I've been waiting to share this story with someone.

I’ll never forget this moment — it was grade 2, a nippy day in May. Here is some context. I live in Canada, more specifically Calgary, and my parents sent me to a private school. As Calgary’s the oil capital of the country, we were pretty well off. I hopped off the bus that morning and walked into class, like normal. The only thing that wasn’t the same that day was we had a “shadow” student. It was someone that was going to join school next year, but came for one day to take the school for a test run.

I whispered to my best friend Mayla at the time “who’s he”. Clearly I whispered too audibly as the reached asked me to repeat it aloud. So, I hesitantly spoke “I was just wondering if we have a new student”. My teacher at the time smiled and motioned for the new student to come up.

Clearly the kid wasn’t very shy as, without even being asked he start with a whole introduction about himself. He started with his name, where he lived before moving to Calgary. Then the teacher asked if it was hard moving and if he had any friends from where he came from (India). He immediately smiled and proceeded to pull down his pants and point out his penis. In his indian accent he proudly spoke “yes, In India I didn’t have much friends, but I always have Jamal”, while pointing at his willy.

Astonished the teacher steely and abruptly pulled him outside the classroom. While the teacher was outside the classroom, another two boys proceeded to pull down their pants and assign names to their penises. When the teacher came back in one student yelled out “I NAMED MINE BEN” and his friend yelled “MINE’S NAMED MATT”. Clearly disturbed the teacher told everyone to put their clothes back on and before you know it half the guys and girls in the grade had their pants down and were fondling their genitals. It escalated from there, but, it’s been engrained in my memory ever since.