor for us we kept quiet. He realized that he had gone overboard by his own standards with that statement and after a few seconds of silence he finally shook his head and said, “How low have I sunk for such words to come out of my mouth.” He then left the classroom.

A wide spread shouting match ensued with everyone blaming each other. As we pondered what to do, our principal, Mr. Kheiri, entered the class. He had seen Mr. Sadeghi come down the stairs in a visibly distraught state and demanded to know what had happened. After we explained what had happened he made it clear that we needed to do whatever it took to rectify the situation. “We get a teacher like Mr. Sadeghi once in a blue moon. If you guys don’t straighten this out I swear I’ll personally make sure it will be extremely difficult for any of you to get into any university.”

Some of us went looking for Mr. Sadeghi while Asef, with permission from Mr. Kheiri, left the school grounds in his car to buy a box of pastries. Before long Mr. Kheiri, Mr. Sadeghi and the other students returned to class. Mr. Kheiri did the initial talking by describing right afterwards how remorseful we all appeared with some students in tears (a false yet helpful exaggeration on his part). He continued with how sorry we each were and that we felt horrible about causing Mr. Sadeghi such pain after all he had done for us. After a few more minutes of similar brown-nosing, he finally turned to Mr. Sadeghi and said, “The entire class deeply regrets what they have done and they hope you can forgive them.”

Mr. Sadeghi looked around the classroom and after a brief hesitation said, “Ok, look…” He wasn’t even able to finish his sentence as he gave in to the wide grin expanding across his face. Witnessing the clear indication that he had already put this incident behind him and that he was back to his old self, the class erupted in cheers. Almost on cue Asef arrived at the class door with a box of pastries. The entire class, Mr. Sadeghi and Mr. Kheiri helped themselves to it and we spent the rest of the period entertaining Mr. Sadeghi who as usual contributed with his own material as well.