by Anon
When did my generation start behaving like this? Was there an INSET day I missed?
The men seemed very uncomfortable with me, which was partly because I was so drunk, but also because I had not been to school or university with them, so they couldn’t place me. The host came over and patted me on the shoulder.
‘Mate, mate, how’s it going, basically?’
‘I’m fine,’ I lied.
‘Mate, were you at Edinburgh?’
‘No. No, I wasn’t.’
‘Sure? You look familiar.’
‘No. Somewhere else.’
We stared at the floor. I thought he was going to move away, but he was determined to stoke the dying embers of our bantz.
‘Nice. Nice. So, er … how do you know Tom?’
‘Um … teaching?’
‘Oh, yah, great. Great stuff. Must be so rewarding.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Nice holidays.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Skiing.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Have you met Gus? He’s a teacher too. Not sure where. Somewhere bit dodgy. Loves it though. Keep trying to get him to cash in his chips and come back to the dark side, but he’s sticking with it. Couldn’t do it myself. Thought about teaching. But then I thought how much I hated my teachers. Reckon I might be rotten at it too.’
‘Mmmm.’
I heard someone say something about ‘pupillages’. ‘I have pupils!’ I interjected with gauche violence. Everyone stared at me as if a cow were mooing in the corner of the room. I stood in a fug, staring at the floor, grasping at the mantelpiece. A wave of nausea started to roll up from my belly. I muttered ‘Gotta go toilet’ and lurched towards the bathroom.
After the last empty retch, I stared at myself in the chrome pan. Even here, I was observed.
When I came out of the bathroom, and gingerly sat down at the dinner table, I composed myself, and flicked the napkin across my lap, staring at the milky white liquid in the bowl in front of me. I felt another heave from below.
‘Vichyssoise,’ said the host, with mock-oleaginous relish, which failed to disguise the fact that this was actually how he spoke.
The tall, glossy, blond woman next to me introduced herself as something imposing. She told me she was a barrister. I told her about the Year 9 lesson I taught that day in which I asked what they wanted to be when they grow up, and a boy told me he wanted to be a ‘bannister’.
‘How charming. It’s a state school, I take it?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘Golly. Well done you. Do they come from all over?’
‘Yes. All over. Everywhere.’
I made a large globe with my arms, knocking my wine glass over as I did so.
‘It must be very challenging teaching all these different types of children.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is. But there are lots of different ways of doing it.’
‘Oh. Like what?’
‘Oh, you know …’
I shrugged, and stuffed a soggy brown roll into my mouth.
‘Must be so rewarding,’ she said.
‘Hmm. Must be. Haven’t got to that bit yet.’
‘Nice holidays.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘I had a teacher once …’
The next thing I remember, Tom was shaking me awake. As I woke, I lurched up from the table and groaned something about having to get photocopies.
A vague recollection of the streaked blue lights on the windscreen; shock-jock babble on the radio; an exchange of money with a man who may or may not have been a cab driver.
I woke at 4 a.m. on the sofa, my mouth lined with furry mould. I leapt up, thinking I was late for school, then realised with unalloyed joy that it was Saturday. Saturday! Saturday! Saturday, it’s Saturday! After my celebratory dance around the house, I stumbled into the bedroom and watched Amy sleeping. She looked so beautiful and peaceful. I couldn’t remember the last time we ate together, or went out, or talked. Or …
She’s taught me so much. How to love. How to live. How to turn the back windscreen wiper off.
‘You stink. Go and sleep in the spare room.’
That’s nice, that is.
*
I stared at the wall in the spare room. Alone at last. No kids, no teachers, no emails.
*
There is officially nothing in my brain. I have successfully unwound myself so that I see the world like a Year 7 Set 4.
*
Ah! There they are again, little bastards! Invading my nether conscious like incubi – floating, dancing, taunting. Mercedes growling, Kieran cackling, Milosz sliding under his chair. Fuck off!
*
Thank you.
*
Maybe I’ll just check my emails.
Just a quick check of Rate My Teacher.
No. Don’t. Seriously.
Just a peep.
Oh God. One stars across the board.
Someone must have something good to say.
Mercedes. I love you.
I am a failure.
*
So self-indulgent. They have problems. They have real issues. And you think it’s all about yourself? All is vanity.
*
What Teacher Are You?
*
Why am I doing this shit job? All I do is Plan, Mark, Deliver. Plan, Mark, Deliver. When did teaching become ‘delivery’? Am I an Amazon drone? That’s the future. Right there. How many stars would you give Mr Teacher? Those who bought Mr Teacher’s lessons, also bought: Hamlet. Montaigne’s essays. David Foster Wallace. A gun.
*
I am so tired. This is what they meant when they said the NQT was one of the most gruelling programmes around. Up there with Sandhurst, the Chinese Civil Service, Iron Man and NASA.
*
So peaceful.
*
Apparently, the only job where you have more human interactions than teaching is air-traffic controller.
*
Could do that.
*
Come into land.
*
Now take off.
*
At least my colleagues won’t be eleven and insane.
*
I bet they are.
*
Cancel the holiday to Thailand.
*
Fucking Formal Obs with VP next week.
*
Fucknuts. Maybe I’ll do some marking now.
*
Fuck! The books! I left the fucking books in the Library!
6
Painful Observation
THE SATURDAY BEFORE FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
Pure unadulterated panic. Ran to the Library to try to find books. Not there. Rushed over to Tom’s friend’s house. ‘Mate, how you feeling? Things got pretty messy? Quality,’ he said. He didn’t have my books. Called cab company. Not there.
SUNDAY
Watched hours of football, curled up in tense ball on the sofa. Googled ‘Air Traffic Controller Training’. Argument with Amy about chronic lassitude. At least there weren’t books all over the kitchen table for once.
MONDAY
Kept head down. Got all classes to write on paper. Avoided SMs all day. Managed to avoid Book Look. Resigned to not winning tiramisu. Just as I was about to slope off, Paula the TA came in with my bags of books. I hugged her tight, then smuggled the books home. God, I love Paula.
I covered the kitchen table with books. They had to be bang up to date. If there was a week’s homework missing, or any work that was less than half a page, or if there was a single page without a green pen on it – mostly mine, but some of theirs to show Peer Assessment – I was dead.
*
There’s nothing here. Nothing at all.
Try to chop vegetables while marking. Blood on white pages like snow after the savage bludgeoning of a seal pup.
Red marks. Smear the blood into a tick. Might get free tiramisu after all.
Oh God. There’s nothi
ng here. Nothing!
*
I desperately searched back to the beginning of term. Just half-pages of doodles and scrawl. A page with the title and a date and then nothing, a few empty pages, and then another title and date and nothing. A few lines. Then nothing.
MILOSZ’S BOOK
September 12th
MY GOD
My God is called XMAN and he is a badman u don’t wanna mess wiv bruv or mandems gonna comeden and give you beatdowns
KIERAN’S BOOK
17th September
PUNDA’S BOX
Punda’s Box is a box it is not like an Xbox it has all the bad things innit you should not open it if you do then bare bad things happen
Wot u lookin at fam
U R MOIST
A doodle of a man hanging.
Me.
That’s me.
TUESDAY
I ran all round the school trying to track them down. Form Time, Break, Lunch. Most were absent. Finally, I found Kieran drifting downstream.
‘Kieran! Kieran! Is this your aptual – sorry, actual – book?’
(He had written ‘aptual’ once and now that was what I said. My mind and his were one.)
‘Yeah.’
‘I mean, you don’t have another one somewhere?’
‘No.’
‘This is it? This is all you have done all year?’
‘Fink so.’
Fuck.
I went through the books and marked the shit out of them. I ticked everything, gave constructive notes the tiniest fragment. If there was half a sentence (‘This shows that Pandora is curious!!!’), I gushed: Stunning, Salim! Just try to use fewer exclamation marks!
If it was at least half a page, I could give it a level. I even tried to fake their handwriting and write to the bottom of the page. I started giving levels to three sentences.
*
Kieran’s is a disgrace.
This book is a disgrace.
Mother, welcome back.
THE LAST LESSON BEFORE THE FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
I gave their books back. When I gave Kieran’s back, I told him I might as well throw it in the bin. He said, ‘Go on den.’ So I did. He didn’t care.
*
It was time for the Pre-Observation Pep Talk.
‘OK, everybody, quiet, please. Quiet. That means no talking. I’ll wait. I can wait … Thank you. So next lesson we are having a very special visitor. The Vice Principal will be here.’
Ooohs and aaahs and woopdadoos.
‘OK, calm down. I know, exciting, isn’t it?’
‘Why?’ Kieran shouted.
‘Don’t shout out, Kieran. Hands up.’
Kieran put his hand up.
‘Why’s she comin’ in?’
‘Because she wants to see you. Because I have told her how good you all are.’
‘But we’re not good.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘No, we’re not. You always tell us we’re bad.’
*
He’s got you there. Call yourself a teacher? All their bad behaviour, all their failings, are because of your failure to be constructive. All they ever wanted was a bit of love. You are a bad, bad man.
*
‘I don’t say that!’
‘You do!’ they shouted.
‘Well, I apologise. You are not bad. Not all the time. Sometimes you are very good. Like now. Now you are being very good. So let’s keep it this way, shall we? We’ll do a deal: you be good to me, and I’ll be good to you.’
‘Deal!’
‘Excellent. Next lesson I want you to make an extraspecial effort to be extra-specially well behaved and to get on with your work as quickly as you can. And because it is an extra-special lesson, we are going to have an extra-special treat.’
‘Haribos?’
‘No. Group work.’
‘Oh.’
‘But you have to stay extra-specially focused throughout the group work, OK? You have to have your listening ears on. We have to work on our teamwork. We can’t have a repeat of last time, can we, Kieran?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘No, Sir. That’s right.’
‘Now I’ve been looking at your books and I was not very happy with what I saw. No, I wasn’t, Mercedes. Why would that be?’
Because you are your mother.
‘Dunno.’
‘Don’t know, Sir. No. Well, you should. Most of them were missing masses of work. I have identified things I want you to redo for the rest of the lesson.’
For the last part of the lesson, I let them Peer Assess. Nothing turns SM on more than a bit of Peer Ass.
As a result of their inability to sit next to each other without some kind of contretemps, I had changed the seating plan after each lesson, so that one by one they had been picked off until I was staring at a room of singles at paired seats. It was like looking at line of misfits at a bar, all of whom had been stood up, like the Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks.
*
(We used that for a creative writing exercise. They loved to imagine the backstory.
What happened that night?
Who are these lonely souls?
Write their dialogue.
Only use short words and sentences. Like the American short-story writers.
Write truth. On a Post-it.
What else is there?)
*
I created an elaborate book-ferrying system so they could mark each other’s work. By the end of the lesson, they had redone work they couldn’t remember doing, correcting the mistakes I had identified but making a whole raft of new ones, and had written some illegible critique of each other’s work in massive green felt-tip, which tended to amount to ad hominem attacks on the person who happened to be closest to them.
*
YOUR WORK IS MOIST
LOW IT FAM
*
VP was going to lap it up.
*
I let them go. As Kieran was leaving, I took him to one side.
‘Kieran, can I have a word, please?’
I handed him a new exercise book and told him that if VP asked to see his book, he had to pretend that he had lost it, and I had just given him this new one. He stared at me vacantly. I suggested we practise. He grunted his assent.
‘OK. Kieran, why is there no work in your book?’ I asked.
‘We don’t do nuffing in class.’
‘No, that’s not why, Kieran, is it? That’s not true –’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘No, you say you lost your book.’
You little shitass.
‘I lost my book.’
‘OK. And what were you doing last lesson?’
‘Can’t remember.’
I’ll remember this, Kieran, when I’m rotting in the gulag.
THE NIGHT BEFORE MY FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
5 p.m. It had been hanging over me all week, but now, finally, after the last lesson of the day, the last detention, the last Parental Meeting, I could finally get down to it.
*
Think Pure Pedagogy.
Peda Goggy.
Peda Doggy.
Walk the Dog.
I jotted some ideas on a piece of paper.
What do I want them to do? Well, let’s see, I want them to write a PEE paragraph about Echo and Narcissus. PEE. Three letters to make every NQT shudder. Other than NQT.
Point. Evidence. Explanation. Point: Narcissus loves himself. Evidence: We can see this in the line ‘He was very vain.’ Explanation: This shows that Narcissus is arrogant. He only looks at himself and does not care about anything around him (extend explanation, tick, tick).
Boom ting.
I looked on the system, and there were some lovely, clear lessons, well differentiated, that all the kids could access, like the one by VP.
But it looked so boring. I couldn’t just trot out the same old lesson that everyone used, the one that VP had created, when I was being observed by VP. I
t had to be whizzy, right? All Singing All Dancing: cancan girls, grass skirts, hula hoops, margaritas, party hats. So I jazzed it up, and threw in lots of gubbins like Role Plays and Market Place Activities, clipboards, laminated role-play cards, dancing penguins. I cut out the faces of everyone in the class and stuck them on a slide and gave them all personalised, differentiated challenges covered with boxes that dissolved when you clicked on them.
*
Mercedes: Word Wizard! Note Down All The Key Words That You Hear In This Lesson! EXTENSION: Can You Use Them In A Sentence?
*
And then I saw it. A glistening mirage.
*
I could create a lake.
*
I could get lots of laminated cards with questions on them about Narcissus, and in their groups they would have fifteen minutes to ask each other those questions, and for each question they got right, they could turn over the card. And then when all of the cards had been turned over, the silver on the other side of the card would create an enormous reflective lake! And then – oh, wow, here’s the kicker – then, when you looked in the lake, you would see yourself, as if in a mirror! And … And! If you squinted really carefully you could see on the ceiling of the classroom a Post-it with an Extension Task, like, say, ‘Who Am I?’ And the weakest could say, ‘I’m Me’; the more able could say, ‘I am Narcissus’; the slightly more able could say, ‘I am Narcissus and I am in love with myself’; and the most able could say, ‘I am a narcissist’; and the most most able could perhaps go into an existential digression about whether they are really who they are or merely a fictional construct. A reflection in the Lacanian mirror.