Diary of an Assistant Mistress (3 page)

NUT School Meeting in the main staffroom. George was re-elected school rep and Lord High Panjandrum. I have been promoted from General Dogsbody to Field Marshal Dogsbody (from Minutes Secretary to Secretary according to the minutes) and we have finally succeeded in replacing the treasurer with someone who can count. The minutes will record a vote of thanks to the outgoing treasurer and will not record the blood and snot we had to wade through to remove the old bat.

Took home a briefcase full of marking: which is not to say it will actually get marked at any time.

Saturday 23rd January

Shopping at Safeways. I see Malcolm has got a job there now. I only hope he isn't handling any fresh food. He complained to me about the old ladies who hang around the shop all day waiting for goods to reach their use-by dates so they can pick them up cheap. I suppose it is cheaper than heating their own homes.

I was half way through typing up the minutes for the NUT when my C64 went on the blink. I took it straight around to the computer repair centre in the High Street where they tried to persuade me I need an AT (costing about ten times as much as the C64) which can run industry standard software.

Since even the school cannot afford ATs I tried to persuade them to repair the C64 which they cannot do - they claim "Yer can't get the chips, love." which is a little odd because Dell are still selling this machine new and don't tell potential buyers that it is unrepairable.

I then tried a backstreet repairer in Crawley who apparently can get the chips, the high street shop were really interested in selling ATs not repairing micros. The round trip to Crawley took up most of the rest of the day but I was able to watch Derek repairing the C64 which was not only educational but made sure that it was done right away.

The curse is more or less lifted so it was back to normal with James and Victor, except that poor old Victor experienced a total battery failure which was a shame but quite funny. It was also good for James's ego because his batteries were still full of juice.

Sunday 24th January

Nothing happened. Twice.

There is a story in the paper in which a fiftysomething male teacher tries to explain a naked 14 year old girl in his wardrobe to a suspicious wife. This must have taxed his inventiveness a bit. How about: She missed a homework and this is a punishment...or... It's a project on old furniture and she wanted to keep her clothes clean or perhaps Well I was shagging her and we thought you might be upset

If he goes to prison he will find out all about the further reaches of sex I expect. 

Monday 25th January

This morning the notice board had a list of forthcoming assemblies and guess what? I am now down to do an assembly on Christian Aid. Shall I

a) change it to an assembly on Christians and Aids?

b) Talk about Sabra and Chatilah - where Christian militiamen gave aid to Palestinian women and children with machine guns?

c) Go ahead and do the assembly straight (no!)

Of course both (a) and (b) are simply ways of handing in my notice but (c) is out of the question. I wish someone other than George was our NUT rep because I am going to need official support if I am going to stop doing assemblies altogether.

After all, the law now insists that assemblies should be "wholly or mainly Christian" and I am not "wholly or mainly Christian" so I fail to see why I should participate.

I have put my views in writing to Torquemada and made two copies which George and myself now have. I discussed the whole thing with George and he was as supportive as someone with considerable personal ambition can be.

Tuesday 26th January

In my pigeon hole this morning there was a lengthy wordprocessed memo from Torquemada in which he (who is not my head of department, nor my superior, except in the sense of being white and male!) instructs me to take the assembly on Christian Aid because it is not possible for him to change his schedule now.

I have dissuaded George from contacting the Regional NUT office because we both know that they would tell us that we can do nothing, should do nothing, must do nothing for the honour of the Profession we love.

I met Torquemada at break in the staffroom and told him that when the white man came to Africa we owned all the land and he had the Bible, now he owns all the land and we have the Bible. He retorted, "I thought you weren't Efrican." and swept off.

We have an appointment to see the Head after school tomorrow.

I took the precaution of seeing Peter, the head's eyes and ears, after school in his office. He took the opportunity to ask me to sort out a networking problem they are having with their computers; a consultant would have done a better job but cost a few k. I casually raised the question of the law relating to assemblies his face darkened considerably and he assumed a perplexed expression. He could not remember "any of the lads dodging Church Parade" when he was an RAF officer and he knew "a very dim view" would have been taken of it by the "powers that be" - yes he really does talk that way!

He knew that Olive (he is the only person who refers to Mrs Snooks by her first or Christian name) thought that all her staff were good Christians really whatever faiths they may privately profess.

Thursday 28th January

Today I confiscated a packet of cigarettes from Simon. I handed them over to the head of year in accordance with our current policy (circular 1234/5, I expect). Simon insisted that since the cigarettes were bought with his mum's money, she had to have them back. He must have gone home at lunchtime because this afternoon she rang up to demand her cigarettes back.

I was about to add "at least he's only pinching money from his mum instead of shoplifting" when it struck me that (a) I don't know if it is better and (b) he could be doing both for all I know.

Friday 29th January

I received a summons to the presence of the Head this morning, which meant I was "in a stress" periods 1 to 4 and I had to see her on my own because my union rep was teaching period 5. She didn't want me to have to stay after school on a Friday, which was very considerate of her except that I have bus duty this Friday and I could miss it just once!

She said that there had been ƒbcomplaints, then that there had been ƒbcomments from parents. When questioned, she eventually produced the two letters. The wording was practically identical.

I was "indoctrinating" their children. I was unfit to teach by reason of my "godless immorality". I had referred to the PE department as "God's own Gestapo". (I assume they mean the RE department and I didn't).

She then asked me if I had been teaching my pupils atheism, communism and homosexuality (!) and I asked her why the two letters were identical.

She asked me to give an undertaking not to teach my pupils communism, anarchism and sodomy and I asked her why the two letters were identical.

She hoped she had made it clear that the school was no place to propagate republicanism, free love and anti-fascism. I asked her who had dictated the letters. The remarks they attribute to me were ones I may well have made to Torquemada in private conversation but not in my lessons; the style is also like his (but perhaps all Methodists write like that).

Later I said that I would sue both these parents for libel and that if she repeated any of their allegations I would see her in court. I then started a diatribe about the massacres at Sabra and Chatilah and the Pope's support for Hitler's invasion of Russia. Fortunately I said all this sotto voce in the loo immediately after the interview and before my Information Technology lesson.

We have a right to miss prayers - but "God help us" if we exercise it! I did not see Torquemada in the staffroom today. Perhaps it is just as well. It was only when I got home that I realised I had skipped bus duty.

At least James can now see that this is a serious matter. If the Church can decide who is going to teach in our schools then it is about time they made some contribution to the education budget.

Saturday 30th January

Shopping at Safeways. Gavin and Gavin - who had never struck me as the choirboy type - have obviously been told that I am on a Methodist Jihad death list. They therefore assumed that I am a Muslim and likely to be offended by them yelling "Salman Rushdie".

Tea at the Vicarage. With what I can only describe at admirable self-restraint I managed to keep my own problems off the agenda and we had a highly enjoyable row about the Middle East.

Sunday 31st January

There is nothing in the Sunday papers, why do we buy them? We could probably save the rain forests single-handed if we stopped having them. There is a choice between the Sunday Sleazies which have the occasional interesting story buried in a pile of intellectual analyses of "Neighbours", the quality Sundays which fit in with Chesterton's definition of journalism - "scribbling on the back of advertisements" and then there is the Sunday Sport which is beyond a joke.

Monday 1st February

I have started walking to school, partly to save petrol but mainly to save my nerves from the abrasions caused by constant anxiety about the roadworthiness of the Skoda. This morning I walked in behind two first year boys.

"I can't understand French. It's a foreign language to me." said one.

"Wait until you try German. It's even more foreign." replied the other.

I had to think of a good reason to give my third years for the fact that I had not got their essays ready. I thought of falling back on the tried and tested; "I am returning these essays, which I will not even dignify with a mark, so you can have the opportunity to reconsider your ghastly spelling and grammar and resubmit them."

In the end I decided to resort to the truth - I had left them at school on Friday. I suppose this was because I was so upset about Snooks and her Methodist death squads.

At the end of the school day I was able to walk in to the staffroom and announce that I had suffered a head failure - to be precise it was one of the computers which had failed, though it was I who was suffering. Do I have to add that it was the computer with most of the pupils' work on it and that the said work is now lost forever because it had not been backed up? If there is one # rule of life I try to instill in my pupils it is "save before you print" but this is a fat lot of good if Miss hasn't backed up the hard disk on the expensive tape streamer Miss persuaded the head to buy - another of the things I should have done during my lamented free period on Friday.

I got a few sympathetic comments like "I thought your hairdo was pulling your brain too tight." but there were too many people who said absolutely nothing and turned away. Obviously Torquemada's poison has been spreading. It was a relief to go to the Year Meeting.

Or so I thought. It seems that Mrs Snooks has had time to send a circular to all heads of year which says that "taking assemblies is invaluable preparation for any teacher seeking promotion." and the whole meeting was then hijacked by Torquemada talking in a remarkably charming way about assemblies and how much he appreciated the co-operation of other teachers and so on and so forth.

In the evening I watched the Emmanuelle video over the third year marking . James said it was either that or "Massage Girls of Bangcock" (sic) according to the video catalogue.

I had a good guess at what he would have in mind after the video but I was rather amazed to find out that he expected me to be "turned on" by this film which is mainly about lesbian activities in the far east. I did point out that if I was turned on by lesbian films I would probably be turned on to women rather than to him.

In some ways the worst thing about pornography is not the degradation of women (and the degradation of men for that matter) but the quality of the videos. The grainy texture of the pictures and the strange ban on cocks by the powers that control our viewing mean that I lose interest very quickly. In fact it is mainly the contortions they have to engage in to keep the videos cockless which manage to keep me amused. In fact, come to think of it, it must be this rather unusual ban which causes the preponderance of lesbian scenes in pornographic videos.

Tuesday 2nd February

If that cat mistakes the porridge oats for cat litter again there will be serious consequences.

An interesting discussion on literature with one of my second years who thinks George Lucas is a much better writer than Jane Austen. You must admit that her Science Fiction is a bit naff and her special effects unimpressive. Actually I am glad that he has graduated to George Lucas from Enid Blyton and that he can argue a point of view.

I mentioned this discussion to Oz during break and he started to explain to me why Austen could not be regarded as a great novelist because of her preoccupation with issues which would only interest women. If you learn nothing else in this job, # at least you learn to spot when you are being wound up.

InfoTech committee meeting. We are still trying to make head or tail of the National Cur requirements. In fact the problem is not understanding them but believing them. It is not possible for any pupil to fulfil their requirements without "forbidden" assistance from the course tutor.