Fernando had once been a middle school math teacher at a public school, a respected educator.
Well.
No one respected him at all.
He had taught math for twenty full years, yet virtually none of his students had the patience to listen seriously to his lessons.
Because Europe and America generally championed "quality education" and "happy learning," the truly wealthy families, elites, and intellectuals had long since sent their children to "unhappy" private schools.
The ordinary public schools were filled with a bunch of underachieving losers who did not love learning or strive to improve themselves.
They had no interest in listening to class. All they knew was how to waste their wonderful lives on endless entertainment.
It was practically "suicide."
Twenty years ago, their methods of "suicide" had been chatting during class, reading novels, and reading magazines.
Ten years ago, their methods of "suicide" had been playing Game Boys and listening to Walkmans during class.
Five years ago, it had been raising electronic pets and listening to Walkmans.
After that came cell phones and laptops.
The students' methods of "suicide" kept changing and escalating, but not a single person had been willing to listen carefully to the knowledge Fernando painstakingly imparted.
"Why?"
"Why would you rather waste your time on these meaningless things than listen carefully to my lessons?"
For twenty years, he had kept asking himself that question.
He suffered, agonized, and felt heartbroken for both his students and himself.
Finally, one day, Fernando could no longer hold it in and exploded in class.
He smashed the students' phones and computers, then asked them the question that had tormented him for so many years.
The students' answer was:
"Because Mr. Fernando is boring."
"Math is boring to begin with, and Mr. Fernando makes it even more boring."
"Yeah,