Confessions of a teacher: Because school isn't quite what you remember it to be... (7 page)

- "Oh, if it's only an air pistol what harm can it possibly do? Look!"

And before anyone could do anything, with the screams from the secretaries muted by their glass window and the child pinching himself to check he wasn't hallucinating, Ronald pointed the gun at Victor and shot him at point blank range. Two passing members of staff caught Victor in mid-fall. Despite being a big guy, Victor was doubled up in pain but still had to be restrained as he was now swearing uncontrollably and wanting to strangle Ronald despite the pain. As for Ronald, he just stood there, bemused by the realisation that simple air could cause so much damage. Luckily, Karen Wallace had come out of her office to see what the commotion was about. Without asking any questions, she quickly removed the pistol from Ronald's hands and ushered him into the nearest office while Victor was taken down to the infirmary. Victor recovered quite quickly from his injury and an urgent KGB meeting was scrambled together. In normal circumstances, Ronald's actions might have qualified him for instant dismissal but the guy was retiring at the end of the year and it was in the interest of all authorities to keep the whole business quiet and wait for his retiral. Nothing much was done about it but they couldn't keep it quiet either. There had been too many witnesses. For months afterwards a best-seller 'whodunnit' was circulating which bore the title:
Who Shot The Jani.?
You'd have to give it to Ronald, he certainly knows how to end his career with a bang!

The First years are at the height of excitement when I see them next. "Did you hear, Miss? Mr Dunbar shot Victor the Jani.!". "Well, not exactly" is all I find to say, preferring to leave it at that. They also tell me that Stuart Lambert, the kid who owned the air pistol, has been suspended and is on the verge of exclusion. God! It's going to take me a long time to calm down this lot! I do, eventually, and they start settling down. By now, they know the drill: copy the date and the objectives. They've nearly finished, apart from Dylan who is into scientific innovations these days. Lately, he's taken to constructing complex apparatus made entirely of rulers, pens, compass and anything else he can lay his hand on. The reason for this? He's currently reading a book called
The Best Inventions Since 1870.
I should know, I have seen him taking it out on more than one occasion. Today's design is made of a pen inserted in a hole pierced through his ruler. Using a carefully practised move of his wrist, Dylan is capable of making the ruler spin at great speed like a helicopter rotor. It is currently spinning so fast that the ruler is threatening to take off. All the other kids in his immediate vicinity have become aware of the danger and are beginning to duck under their desk. I'd better stop him before we end up with a few heads chopped off! We finally get on with today's lesson. "Is that a snow cloud, Miss?". I look outside at the said cloud which is certainly black and heavy but threatening with rain and not snow. Besides, it's eight degrees outside, far too warm for snow. twenty minutes later, the dark cloud materialised in the apparition of Eleanor Lawson. "Can I speak to the class?" she asks. Another rhetorical question.

Eleanor has come to talk to them on a cross-curricular project about the rain forest. As teachers, we are 'invited' to join one of the several committees across the school. The invitation is rather forceful as we actually have to join one of these. Which one doesn't really matter, that's the only element of choice we have. Each committee wears wonderful ideological titles such as 'Community Involvement', 'Formative Assessment', 'Inter-disciplinary learning', etc. and get shortened to initials you can never work out whenever possible. These committees have a few yearly meetings which you have to attend and an infinite list of tasks to complete in between meetings. The one I'm on is the Inter-disciplinary learning and is chaired by no other than Eleanor. On the face of it, you might think it would be quite exciting to teach the kids a topic across several subjects. I certainly did when I joined in. The reality of what happens is quite different and would succeed in destroying any remaining creativity in the teaching profession. It's not so much about the project, you see. It's more about how we can devise hundreds upon hundreds of sheets of paper in the form of questionnaires, detailed analysis, evaluation forms, surveys, reports so as to prove to ourselves, the Education department and any future HMI inspection that what we're planning has sound educational value. The very first step taken by our committee when it started two years ago was to have a prominent display in the staffroom showing what each subject was teaching at any given time and showing possible cross-curricular links. It was then decided that you couldn't really track those links because the display was becoming a mishmash of crossing lines no one could really follow. To make things easier, we then decided to invest in colour wool and use different colour of threads to identify those links. Two years down the line, that display has become a strange but colourful work of modern art. No one pays any more attention to it than to the badly framed abstract painting from a fourth year that hangs on the wall opposite. This year, Eleanor has managed to push forward her baby: a project on the rain forest to be taught in Geography, Modern Studies and Art. She's very proud of it and that's what she's come to talk to the kids about.

Like all members of the KGB, Eleanor has a bee in her bonnet about uniforms, so before she explains the reason for her visit she scans the room with an eagle eye. Well, may be that's an over-statement actually. What very few people know about Eleanor is that, without her glasses, she's as blind as a bat. I found this out that day. To my horror, she points a threatening finger at Sandeep who is sitting at the back wearing a traditional religious head dress. "You! Remove your hat!". Sandeep just sits motionless, wondering what exactly she is referring to. In view of his unresponsive attitude, Eleanor is now walking towards a trembling Sandeep like a fury, shouting: "Did you not hear me boy! I told you to remove your hat!". It's only when Eleanor comes nose to nose with Sandeep that she realises her mistake and starts babbling apologies: "Oh, I'm so sorry! It's a religious hat. Of course you don't have to remove your religious hat. I can't see without my glasses but I can see now that you're wearing a religious hat". The way she goes on about it, I'm starting to think that she's contemplating phoning the uniform suppliers and asking them to produce religious hats for everyone, including staff. Having recovered from her faux-pas, Eleanor explains about the rain forest project using words like curri-cular and curri-culum. I can tell from the kids' faces that half of them don't have a clue what she's talking about while the other half think it's some kind of exotic Indian dish. I can see where they're coming from since, only a few minutes ago, Eleanor was having a fit about Sandeep's religious hat. "Right, first years. Are there any questions?". Please, let there not be any questions! Questions, they have many. But they wouldn't know where to start so they wait for Eleanor to leave the room to ask me. "What's that 'curry' thing she was talking about?". "Curriculum, Kevin. That's all the things teachers have to teach you every year". I explain to them that they're going to study the rain forest in Geography, Modern Studies and Art at the same time, a concept which they now seem able to grasp. "Currilucum..." says Kevin dreamily. "No. Curriculum", I rectify. "I love that word." comes the reply. Once again, there's no time left to teach them anything else, so I get them to pack up just in time for the bell.

Charity may start at home but it doesn't stop there.

From time to time, schools do their bit for charity, raising money by taxing the kids a nominal fee for the privilege of wearing casual clothes instead of their school uniform. There's a good business idea to pursue with that one if you ask me. They make more money in one day than I make jn a month work. I can recognise a con when I see one, but this con is for charity. So I suppose... To raise even more money, the school organises a talent show at lunch break with kids and teachers showing off what they are capable of. Jack, lea and myself are doing our bit for charity. We've prepared a wonderful impersonation of the Jackson five. We've enrolled the help of two six years, Stephen and Reece, and for the occasion, we're all wearing magnificent outfits complete with giant curly wigs that make us look like the odd-balls in the Health Lottery advert.

I finish teaching my last class before lunch time. We've got twenty minutes to eat and get changed as we have an extended lunch time for the event. Besides, our act is last so we really don't have to rush. Before I do any of the above, I head straight to Lea's classroom which is next to mine. I have to return her cassette player which I borrowed for my class. Lea is not in her room but it doesn't matter because my key opens all the classrooms and cupboards on the corridor. We all have walk-in cupboards in our classes, which is just as well considering the amount of folders, documents and paperwork we have to hide. I go to Lea's cupboard which is where she keeps her cassette player and find it unlocked. It doesn't surprise me. We're in and out of these cupboards all the time. Nevertheless, I'm certainly not prepared for the sight that greets me when I open the door. I nearly drop the cassette player, catch it somehow in mid-flight while shutting the door of the said cupboard. I don't dare moving and try to convince myself that tiredness is making me hallucinate. Lea walks in at this precise moment and see me in a state of shock, cassette player still in my arms, leaning against the door as if to prevent whatever is in the cupboard to come out. When I regain the use of my voice, I stutter to lea: "What... what... why is Reece standing in your cupboard in his underwear?". Lea starts to laugh hysterically. She explains to me that Reece, our six year co-star, had asked her if he could use her cupboard to get changed in his stage costume because all the boys toilets were occupied. As Lea tells me what's happened, a trembling Reece tiptoes out of the classroom wearing his full Jackson Five gear. The only thing that sets him apart from a member of the Jackson family is the red tinge of his face. He goes out without even a glance at either of us. He looks traumatised and so am I. The result of today's event? We've raised £1,850 for charity. A seventeen year old boy will take time to recover from the most embarrassing moment in his life thus far and I will spend the next few nights having nightmares about half-naked boys locked in cupboards. Success all around I'd say!

Talking about cupboards, how many wonderful stories they would tell if they were able to speak; stories I've witnessed, stories I've heard of, and stories I will never find out about. A former colleague of mine was well known for having turned the walking cupboard of his classroom into a secret drinking cabinet. Well, not that secret, for everyone, including the kids, knew about it. He would come in in the morning in a reasonable state of sobriety but his frequent cupboard visits during and between classes meant that he couldn't quite walk a straight line by lunch time.

One of the strangest looking supply teacher I have ever met was found in a cupboard with his pants down. At certain times, schools don't get much of a choice when it comes to supply teachers. Well into the year, the demand versus supply equilibrium gets seriously out of keel. We take whoever is being sent. on this occasion, the man in question was so suspicious looking that the owner of the newsagent where he'd stopped to buy a paper made it her duty to phone the school and let them know that a strange-looking man was asking for directions to the school. His teaching ability proved to be non-existent and his behaviour most peculiar. I strongly suspect he was homeless. As he was due to stay late for a parents evening, he asked if he could bring a camping bed and sleep in school due to the fact that he wouldn't be able to get home (at 9h00 pm?). This was of course out of question but instead, someone offered to give him a lift. The driver never saw where he lived because he asked to be dropped a few streets from the alleged address. Cupboards are currently very busy hosting Peter and Hilary's furtive moments of passion. Their antics aren't confined to the school day but extend to the occasional evening and regular weekend rendez-vous. Apparently, Peter nearly got caught when his wife, to whom he'd said he would work late, phoned the school to speak to her husband. She was very lucky to get Victor the jani who was just about to close the building for the night. Surprised, he told her that he saw Peter leave at 4h00 and, as far as he was aware, he didn't come back since. I have no idea what kind of explanation Peter gave her but all this cheating must do wonder for his imaginative skills. I also have it on good authority that he is building a garden shed on his property. This, obviously, involves frequent trips to the DIY store where he buys a few planks of wood before meeting with Hilary for a couple of hours. By now, Peter must have enough wood to build a two bedroom house and enough left over for the garden shed, should the project ever see the light of day. Yes, there is much to say for cupboards being silent witnesses to wonderful eccentricities; If only they could reveal their secrets!

I have the chimps next and, as expected, they're as high as kite. They seem to be bouncing about like human soft balls and it takes me longer than usual to get them settled, well, sort of. I think my success as a stage performer is short lived and definitely not enough to keep them in awe. In general, kids' hyperactivity is triggered by very little. As a ground rule, the only time you can impart any knowledge on them is first thing in the morning. The second period is the last one before break and the little attention span they have hits rock bottom due to their rumbling stomachs. They should feel much better after break but the vast majority have over-dosed on junk food and sugary drinks. Forget the period before lunch as their stomach is needing fuel again. Period five is after lunch and once again, they have gorged themselves with enough sugar to save the life of twenty diabetics. By period six, the last of the day, they're tired and they want to go home. So do I. Not only is kids' attention dependable on the time of day, it also fluctuates with meteorological conditions. They get high if it's windy, snowing, raining heavily or even too hot. Needless to say, if you teach in Scotland, that doesn't leave you many days in which to further their education. Add a special event like today's in the equation and you might as well forget it. Never mind. It's the end of November and next week, the chimps will be on study leave for their preliminary examinations. I will not see them or miss them for two weeks.