Confessions of a teacher: Because school isn't quite what you remember it to be... (3 page)

September: May the force be with the mushroom.

The perfect tense is on today's agenda with the higher class. Past participle first, then auxiliary verb. I am nearing the end of my demonstration on how to form the past participle and the students look quite happy with it. Dora P. is next door teaching home economics. Her high pitched voice seems to cut effortlessly through any kind of sound proofing device and the walls are no exception. “You take your mushroom and you cut it like so, then you turn it that way and cut it again.”, and with a tone filled with wonderment “That's how you quarter a mushroom”. The past participle is hitting shaky ground but we still manage to march onwards towards the auxiliary verb.

Dora P. now has a whole class quartering mushrooms and her voice is thrilled with excitement. “That's it! Slice that mushroom! This way... No that way... You, your mushroom is on the wrong side of the chopping board!”. An orgy of mushroom quartering seems to be taking place next door as Dora reaches new levels of multiple orgasms: “That's it! That's it!”. Both past participle and auxiliary verb have crumbled into a dish of their own. All I wish for, aside from putting my own head in Dora's oven, is for the bell to go and put an end to my misery.

I met Dora in the staffroom some time later. Don't get me wrong, she's a lovely woman. She is kind and dedicated to the education of the children. To look at her, you would never suspect what goes on in these classrooms of hers. If anything, she appears to be rather shy and a little bit posh. “You know, Jane” she says to me “Home Economics isn't ranked very highly in schools. And it's not the children, it's the staff. They don't regard us as an important subject. But I say to the kids all the time: If you can't run a successful home, you can't run a successful life!”. I have to admire Dora's passion and I leave her with a renewed belief in the art of mushroom quartering and leading successful homes and lives.

Dora Pembroke is known as Dora P. simply to differentiate her from Dora Carmichael who also teaches Home Economics. Dora P. may be a home running expert but her private life is far from being successful. I found that out last year, completely by chance. I had headed to the staffroom one day and that's where I found Dora, in tears. Her and I had never really spoken much to each other before but when someone is that distraught, you can't possibly just leave them there and do nothing. So I breathed deeply and prepared to lend a sympathetic ear to Dora's personal issues. Although we weren't particularly friends, we weren't enemies either and in the state she was in, Dora would have confided in anyone or anything within reach. It just happened to be me. She told me about her crumbling relationship, the fact that she loved him dearly but had never been in love with him. To make matters worst, she desperately wanted children. He had two from a previous marriage, didn't want to have more and had made all the necessary arrangements to ensure he would never have any. Dora and Stan, as his name was, had had a huge fight that morning. "I know I should leave him" had said a still tearful Dora, "but I don't have the strength". I empathised the best I could but what can you say? I told Dora she certainly had some big decisions to make and that I was here if she needed to talk. We never did talk much after that, but I have noticed a spark in her eyes and a spring in her step since the apparition of Ross Hall on the scene. Ross has certainly thrown languorous glances in her direction but I've seen him doing that to half a dozen other women in the staff. Flirtation is handsome Ross' main weaponry. I'd hate to have to say this to Dora but I don't think there is much else to be read in Ross' attitude.

Unofficial counselling sessions aren't that unusual in the world of schools. As a matter of fact, this year so far, the Modern Languages staff base seems to have doubled up as a refuge for neighbouring colleagues fleeing the abuse of their line manager. Our department is situated on the first floor of the building, flanked on its right by Religious Studies and on its left by Geography. Both of the afore mentioned departments happen to be ran by over- inflated but deeply insecure individuals who seem to invest far more time and energy in making their staff's life misery rather than act in the interest of education. The combination of power, status and insecurity is lethal and invariably leads to cases of bullying. Some poor soul will have to bear the brunt of it. The scape-goat in Religious Studies is Laura Stanfield and the one in Geography is David Bloomberg. David is a good friend of Lea's and Laura used to go out with my boss, Jack Larson. This is why both of them have regular retreats to our staff base, despite the fact that it can barely accommodate the seven of us, regular language teachers, as it is. The only good thing about it is that we get regular updates on what goes on. Both David and Laura have been driven to ill-health by the unreasonable demands and despicable attitude of their respective bosses. Both have interminable official meetings with the offending parties and the senior management team who is supposed to arbitrate the whole thing. In reality, these high up people are only interested in sticking with promoted staff and saving their reputation. Under no circumstances should they be forced to admit that they have made the wrong choice of candidate for leading a department, so their agenda is to keep up appearances and prevent anyone from rocking the boat. What they don't know is that the whole Modern Languages department is siding with the under-dogs and offering counsel to the very ones they would love to hush up.

To make matters even more interesting, our base occupies a strategic position, located as it is in a small recess adjacent to the one and only staff toilet on the first floor. It is in these toilets that the opposition have their own counselling sessions. In times of crisis the two women bullies who make David and Laura's life so difficult can be seen in tears, ushered along the corridors and comforted by a member of the senior management team, all women as well of course. They head straight to the toilet next to us which they have elected as their very own quiet and private counselling space. This isn't without generating its own set of problems as it makes that one and only toilet on the first floor temporarily out of bound for the stream of people wanting nothing more than to alleviate some very basic natural needs. Times and times again we are privy to the same pantomime: someone will enter the toilet, stop abruptly at the sight of a tearful woman being consoled by another, mutter some apology and retreat carefully, cursing at the injustice of human distress taking precedence over their basic needs. The only one I've ever seen break that pattern was Rhona Pursley who was once so desperate that she barged in and lock herself in one of the cubicle. She apologised afterwards, explaining that she couldn't hold it any longer and wouldn't have made it to the downstairs toilet. When these toilet sessions take place, we don't go as far as listening in to their conversation, even though we could, but it gives us a good indication as to how the bullies are doing. This toilet has become a kind of crisis monitoring device and we sometimes refer to it kindly as 'the thermometer'.

THE KGB WAY

Schools often generate an incredible amount of power struggles and conspiracies that would make the most intense of spy thriller looks like a chick-flick. The most obvious proof of that curious phenomenon is the way in which head and assistant head teachers cover miles after miles of school ground with their faithful walkie-talkie in hand. That is their trade mark, their choice weapon. They walk the corridors submerged in a cloud of buzzing interference from which mysterious coded messages burst out now and again, such as “FL 1 to FL 2 over” or “FL 2 to FL 1 over and out”.

Most of the time, nobody can make sense of what highly confidential going ons are passed on from one walkie-talkie to another but, on very rare occasions, one might actually witness a whole drama unfolding under their very eyes:

• FL 3 to FL 2, over.
  

• Come in FL3.
  

• I confirm, he has a sausage roll so he has gone to the shops during period 3. I repeat, he has a sausage roll.
  

• Received FL 3. .I'm on my way. Over and out.
  

The KGB has its own little army upon which they like to exert total control. This is why children wear uniforms. Uniforms create a sense of belonging, of being one of the crowd, and let's face it, it is far easier to control a crowd that conforms than individuals who might rebel. Of course, the whole operation has taken a fair amount of brainwashing in order to be a success but it has worked. Ask the vast majority of children why they are pro-uniform and they will faithfully recite the two pillar-arguments: That way no one is different on the basis of what clothes they can or can not afford and it's easier when you don't have to think about what to wear every morning. Has anyone in the real world ever got up in the morning thinking “ How much easier my life would be if I didn't have to think and could wear the same jacket, trousers, skirt for the most part of an entire year”? It might be a bit worrying to think that the nation who was at the heart of the industrial revolution can now barely find the mental strength to pick and choose from their wardrobe without putting major strain on their intellectual capacity. As for social equality, what the kids lack in fashionable big labels clothes, they make up for with the very latest blackberry or whatever technology or gadget is in vogue at the time.

This year, the KGB is launching a new major operation. Each of its agents have been placed in key strategic positions every morning, thus covering every possible entrance to the school. Their role is to welcome every properly uniformed kids with a smile and give hell to the rest. Call me cynical if you wish, but I suspect their mission also involves checking officers (teachers) for time keeping. In any case, here they stand every morning, alone or in pairs, armed with their faithful walkie-talkie and a very official clip-board.

As I enter the school, luckily with ten minutes to spare, I see Eleanor Lawson and Karen Wallace officiously standing. Miss Wallace is delivering a one liner joke and a smile to a well uniformed child while miss Lawson has stopped on her track a girl wearing red Doc Martins with an otherwise perfectly respectable uniform.

• Name? Says Eleanor Lawson.
  

• Check your list from yesterday and you'll find it, replies the girl, unperturbed.
  

I do not stay to watch the rest but as I make my way upstairs, I can hear from the verbal exchange below me that, in a few minutes, this girl's life won't be worth living any more.

After a very brief time as principal teacher of English, Eleanor Lawson was promoted to assistant head. Promotion was always on the cards for Eleanor. She had the walk, the one that says 'move over, I'm heading places'. She also had the talk which she always delivered in a high-pitched screeching voice. Eleanor's sentences always start with a no non-sense, straight to the point "right!". But behind Eleanor's perfectly adjusted high-power suit hides a puffer fish. She is full of hot air and the kids know it. Being sent to miss Lawson for matters of indiscipline is a godsend. All that will happen is that they will be shouted at for a bit, have to produce a letter of apology and deliver it to the offended teacher with a verbal expression of the apology contained in the letter. Of course, it means absolutely nothing to them and you can actually see their crossed finger behind their back as they swear to you they will never behave that way, ever again.

My day started with a brief sight of Miss Lawson that morning. I didn't know then that I would be seeing her again sooner than expected. First year classes have to be prepared like military operations. Even then, one can never quite anticipate the amount of queries a simple instruction will lead to. Every lesson starts with the date and the objectives for that particular day being written on the board. 'Copy what's on the board' seems to me a very simple command but as I turn round to face them, five hands have shot up in the air. "Do we have to write the date in the middle of the page?", asks the owner of the first hand. "I don't have any space left on that page. Do I turn to the next one?", asks another. "Could I borrow a ruler?". "What do you need a ruler for?" I ask the girl in question. "Because I need to see where exactly is the middle of the page". "No, guesstimate!". Guesstimating is a new technique dreamt up by educationalist in an attempt to improve numeracy skills. The children are encouraged to estimate the result of a mathematical conundrum before calculating it. The walls of the school are plastered with signs that say 'Guesstimate'. Forget good old mental arithmetic. I certainly fear for further economic recession when these kids become adults and tell their boss that they have guesstimated the profits of the company for this year. As for improving their literacy skills, which we're also supposed to do, well... I suppose, if you can't teach them existing words why not make up new ones? 'Guesstimate' is certainly at the top of that list. One hand has come down and I'm left with one still in the air, waiting for their turn. "Yes?" I ask the final candidate. "Do we copy every word that's on the board?". I feel like life isn't worth living any more. "No. Just every second word", I reply sarcastically, hoping no one will take me at my word, and I walk back towards the desk to indicate that question time is over. I look at squinty boy who is actually called Dylan. Dylan has the attention span of a sparrow, and that's on a good day. Dylan follows a thought process that only makes sense to him. If asked to write something, he will painstakingly copy three words before noticing that his homework diary says maths homework. He hasn't done his maths homework, so the logical thing for him to do is to hunt in his over-bulging bag for his maths jotter. He might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack but instead, he comes across the book he's reading on Roman gods. By that stage, Dylan has forgotten everything about where he is, what time of day it is and what he's supposed to be doing. Therefore, it is entirely natural for him to take out the book on Roman gods and start reading it. To Dylan, the whole thing is the result of a perfectly logical sequence of events but for the teacher who has missed the intermediate steps in his logic, it looks like plain arrogance. This is why Dylan often gets into trouble. I loose it with him sometimes, but by enlarge, I prefer to nudge him back to work and stand next to him for a while. This is what happens on this occasion.