by Anon
Who is she talking to?
‘How are you, Sir? Settling in?’
Oh shit, she’s talking to me. I’m Sir! Hello, Sir!
‘Great, thanks, just great,’ I choked.
‘What do you think of the chairs?’
I looked at the chair carefully, swivelling it round on one leg.
‘Go on! Sit on it!’
I sat down.
‘Easily the most comfy chair I have sat in, in an educational setting,’ I said, quivering, as I nestled my buttocks further into the cushion. I picked up my Planner, and started filling in my name on the cover. I felt seven years old. The teacher next to me leaned over.
‘You won’t use that again after the first week.’
The Senior Managers entered upstage left – a line of men in black Armani suits, carrying iPads – as we watched a welcome video, which looked like a 1970s Public Information film about crime. There was the old school, graffiti-daubed concrete slabs behind stoned hoodlums, a vision of brutalist failure. Cut to the new school: students of every ethnicity, smiling and laughing while they skipped, did their homework, played the trumpet. In all the pictures, the teachers gleamed and sparkled and looked like they had just been told the funniest joke of their lives, even if they were teaching Calculus.
VP strode forward and stared at us. Her presence thrummed.
‘Some people say don’t smile until Christmas.’
She clicked on a slide showing a chimpanzee with a frown.
‘I say: Don’t. Smile. At. All.’
The Music Department started giggling. She brought them to silence with a single glance.
‘We believe in Back to Basics. These are the Non-Negotiables: Always have high expectations. Always be respectful. Always do your homework. Always be smart. Always do your best. Always do the right thing. Always walk the talk. Never give excuses. Win Win EVERY time.’
She sat and nodded to New Head, who approached the dais. He gave a Spanish teacher, who was still talking, a terrifying glare. She gulped, turned fuchsia, silenced.
Our Future Leader had come. Future Leaders were like TeachFirst for Senior Managers. They were young, ambitious, slick, and tended to come from the corporate sector; their mission was to improve schools, and they proved as successful as their TeachFirst counterparts. The improvements usually involved sweeping away all the dead wood, namely the Old Guard – the Not-So-Great Generations – with their unions, cardigans and old teaching methods, like reading, Chalk and Talk, and charm. I looked over at HoD, who had his head in his hands.
New Head clicked onto the next slide. A series of graphs and pie charts appeared. He recited the statistics: the percentage of A*–C at GCSE, what it was up from last year, and the year before, the percentage of A*–C at A Level, up from last year and the year before; how much VA (Value Added), the league tables …
A new chart appeared: rows and rows of data, alongside names. One by one, he made teachers stand up. Those whose data had turned green – and who therefore were on track to satisfy their targets, like the Maths and ICT staff – were applauded. Those whose data had turned red – and who therefore were below target, like the History and RE staff – stood in silence. The Head of RE wept.
‘And now, I would like to introduce a big drive that we are focusing on this year,’ said New Head, in a doomed attempt to inject some levity. ‘Can anyone guess what it is?’
A slide with images of fish and chips, Big Ben, Winston Churchill’s victory salute, Emmeline Pankhurst, Justin Fashanu, Moeen Ali, curry.
‘That’s what I did last night!’ shouted Mick, the jocular Learning Mentor.
‘No.’ New Head wasn’t comfortable with the bantz.
‘Britain?’ asked a Geography teacher, tentatively.
‘Good, Geography. I knew I could trust you,’ said New Head. ‘Yes. Britain. In every lesson, teachers need to try and include references to “British Values”. What does Britain mean to you? I would like you all on your tables to come up with as many ideas as you can.’
I looked over Little Miss Outstanding’s shoulder as she wrote ‘toad in the hole’ and ‘Top Gear’ on a piece of paper. She got all defensive and said, ‘Oi! Don’t copy!’ I had managed ‘irony’, ‘Shakespeare’, ‘Germaine Greer’, ‘Planet Earth’ and ‘The World Service’, when Mentor leaned over to HoD and whispered, ‘What’s all this about?’
‘It’s just another fucking ridiculous initiative to make us all feel like we “belong”,’ shouted HoD, knowing it was loud enough for New Head to hear. ‘Basically, they’re all terrified that our lot are going to carry on going out and shanking kids from the wrong gang or blowing themselves up in the Middle East. Instil them with some moral fibre! Oh, sure. We’ll sort that out! I’m not sure that showing them photos of fish and chips every morning is quite going to curb their alienation.’
*
Back in the Department, HoD took me through my classes. He scrolled through the headshots of all the students I would be teaching. It was like playing Guess Who?
‘We only let you loose on Key Stage 3 to begin with. That’s where it’s at. Once you can handle them, you can handle anything. You’ve got a Year 9 Set 2 – tricky, but biddable – a Year 8 Set 3 – some difficult ones in there, on the turn – and a couple of Year 7s: Year 7 Set 1 (keep the parents sweet, don’t let them get arrogant or they’ll be insufferable). And then a Year 7 Set 4: totally unknown quantity. They’ve come from all manner of primary schools and the data’s incomplete. They will be all over the place. No idea how to react to you or this school. There but for the grace of God go you. Take my advice: just go in, take the register, then slam the door, stick your fingers in your ears and sing “The Star Spangled Banner”. That’s what I used to do. Don’t worry. We’ll support you. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with them all.’ HoD clicked on an incomprehensible Technicolor splurge of data. Rows and columns of numbers and letters and pie charts were highlighted in red and yellow and green, accompanied by three-letter acronyms. Some had ticks next to EAL (English as an Additional Language); some next to SEN (Special Educational Needs); some had BH (Behavioural issues). And some had ticks next to all three.
Mentor entered and asked if I knew what I was going to do for my first Greek Myths lesson. I said I did.
‘Great. Let’s take a look.’
‘Take a look?’
‘At your slides.’
‘Oh. No, I don’t have any.’
‘There are lots of lessons on the system you can use.’
‘No, see, I was thinking of reading to them.’
‘Reading?’
‘Yeah, well, I thought, you know, what they need is books. They need to be read to.’
She looked at me suspiciously.
‘Oh. OK. Well, let’s see how that goes, shall we? Sounds great.’
*
My first lesson with Year 7 Set 1 went swimmingly. As I took the register, they replied, ‘Good morning, Mr Teacher’, in a cutesy Shirley Temple singsong.
Throughout the lesson, I thought there was a mosquito in the room, but it was just the ambient whine of keenness. Whenever I asked a question, all the arms in the room shot upwards and bent sideways; they looked like humpbacks arcing out of the sea.
I asked if any of them had read any of the Greek Myths before. Hands rocketed. They had read them, reread them, seen the play, acted in the play, watched the film, played the computer game. We discussed all their favourite myths. They asked if they could write their own, PUH-LEEEAAASSSSEEE? I said they could. They wrote as if it was a race and after about ten minutes all shouted, ‘FINISHED! Can I read mine?’ For the rest of the lesson, I sat at the desk at the front, while they read me stories. I felt like a child being put to bed.
*
Then I had the Year 7 Set 4s. I had my slide projected when they came in, with my name, the date, the name of the subject, and the classroom rules, underneath a generic photo of a stern teacher with a mortar board and cane I had found on Google Images.
The
y entered in dribs and drabs, looking confused but not appropriately scared.
I stared at them. And stared. And stared.
Once they were in their seats, I started to speak. There was a quiver in my voice. I cleared my throat.
‘Write. This. Down.’
They settled down and managed to copy my name, the date and ‘English’ – they all tried to do funny adulterations to the ‘i’, like turn the dot into a heart or an explosion – before I took the register.
‘Milosz?’
‘Sir.’
‘Mercedes?’
Does her dad drive one? Was she conceived in one? Maybe she drives one?
‘Wa’gwan,’ replied Mercedes in a gravelly growl which bespoke a lifetime of fraught experience, as she combed her afro assiduously. She was like an eleven-year-old Etta James.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘A’right, Sir.’
‘Yes, Sir!’
‘YES, SIR!’
‘Donnie?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Donnie? Are you here?’
‘Here. Sir.’
‘Saadia? Saadia?’
‘Sir.’
‘Salim?’
‘Chika?’
A large, pale boy with a vacant stare stood in the doorway. A battered seal pup adrift on an iceberg.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Yeah. Is dis English?’
‘Yes. Come in. You must be Kieran?’
‘Yeah.’
Lesson #4
Any Kid Whose Name Begins with K Is Bad News.
‘Yes, Sir,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
‘No, that’s what you say: “Yes, Sir!” Kieran?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t “Yeah” me! It’s “Yes, Sir!” You’re not in primary school now! And if you think you’re going to “Yeah” me all year, you’ve got another thing coming!’
I can’t believe I just said that. Where did my mother come from?
‘OK, get to your seat. Now who has heard of the Greek Myths?’
Tumbleweed.
‘No? OK, well, great. You’re in for a treat, let me tell you. Nothing like them. The best stories ever written. So I will start reading and then we can discuss it. OK?’
Blank faces.
‘OK: “In the beginning – way back at the beginning of time – the world was empty. There were no computers or phones or schools or uniforms or animals or birds or teachers or kids. There were only gods, who ruled the world from Mount Olympus, otherwise known as heaven, where they lived in halls of sunlight and cloud.”’
Why are they giggling?
Check a few things on the sly, while I turn around to change the slide.
Belt. Check. Shirt buttons. Check. Tie. Check. Flies. Check.
Is something on my face?
‘Er … what’s so funny?’
There’s definitely something on my face. Time for the ‘sweep manoeuvre’: a cough and a wipe across the face.
And we’re back in the room.
‘Anyone know who king of the gods is?’
‘Me!’
‘Jay Z!’
‘Don’t call out.’
In every classroom there was an Interactive Whiteboard, with magic pens that could be rubbed out with the click of a mouse. There were also old-fashioned Dry Erase Retractable Whiteboards, with old-school markers. I picked up a pen and wrote ‘Zeus’ on the board. With a plunging sense of horror, I realised I had written on the Interactive Whiteboard with an old-school marker pen. I desperately tried to rub it out with the interactive magic rubber; when this failed, I tried the old ragged cloth, but to no avail. Now ‘Ze’ would be on the board forever. Basic schoolboy error.
They’re pissing themselves. Just read on.
‘So Zeus – yes, Zeus, you see – “Zeus, king of the gods, decided he wanted some living creatures to play with, so he sent Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus down to earth to make them. Epimetheus made the animals, birds, insects and fishes. Then Prometheus made the very last creature of all.” (Can anyone guess what it is? No?) “He mixed soil and mud and made …” (Anyone?) “First Man!” First person, I should say. The first human, basically.’
They’re still giggling.
Try the Death Stare. Find a kid, and fix your eyeballs on them. A proper Death Stare can take anywhere from ten seconds to a minute. When you hear kids whispering ‘Shhh! Be quiet!’, and there is only one kid making noise and everyone is looking at that kid and telling them to shut up, then you know your Death Stare has been effective, and you can relax your eyeballs.
I swivelled and eyeballed Mercedes. She giggled louder. Then I turned to Kieran, who pissed himself. Soon they were all over the place, rolling around with laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nuffin’.’
Mercedes buried her head in the inside of her blazer elbow.
‘Just focus. Please.’
A bit of residual Death Stare. Then onwards.
‘“But Man was naked and alone in a hostile world. Prometheus decided that First Man needed more. So he climbed up to heaven, where he stole a tiny sliver of fire from the sun.
‘“You have done something very bad!” shouted Zeus. “You have given the secret of fire to those mud-men!”’
‘You are mud-man!’
‘Mud-man!’
‘Waste-man!’
‘You’re waste, man!’
‘Come den, fam!’
‘Allow it!’
‘Er … quiet, please! Settle down!’
Just plough on.
‘“Not only have you given away something precious and divine, but now these silly mud-people will think they are gods! Do you think your pathetic creations are more important than us? I’ll make you sorry you were ever made yourself!”’
They’re still messing around. Time to lose it.
‘I’ll make you sorry that you were ever made yourself!’
What? What was that? Did you just say that? What the hell does that mean?
‘I’ll make you sorry you were ever born!’
Hmm. Bit better. Still a bit like Mother, but it’s done now.
‘How you gonna make me sorry dat I was born?’ Kieran shouted.
He’s got a point. Strange phrase. Don’t try and explain it. Just move on. Quick! Make an example of him! Set a precedent! Make the earth shake with your fury! You are a god unto whom he must prostrate himself or risk eternal vengeance! Bollock him! Now!
‘Is this how you behaved in primary school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And is this how you behave at home?’
‘Yeah.’
Of course it is.
‘If you think you are going to behave like that here, you’ve got another thing coming.’
Oh, Mother. You still here?
‘What other thing is coming?’
‘It’s a phrase –’
Another weird phrase I can’t explain. How am I supposed to teach English when it is full of all these inexplicable phrases? Just plough on.
‘Sit up straight. Straighten your tie. Milosz, get your hands out of your trousers. Put your hands here! Here! Where I can see them! OK. I don’t know what primary school you went to –’
Well, you do.
They started shouting out the names of their primary schools and which was better. Within moments, Mentor was at the door. In any other class, they would have shut up immediately. But they did not understand who she was or the power she represented.
‘Whatever you learned in primary school, you can forget it.’
Really? What, all of it?
‘You’re in Big School now. For Big Boys and Girls. And we have rules. That you must follow. You sit up straight. You don’t fidget. You listen. You are polite. Read me number 3 on the list of classroom rules from the front of your book, Mercedes. Mercedes! Read me number 3.’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Why?’
‘It says “No calling out”. How can I say it if I can’t call out?’
‘That’s right: “No calling out”. And if you can’t do any of these things – Kieran, I’m still talking and I am talking to you; are you listening? Well, stop looking out of the window. And Milosz, take your hands out of your trousers –’
Slipping. I’m slipping into the quicksand.
‘OK. Next person who fidgets is going out! … Kieran! Out!’
‘What?’
‘Get out! I’ve warned you enough times! Just get out!’
He continued his protestations. Mentor beckoned to him. And with that, he was disappeared.
‘OK. Let that be a lesson to you.’
Yes, Mother. Well done. The first lesson you have taught.
‘Let’s carry on: “Zeus punished Prometheus by tying him to a cliff and sending eagles to peck at his liver forever.” Can you imagine what that is like, Milosz? Can you? Having an eagle peck out your liver forever?’
‘What’s liver?’
‘It’s like dat steak and kidney fing,’ said Donnie.
‘Steak and what?’
‘Kidneys.’
‘Steak and kid’s knees. What are you chattin’?’
They’re all laughing.
‘AH HAH HAH HAH HAH! LOLZZ!’
‘MEGALOLZ!’
Shit, they’re so noisy. With my door open, the noise is spreading out over the entire school. Shhh! Shut up! Single them out by name. It’s the only way.
‘Donnie. OK. Mercedes. All right. Calm down. Look, I want to get on. We need to read about the most beautiful woman in the world! Don’t you want to know about the most beautiful woman in the world?’
‘Is it about Beyoncé?’
‘No, it’s not Beyoncé. Even more beautiful than Beyoncé.’
‘True say?’
‘Naaaaaaah … No one. NO ONE is more beautiful dan Beyoncé.’
‘Yes. Because Zeus had also made First Woman. Called Pandora.’
‘PanDORA!’
‘NAAAAHHHHHH …’
‘Wahey!’
‘Woo!’
‘“PANDORA MARRIED EPIMETHEUS. He was devoted to her. He gave her everything she desired.”’
‘Wahey!’
‘“She was given a chest as a wedding present. But there was a catch: Pandora was told she was not allowed to open it. This made her very curious about what was inside. Every time she saw it, she wanted to open it.’” (What do you think it might be?)’