I attended Isipathana College, Colombo for 13 years from the year 1993 to 2006. For all of us, our school naturally becomes the best school out there. But I’m not here to claim that my school is the best. I’m here to tell you why I love it, or precisely, why I’m deeply in love with my school.
I owe Isipathana College a great deal for all the education I received. I was, however, not a bright student.
For me, education was beyond the subjects we studied. I don't really remember being recognised for any academic achievements. But for me, there’s much more about Isipathana College than being an everyday bench-sitter.
Isipathana college represents people from all walks of life. From rich to poor, innocent to tough, academically clever to not-so-clever, everyone came to Isipathana. I have been with everyone. I have blended, associated and mingled with all of them. I believe that was how I learnt to value others. I learnt to learn from people without considering their social status, power or authority.
At Isipathana, we knew no discrimination; even the gentleman who cleaned the college was known as "Aiya" (brother). I learnt how to respect, where to obey, whom to honour, when to observe, how to anticipate and when to react. It was all the education one needs in life.
Isipathana College gave us the opportunity to defend our identity and dignity. I still treasure the times we stood up for our college. Every time when we felt that our college had been ill-treated, we stood up against it. It doesn't matter whether the opposition was tougher or weaker, we were there, at our best, defending our school. Some would find it violent, but later I realised that there was a clear difference between being violent and being protective. May be a reason why I still don't tolerate unethical competition. At school, I learnt to love healthy competition. I learnt how to give respect.
At Isipathana College, I was taught to develop my identity rather than using the name of my school as a shield to cover my flaws. For me, studying at Isipathana was a lot more than proudly chanting its name. When students and parents told me their schools were better than mine; I always had this question: Why do people bring up the names of their schools? I’d argue with them as a child. But as I grew older, and became wiser, I was trained to accept constructive criticism.
The result of all this? I learnt the difference between pride and vanity. I learnt to be proud of my journey—the ups, the downs, and all the bits that make my journey glorious. There was no need for me to be in vain.
Isipathana is gifted with pupils with great sportsmanship, which eventually taught us a lot about entertainment; Enjoy life, even on your worst days. Our hobbies included rugby, cricket or any other sport we treasured. I was a senior cadet and went through many intense training sessions. It trained me to tolerate things both physically and mentally.
We sang loudly, cheered loudly and played our sport hard. We were a bunch of merry kids who loved life. Back then, being punished by the prefects for being a loud singer, I didn’t realise the days I spent at school were teaching me important life lessons. I didn’t realise that life at school shaped me for the life outside it, the one that’s bigger, harsher, and harder. But they—the lessons and memories at school— were there, always, lying in a corner of my subconscious mind, helping me each and every day.
If I say those lessons helped me once or twice, I'm lying; they have helped me throughout my life, and they will, for many days, weeks, months, and years to come.
So why don’t I emphasise on the academic side? All government-run national schools in Sri Lanka have access to quality education, despite their various rankings and subconscious, socially-presented ratings. We have great teachers as a country. So does Isipathana College. However, I believe that we need to encourage our young talent to pursue academic goals more productively.
We all love our school. We love our originality; all our schools have something unique. The important thing is to make your school proud by respecting others, helping others, contributing to the country, and being a proud citizen. If not, we will just claim to have the best education system or the school with a long-lasting heritage, but we will just be citizens of a nation that is forever developing.
I miss those days at Isipathana College, Colombo.
Hasitha Rodrigo
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