1701: The Lunchbox

I don't miss many things about going to school, either as a pupil or as a teacher, but one thing I do sort of miss about the former aspect is having a packed lunch.

There was always an air of mystery about a packed lunch that someone else had prepared, particularly in primary school, where it tended to be safely stored in a vibrant, colourful plastic lunchbox well away from one's desk, with its contents not to be revealed until, well, lunchtime. And then it was always a tense moment as sandwiches were unwrapped and fillings surveyed. Would it be cheese and brown sauce? (My "compromise cheese and pickle"; I don't like Branston Pickle) Would it be ham? Would it be Bovril? Or would it be something surprising and exotic like… err, egg and salad cream?

Then there was the remaining content to go through. What would accompany the sandwich? Would it be a packet of crisps that I liked, or something "boring" like ready salted? (I remember vividly getting into a rage and crushing a packet of ready salted crisps when I was about 8 years old; I was quite an angry child, for reasons that were at least semi-justifiable — though the crisps didn't really deserve to receive the brunt of my ire.) Would there be a chocolate biscuit like a Penguin, or something else? Would there be some form of fruit? What would the drink be? (I doubt many of the lunchboxes of my youth would have passed the stringent inspections that some schools apparently now insist upon, incidentally.)

It was all oddly exciting in the most boring way possible, and I've been gratified to rediscover this dubious joy now that I'm going out to work every day — although sadly without a gaudy plastic lunchbox containing a Thermos full of squash. On days where I remember to pack a lunch, obviously I know what I've put in there, but there's still that joy of being able to finally devour the things that have been waiting in your drawer all morning; on days where Andie is good enough to prepare a lunch for me (and herself as well, I might add) there's that element of mystery back again… what might be in the sandwiches today? Which one of the biscuit bars is in there? What kind of drink might be waiting for me?

You have to take pleasure in the small things in life because the big, exciting things don't come around that often. (At least, I don't think they do.) And a fine way to start appreciating those small things is with something as simple as a lunchbox. If you're the sort of person who habitually wanders out to Tesco of a lunchtime to purchase a cardboardy prepacked sandwich, make yourself a packed lunch one day, and you, too, can discover this dubious joy which I've been rediscovering recently.

Or perhaps I'm just a weirdo. That, let's face it, is a very distinct possibility.

1456: The Bigger...

Jan 13 -- Cocks There are certain types of people in this world for whom the bigger the audience they have, the more of a colossal tool they become.

It happens in all walks of life and all occupations, and conveniently explains the existence of Piers Morgan, though it by no means excuses it.

In my own personal experience, I've encountered this phenomenon in several disparate environments.

Firstly, when I was a teacher, we have "the problem child". Rare is the class that doesn't have at least one of these little horrors; unfortunate is the teacher who has to deal with more than one simultaneously.

The "problem child" is often an interesting case because his or her dickish behaviour is usually a ploy to get attention, whether positive or negative. If this is disruptive to what other people are doing, they don't care. It is consequently easy to assume that this type of child in a classroom simply wants to be a dick and annoy everyone as much as possible, when in fact all they want is everyone to pay attention to them. This is amply proven by the fact that if you get one of these children by themselves to talk about their behaviour, they'll often appear to be completely reasonable and open to your requests. But as soon as there's a class full of other children in front of them, off they go again, and so the whole hideous cycle continues again and again and again.

Secondly, it happens in the workplace. The more power and prominence certain types of individual have, the more dickish they become, flaunting their new-found power over you and pissing everyone else off in the process. Grab them one-on-one and, again, they'll often appear to be reasonable, only to undermine you at the next opportunity when they have an audience.

I suffered the effects of not one but several of these types during a job a few years back. They all seemed to feel like they had something to prove, and I — and several other members of the staff who generally did nothing but keep our heads down and got on with our jobs as best we could — were caught in the firing line as they attempted to prove… whatever it was they were trying to prove.

Thirdly, of course, you have certain people in the media, such as the aforementioned Piers Morgan, but also people who specialise in comedy of various types. Certain comedians deliberately favour the "being a dick" approach to comedy, and it works for them, so fair enough; again, though, take that supportive audience away, and they crumble.

Fourthly, it happens in online games, and this is the reason I bring this up at all this evening thanks to reliable old blog topic Final Fantasy XIV.

Simply put, the more people you're together with at once in an online game, the greater the chance that one or two "alpha" types will try and fight it out to determine who has the biggest e-peen of them all.

Compare and contrast, if you will, the experience of running a 4-player dungeon in Final Fantasy XIV with the 24-player Labyrinth of the Ancients raid added in the most recent patch. I did both this evening: true to form, Labyrinth of the Ancients provided the rest of the group with a few loudmouths who liked nothing more than swearing at one another and passing blame for things that went wrong; conversely, when I ran Pharos Sirius — regarded as probably the hardest four-player dungeon in the game — with a group of three randomly-matched players from the Duty Finder, I had a very pleasant experience in which everyone was helpful, communicated well and was polite to one another.

In this instance, I wonder how much of it is due to the fact that managing communication between 24 people who are supposed to be working together is a lot more challenging than managing communication between just 4 people. Someone has to take the lead when there are that many people milling around, and it just so happens that those with the loudest voices often seem to become the de facto leaders — or at least think they're in charge anyway.

There are exceptions to all of the above, of course; the second time I ran Labyrinth of the Ancients this evening, it was a perfectly smooth run with no disagreements, yelling or willy-waving, for example — and for every "problem child" in a class, there are usually 29 kids who are quite-to-very nice.

It's just a shame that the few dicks out there have to spoil things, isn't it?

#oneaday Day 946: Things I Actually Miss About School

For the most part, I don't miss my own school days. I spent a lot of them being bullied by douchebags who hopefully haven't amounted to anything by now, one of whom I rather memorably punched in the face just as the headmaster was coming around the corner. (He sided with me after the fact, noting that my outburst of aggression was quite understandable, given bully in question's history. I got away with nothing more than a "five minute report", a piece of paper I had to get signed by teachers every five minutes during break and lunchtime.)

But there were good times too. So I thought I'd share a few.

The Rough Book

Our school library used to sell exercise books for a few pence, just in case you lost yours and wanted to replace it without having to tell your teacher that you'd lost your book. The librarian (Mrs Miller, no! We will not let you go!) asked no questions, though, other than "what colour would you like?"

And so it was that my friend Ed and I brought in the concept of the "Rough Book" — an exercise book ostensibly for quick scribblings, sketching and note-taking but which usually ended up completely covered in graffiti, drawings of cocks and an elaborate middle two pages flamboyantly depicting the name of whichever girl I had made the mistake of telling my friends I fancied that week.

A key part of the Rough Book's appeal was keeping it secret, and for the most part we managed to do so without it being confiscated or even spotted. It was immensely satisfying but also a bit sad to reach the end of one — while it was possible to look back on all the silly drawings we had done over the course of a few weeks, the book's "magic" was lost, and it usually found its way into the bin eventually — largely because we didn't want our parents and/or teachers seeing all the pictures of cocks and swear words we'd scrawled all over every available inch.

Music Concerts

Our school used to do two big concerts a year — one in the summer, one around Christmas time. The weekly rehearsals for the various groups tended to revolve around practicing pieces for these big events, which always enjoyed a strong turnout from parents and friends of the school. Going to music groups was one of my main forms of socialising at school — since I lived seven miles away, it wasn't always easy to just pop over to a friend's house for pizza and video games, and music groups gave me a chance to make some new friends and see some of my existing friends in a new context. They were fun.

There was something special about concert night, though — a strange, almost romantic atmosphere in the air. Inevitably, being a horny teenager, I'd interpret this atmosphere as "God, I'd really like to get off with someone" and spend as much of the evening as possible attempting to flirt with the girls from the clarinet section. (Ahh, Nikki. How hot you were.) Being a zitty, socially-incompetent loser with crap hair, I inevitably failed to drum up the confidence to do anything to take advantage of the romance in the air, but all of the girls were good enough to humour me and not just tell me to fuck off, which was nice.

Learning Shit

You know, I actually enjoyed the whole "learning" part of school. (This is probably why I was bullied so much.) I loved the fact that on any given day, we got to learn German, saw a plank of wood in half, spectacularly fail to compose a "reggae" piece and listen to our maths teacher make up an anecdote about the time he went windsurfing and knew he was exactly 200 metres from the shoreline. Exactly how much of that stuff has been retained over the years is perhaps questionable (my use of German nowadays can probably be filed under "racism", or "Englishman Abroad" at the very least) but I enjoyed learning it at the time.

Except maths. I hated maths with a passion. Maths homework used to make me genuinely angry. In retrospect, this was silly, because a lot of things in the real world involve maths to various degrees. Granted, I have little use for quadratic equations in my daily life (and thus can't remember what they are) but things like basic algebra and arithmetic occasionally come in handy.

The Canteen

I typically used to take a packed lunch to school, so eating in the canteen was a rare treat. They served chips and pizza and other awesome things, most of which Jamie Oliver has probably banned by now. In the upper school dining hall (which was later converted into part of the new sixth form centre that my year was the first to pass through) you could get chips and frickin' cheese.

The Teachers

Yeah, I actually miss the people who taught me. It would probably be horrifying to see how much they've aged by now, since the mental image I have of all of them is how they were between the years of 1992 and 1999, but there were some truly fine folks at the chalkface of my school. There were scary teachers, friendly teachers, knowledgeable teachers, weird teachers and, yes, hot teachers — but I can't remember any that I particularly disliked as such. (Except for the guy who taught me four-part harmony for A-Level music, but he was a peripatetic music teacher and thus didn't count.) I wonder how many of them are still there. I also occasionally wonder how many of the students I worked with during my thankfully short teaching career will remember me in years to come?

That's enough waxing nostalgic for tonight, I think. Time to sleep.

#oneaday Day 841: Badass Teacher

I know I've said many, many times on this blog that I'd never go back to teaching (and for the sake of my own mental health it's probably for the best that I don't) but I still, at times, find myself idly wondering how I'd manage The Perfect Classroom. By that I mean at a school that wasn't struggling to keep its head above water, that was adequately staffed, that was populated by children of a decent range of ability levels but whom weren't misbehaving little shitbags. A non-existent school, then, but a good starting point for a dream nonetheless.

Let's assume for the sake of argument this Perfect Classroom is at a primary school, because that generally means sticking with the same class the whole time and building up a good relationship with them. On balance, I think I slightly preferred that to the constant coming and going of secondary education in which it was very difficult to learn names even after several months of teaching the same children.

Organisation is the key to a successful classroom, so I'd have some sort of technological solution — ideally portable — in place to keep things organise. I'm thinking an iPad, tooled up with a specialised app such as TeacherPal or a more generalised database like Bento. Within said technological solution I'd keep detailed, ongoing records on my students and also include a photograph to help prevent forgotten names. Using said technological solution I'd be able to quickly call up information on a particular student's work and progress when required, be that for report-writing season or a parents' evening.

Said portable device would also, ideally, be hooked up to the interactive whiteboards that are present in most classrooms (essentially giant touchscreens with a projector) in order to allow presentation of material on the screen while remaining "mobile". (The inspectors love it when you don't stay at the front of the room all the time.)

Technology can also play a good role in home-school communication, and certainly none of the schools I worked at in the past took advantage of this. Statistically speaking, it's highly likely that a good proportion of the parents of the children in the class would have social media accounts, so why not take advantage of that? My class would have a Twitter and Facebook presence maintained (and carefully moderated) by me. The pages would provide regular updates on what the class has been up to and, crucially, publicly note any and all homework that had been set. Homework is a thorny issue, particularly in primary education, but having it spelled out in black and white on an "official" social media page would certainly allow me and the parents of my students to keep on top of things.

The social media page wouldn't just be a glorified homework diary, of course. It would also be a great place for celebrating achievements, which is something that pretty much every school is big on. This could range from sharing the names of who won things like attendance certificates to pictures of good work. (Obviously care would have to be taken with photos, names and other details that end up in the public domain lest the Thought Police swoop in and decry you as some sort of kiddie porn-peddling pervert.)

In the classroom's day-to-day life, I'd make an effort to use gamification theories to encourage students to progress. I'd allow them to earn rewards of some description — perhaps some form of "experience points" system, with tangible rewards given on every "level up", or perhaps some sort of "achievement" system, again with tangible rewards on offer for significant achievements. These wouldn't have to be big things — a congratulatory letter home, a sticker, some crappy pound shop toy — but they'd help motivate the kids to do their best. (I know, you shouldn't have to "bribe" children to do good work, but it certainly doesn't hurt to make them feel good about their achievements.)

It's a nice dream, isn't it? Pity it will probably never happen.

#oneaday Day 801: Long-Term Memory

It's funny what sticks in your mind and what you subconsciously decide to purge on the grounds that it's completely unimportant. It's not always a case of big life events staying in your mind and the day-to-day stuff disappearing, either — often the strongest memories are those from seemingly irrelevant happenings.

For example, I can think back to my own primary school days and have vivid memories of doing shoulderstands on the field with my then-best friend because we thought it would allow us to make ourselves fart. (It didn't. And to this day I'm too scared to try and make myself fart on the grounds I might shit myself instead.)

I also remember the fact I used to get very angry with one of the dinnerladies and regularly kicked the bin that stood in the corner of the playground. I do not, however, remember the reason I got so angry with her — though it was probably an attempt to exorcise the pent-up frustration I felt from being pretty ruthlessly bullied throughout most of primary school.

Or how about the time I discovered the word "shit" was a swear? I must have been about six or seven at the time (I was in "Class 2", anyway) and I was sitting on the "Blue" table with the other clever people, most of whom were rather fickle about who they were friends with — some days they'd accept me, others they'd specifically exclude me. We were doing some sort of spelling exercise, and Natalya Forrester (all names in this post have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent) was spelling out the words out loud as she wrote them down. "Ship… S-H-I-T…" she said. "Shit?" I responded. "UMMMMMM." replied my compatriots, who promptly reported me to the supply teacher covering the class, who in turn threatened to wash out my mouth with soap and water.

Once we'd left primary school and were going to our secondary school, which was seven miles away, we had to wait for the bus outside our old stomping grounds, which suddenly looked very small. Oddly enough these occasions of waiting for the bus provide some of my most vivid memories from the time. It was during these periods that I learned how to make myself burp under the expert tutelage of Dave Oyster, who could sustain an ejaculation of oral flatulence for an impressive ten seconds or more at a time — loud, too.

Other secondary school memories include sitting in our tutor room and my then-best friend (the same one I'd been attempting to fart with some years previously) sneezing all over his hand and spraying stringy snot all over himself — and then eating it. Urgh. It was also at this point that I decided that my then-best friend might not be best friend material any more. The final breaking point was when he inexplicably sat in his seat miming masturbation and muttering "I'm a wanker! I'm a wanker!" at me, presumably hoping I'd find it funny. I didn't. Next registration, I went and sat next to my new friend Ed and never looked back. The thunderous look I got from my former best friend burned like fire, but then I remembered that he thought he was a wanker, so I silently agreed with him and moved on with my life.

I don't remember a great deal about specific lessons at secondary school, though I do have oddly fond memories of GCSE Maths class — not because I liked the subject (I fucking hated it) but because of the various ways we used to mock our possibly-an-alcoholic teacher. His first initial was A — to this date, I don't know what that stood for — and we decided that this must stand for "Abraham" because that would be funny. There was also a group of three girls whom he often called on to answer questions (also I fancied two of them) who became known as "Abe's Babes". Also he liked to add context to the mathematical problems we were working out, so often referred to himself doing unimaginable things for his age and demeanour, such as windsurfing and hang-gliding.

There are plenty more memories lurking in there, too — both good and bad. And I have no doubt that these bizarre, seemingly irrelevant mental snapshots will continue to stay with me for a long time to come. I can't help feeling that maintaining these memories in my mind is what helps me call upon "childishness" or "immaturity" (for want of a better word) if the occasion demands it — for contrary to the way the world works these days, seemingly requiring kids to "grow up" at younger and younger ages, being able to draw on your "childish" side lets you enjoy life in a way that stuffy old adults can't. In my case, it's the side of me that lets me enjoy My Little Pony and colourful Japanese role-playing games; the side that lets me fantasise and come up with amazing stories that I rarely finish (or, in some cases, start); the side of me that lets me sit around with friends and casually insult them for a whole evening without anyone getting upset.

Of course, it's also the side of me that doesn't really understand what insurance is, how economics work and what the fuck the stock exchange is for, and the side of me that always forgets whether cream-coloured clothes with small bits of colour on them go in the "white" or "coloured" laundry load. But I think I can live with that.

#oneaday Day 764: Sports Day

Sports and me have never really got on. There are a variety of reasons for this but the long and the short of it is that said antipathy towards each other meant that 1) I was usually picked last for the teams in PE (when I wasn't, it was usually Steven Finnegan instead) and 2) my body isn't exactly a rippling temple of man-beef.

That doesn't mean I haven't tried to get involved with sports over the years. I was in my Cub Scout football team, for example, a team so terrible we were sponsored by a junkyard. Our best result ever was 1-0 to us. Our worst result was 20-0 to them. No, that's not a typo. Twenty-nil.

Despite my ambivalence towards sport, I do also have some fond memories of various school sports days, particularly if it happened to be a nice day out at the time. I can't remember a lot about primary school sports days, but secondary school sports days tended to be a pretty big deal, bringing most of the school to a standstill for a wide variety of track and field events.

My tutor group (the erstwhile 7FMQ, later 8QU, 9QU, 10QU and 11QU) were the very souls of apathy for the most part. There were certain events that people just plain didn't want to enter, which would have put us at a significant disadvantage on the leaderboards (yes, this was in the day when it was still acceptable for school sports days to have "winners" and "losers") had I not stepped in.

I'm not sure why I stepped in, given that I knew full well I was crap at sports, was not very good at running and wasn't particularly agile. Therefore, you may be thinking, it would be somewhat foolhardy for me to enter both the 800m race and the high jump, but enter them I did, and I learned a number of things. Firstly, that I was surprisingly quite good at high jump, and secondly, that I was very poor at pacing myself when running — something which I still struggle somewhat with today.

The problem stemmed from the fact that I had never even considered running a long(ish)-distance race before, so I didn't really know how they worked. As such, I was off the starting blocks like a fucking rocket and exhausted by the end of the first lap. This gave the rest of the pack, who had been pacing themselves somewhat more modestly, ample opportunity to catch up. I don't think I finished last, to my credit, but it certainly wasn't very far off. After the race ended, I went back to my tutor group's area of the field, lay on the floor and didn't move for a very long time.

The thing that sticks in my memory about that race, though, is not the fact that I ballsed it up so spectacularly. It's the fact that for once, the rest of my tutor group was rooting for me. I spent a lot of my school days feeling like something of an outsider thanks to my awkward social skills, my weird accent, my crap hair and my forehead and nose's tendencies to flare up with greasy zits. I was a geek and someone who did well, too, which made me pretty much the polar opposite of "cool". Thankfully, barring a few exceptions, I was mostly left to my own devices to hang out with my equally geeky friends (most of whom had better hair than me) but this meant I didn't feel a particularly strong sense of camaraderie with the rest of my tutor group.

Until that day. I heard them cheering for me as I ran past them on the first lap, and staggered past them on the second. And when I finished, far from being admonished for my poor pacing, I was congratulated and praised for getting out there and giving it a shot. It was a surprisingly special moment that's stuck with me over the years. And while in short order things went back to being the way they had always been, for those few short minutes when I was on that track, I meant something. I was cool.

#oneaday Day 740: A Story About a Girl I Once Knew

Those of you who have been reading for a while will probably know I used to be a teacher. Those of you who are new to this blog… I used to be a teacher. Three years in secondary education, a term in primary.

I had a fairly hellish time for the most part, culminating in having a nervous breakdown and having to get signed off sick with stress. While this meant that I could legitimately sit at home in my pants and play video games all day while getting paid for it (and not having to write about said games), it was a demoralising, embarrassing experience that reflected much of my time in the classroom — demoralising and embarrassing.

But it wasn't all bad, and lest you get the impression that I spent my entire time in the classroom hating every single child who sullied the sanctity of my room with their presence, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate one particular student who has stuck in my mind ever since. She isn't the only one, and if I'm strapped for writing ideas I will talk about my memories of the others at a later time. But she is the one that popped into my head when I was considering what to write about this evening. I attribute at least part of this to the fact she has a memorable name, and is the only person I've ever known with that name.

Her name was Berri, and when I knew her she was in year 8, or the second year of secondary school. I only knew her for a year, as I was only employed at the school in question for a year thanks to the headteacher who employed me officially being Shit With Money. But that's another story.

Berri may have only been in year 8 at the time, but she was incredibly mature for her age. She was the sort of kid you could have an actual meaningful conversation with, rather than simply chasing them up for homework. She was intelligent, witty and had common sense. She also had the patience of a saint, something which I display for the vast majority of the time but sometimes found reaching breaking point when confronted with a class of unruly, uncooperative children who thought their weekly Music lesson was an excuse to goof off. Berri never got annoyed, though, even when young Danny, her classmate who liked to climb bookcases and shout "CUNT" at people, was at his worst.

Berri was also very musical, which meant that the vast majority of the secondary school music curriculum was pitched way below what she was capable of. She never minding mucking in and doing a task that was beneath her ability level, though, and if she finished early she was more than happy to go and sit in a practice room playing her violin. Although classical music isn't particularly cool among kids, seeing a peer who is good at a musical instrument is usually enough to impress even the most unruly child into temporary silence. In retrospect, I should have perhaps taken advantage of this fact more regularly.

In short, I appreciated Berri for being one person in those classes of 30 that I didn't have to worry about. She was one pupil who actively made my life easier and more pleasant, rather than more difficult and unpleasant. Her practice room was often a haven of calm when the rest of the class, supposedly composing a piece based on Indian raga, were in fact just trying to see who could press the "DJ!" button on the school's keyboard the most in the space of five minutes. She never said anything, but I could tell from the way she acted and looked at me sometimes that she understood how much pressure I was under, and how difficult I found dealing with the unruly mobs. That look of understanding that she occasionally gave me was one of a few things that kept me safe in that hellhole.

I always thought that she was out of place at that school, populated as it was mostly with the sort of twats you'd see on Britain's Chavviest Teens, should such a show exist. I hope that whatever reason brought her there wasn't enough to keep her there, and I hope that in the intervening six or seven years since I last saw her that she has been able to make the most of everything that she had to offer the world. If she went on to university after school, she'd be about halfway through her course now. I wonder what she's doing.

Wherever you are, Berri, and whatever you're doing, thanks for making my life a fraction easier. I wish you the best of luck as you look forward to your life as an adult truly starting, and hope you achieve all that you deserve to.

#oneaday Day 736: To Sir and Miss, with If Not Love then At Least Fondness or Enduring Memories

Following a conversation with Andie, I thought I would challenge myself to name as many teachers from my own schooldays as I possibly could, along with the contribution they made to making me the person I am today, for better or worse. Mostly the better, I think, which doubtless they'll be delighted to know if they do happen to be reading this, as unlikely as that might be.

If you are one of my old teachers and you are reading this and I forget to mention you, I apologise in advance.

Anyway. Let's consider these in roughly chronological order.

At primary school, our early years were accompanied by Mrs Place. I have to admit I don't remember a great deal about her, but I think given my tender age at the time, that can probably be excused.

Class 2 in primary school was taken by Mrs Robson, whom I also can't remember a great deal about. I do remember her not being there one day though, and me being tricked into saying "shit" to Mrs Powell the cover teacher by Natalie Forster, the bitch.

Class 3 was taken by Mr Edwards, who had a bit of a mullet and a moustache. He liked to play the guitar at every opportunity, meaning that "Circle Time" (the point of which I'm still not sure of even having been a primary school teacher myself) more resembled a campfire singalong than anything more meaningful. It was fun though.

Class 4 was taken by Mrs Barrett, a formidable lady by all accounts who had some very old-school values. The rest of the school was terrified of her, because she had a withering look that could cause geese to fall dead out of the sky if she so desired it. Once you got into class 4, however, it became apparent that she wasn't so scary after all, and even had something of a sense of humour. Her insistence on strict discipline meant that she ran a tight ship, and her class achieved well. Crossing her made you feel like, as cliche as it sounds, you had let yourself down.

On to secondary school, and my form tutor was Miss Quirk. She was Scottish, had short black hair and said "poem" as "poyem". She taught Maths, but I don't think I ever had a lesson with her.

Elsewhere in the Maths department was Mr Wilbraham, who may or may not have had a drinking problem. He was certainly rumoured to have a drinking problem, but I can't say we ever saw any direct evidence of that. He was another of the Mrs Barrett breed — regarded with fear and misunderstanding from afar, but actually turned out to be very pleasant to work with once you were in his class. He didn't help me enjoy Maths, however.

The English department was my second favourite department. At various points, I was taught by Ms (not Miss) Derbyshire, who was a bit like Victoria Wood when she was being funny; Mr Bowie, who was the obligatory male teacher whom all the girls fancied, was very cool and convinced me to explore the music of Jeff Buckley; Miss Idziacszyk (I think I've even spelled that correctly), who was a good, knowledgeable teacher, particularly at A-level. On one memorable occasion, Mr Bowie came with us to a local recording of Songs of Praise which our steadfastly secular school had, for some reason, been invited to. On that occasion I had my shortest ever relationship with a girl — we went out for a week, during which time I saw her once, kissed her once before she decided she wanted to go back to the way things were before.

The Music department was my favourite department. Initially staffed by Mr Murrall and Mrs Choy-Winters, later by Mr Murrall and Miss Garrick (whom my erstwhile best friend Craig fancied the pants off) and even later by Mr Murrall, Miss Garrick and Mr Wrigley. All of the teachers in the department were laid-back, fun and a pleasure to be with both in lessons and outside. By far the highlights of my time at secondary school were the school concerts, during which staff and student were able to interact in a way that just wasn't possible in the normal classroom.

Up in the Upper School were the Geography and History departments. Here, two particular teachers stood out — Mr Mason (pictured above) on the Geography side, and Mr Watts on the History. Mr Mason had long hair and a porn star moustache, and always spoke in a calm, quiet voice. Instead of shouting when he got angry, he went quieter. It was terrifying.

Mr Watts, meanwhilem was the exact opposite. He could shout your face off, and frequently did. Despite his deservedly formidable reputation, he was an excellent teacher. Okay, I can't remember a lot of what we covered in History, but I certainly remember the lessons I had with him — and the occasions he looked out of the window, saw a year 7 kid and just tutted and shook his head.

Mrs Lloyd taught Integrated Humanities and Sociology. She knew a lot about her subject and was also one of those teachers whom it was very easy to talk to. Perhaps it was the nature of the subject itself, which often dealt with issues that affected us directly, or perhaps it was just her nature. Either way, I remember her very fondly.

Then there's the senior staff. I have fond memories of Mr Cragg the erstwhile head teacher for understanding fully why I turned around and lamped Murray Crofts in the face after the little cunt had been harassing me all day. And Mrs Knight, who was a motherly figure to much of the school in many ways — right down to inflicting embarrassing discipline on those who stepped out of line. (One of the worst punishments, particularly for younger kids, was to be forced to have lunch with her, or to to be on "Five minute report" to her.)

There are doubtless plenty of others I've missed — Miss Cuthbert, who was one of heads of Sixth Form, and regularly tried unsuccessfully to get us all being a bit more religious; Miss Stafford the art teacher, whom I didn't spend a lot of time with (as is probably apparent from the pictures which accompany these posts); Mrs Graham the formidable and terrifying Home Ec teacher.

I know one thing, though — as difficult as schooldays were at times, I'll remember the adults who got me through it for the rest of my life, even more so than those whom I considered close friends at the time, but have since drifted far away to pastures unknown.

I now know first-hand how hard your jobs were, Sirs and Misses. I respect you even more than I did back then. Those of you who have the courage to remain in education with the kids of today, I salute you.

#oneaday Day 623: Crime and Punishment

It's been a while since I told a story from my past life at the chalkface, so I feel it's about time we fixed that with another real-life tale of What Teaching is Really Like.

I worked in three schools (not counting those I did supply teaching in) during the course of my teaching career — two secondary and one primary. One of the secondaries and the primary were in what could politely be termed "somewhat deprived areas" while the other secondary was right on the border of an aforementioned "somewhat deprived area" and a very middle-class town — the sort of place that has shops that sell nothing but fabric, and tearooms rather than branches of Starbucks, that sort of thing.

All three of them, regardless of location, and regardless of age group, had Problem Children. You could often preemptively tell a Problem Child from the names on the register — generally speaking, if a child was male and called Jordan, female and had some obscure misspelling of a relatively normal name (Kaylee, Abbygale, Rooth) or of either sex and in possession of a completely made-up stupid name (Peaches, Infographia, Cubblers) they were likely to be a Problem Child. Sometimes you were pleasantly surprised — girls named Jordan often ended up being quite nice, and when you got your hands on a new class you often didn't know the sexes of the pupils, particularly if they had stupid names — but more often than not you'd run into a Problem Child sooner or later.

One particular Problem Child I encountered in the primary school in which I taught had a relatively normal name and, ironically, was one of the brighter kids in the class. But my God he was an asshole. He'd answer back, he'd yell at the teacher, the teaching assistant and his peers, and he'd frequently storm out of the room if he was pulled up on any sort of inappropriate behaviour. When parents' evening came around, I spoke to his parents about his behaviour — particularly the violent side of things — and I was told that they had simply told him to react to anything he saw as "unfair treatment" by striking back. "If someone hits you," said the dad, "you hit them back."

There's not much you can say to that, really, even with all the Anti-Bullying Policies and Zero Tolerance Initiatives in the world.

Then there was a Problem Child I came into regular contact with during my time at the first secondary school at which I taught. He, too, was an asshole, and this time with no redeeming features whatsoever — i.e. he was a dimwit as well. Again, he'd be aggressive, sweary, belligerent and completely resistant to authority. And again, there was no support from the parents.

"My mum says I don't have to come to detentions," he told me upon receiving a detention for being a cunt (obviously not the exact wording I used on the form recording said inappropriate behaviour). "So I'm not coming."

He didn't come.

With many of these children — particularly in cases there was no parental support for whatever reason — it was pretty much impossible to instill any sort of discipline in them. There was nothing that they feared. They didn't fear detentions because they just wouldn't turn up. They didn't fear the wrath of the teachers or senior staff members. And they didn't fear exclusion because that just meant time away from the school they hated so much. There was little to nothing that could be done to discourage these little grotbags from acting like complete bellends.

The teacher training guides would say that punishment is not the way to go — that positive reinforcement is, in fact, the way in which they best learn what behaviours are appropriate and which are not. The trouble is, taken to the extreme, you end up with the ridiculous sight that many schools indulge in — primary schools in particular — which is the weekly Celebration Assembly. Here, the whole school gathers and a selection of children from each tutor group are called up one by one to come to the front and receive a certificate. These certificates aren't necessarily for academic achievement — and, indeed, usually aren't. No, these certificates are frequently awarded for "playing nicely with the other children" and "sitting in a chair for over half of the lesson" and "not hurting anyone". All of those are genuine examples, by the way, unlike the names I gave earlier, most of which were made up.

Now, while it's nice to celebrate the fact that little Cockbag, who never sits in his chair for more than 5 seconds and loves punching everyone in the neck, actually sat down and completed two maths questions in the last week, it completely devalues the entire concept of "rewards" for everyone — teacher and pupil. When I was at primary school in the late 80s and early 90s, we were rewarded for good work in class or special achievements. Go and colour in a square on your rocket. Have a gold star. Show the class what you've done. No-one got a square on their rocket, a gold star or the opportunity to show the class what they'd done for successfully sitting in their chair for more than fifteen seconds at once.

I wonder what on Earth the solution could be. It's pretty clear from what I saw that the one and only thing that the Problem Children feared was humiliation in front of their friends and peers — something that undermined their "authority", for want of a better word. So perhaps some sort of Inverse Celebration Assembly would be warranted, where the headmaster solemnly called out the names of the worst offenders each week, brought them onto the stage and forced them to do the Dance of Shame while everyone else pointed and laughed. Anyone who refused to do the Dance of Shame would be fed to the goldfish kept by Class 2, who had developed a taste for human flesh ever since Barry Jenkins kept his hand in there for an entire period for a bet.

But then that's probably some sort of human rights violation, isn't it?

#oneaday Day 527: Doing a Bum-Sex

As you may have surmised from some of the earlier entries in this blog, my experiences working as a classroom teacher were genuinely traumatic at the time, on many occasions causing me considerable amounts of stress, depression, panic attacks, you name it.

In retrospect, now I don't have to deal with the little scrotes on a daily basis, some of the things were quite amusing. These things weren't amusing at the time (and when you think about it, are often quite tragic) but now I take a perverse satisfaction in the fact that these little horrors who once made my life such a misery will surely find themselves in difficult positions in the future, unless they discover a way to stop being such a twat.

Let's take the cast of Fat Barry, so named because his name was Barry and he was fat. This may sound a bit harsh, but this is a child who, among other things, decided that rather than engaging with Music lessons, he would place a cymbal on his head and wander around pretending to be a racial stereotype of a Chinese peasant in a school with a not-inconsiderable population of ethnic minorities, so in my mind he deserves all the abuse in the world.

I didn't just take Fat Barry for Music lessons. I also had the pleasure of his company in a subject known mysteriously as "Key Skills", a lesson which I didn't learn until after I'd started at the school was basically "the spaz class", where all the children too stupid (or, more often, badly behaved) to achieve anything whatsoever got the opportunity to sit around and learn how to use washing machines and read.

On one memorable occasion, the Year 8 Key Skills class was tasked with researching famous people, living or dead, that they might like to invite to a dinner party. (I hasten to add I had nothing to do with the planning of these units, so their vapid nature wasn't my choice — although it's not as if we could have got anything more intellectually stimulating out of most of them.) As befits a research task, we had relocated out of our stuffy classroom (which on one memorable occasion, I was locked in while the children found it hilarious to climb out of the window, but that's another story) into the school library.

For once, most of the kids were sitting down actually looking at books — being given the opportunity to look up things they were actually interested in rather than being forced into set topics in English, Maths, Science and all the rest meant that they were, thank the stars, engaged and quiet.

All except for two, who were conspicuously absent. Fat Barry and his friend Shane, whose defining characteristic was the fact that he habitually wore trousers slightly too short for him coupled with prominent Burberry-pattern socks. (I'm not sure Burberry actually make socks.) I could hear giggling from behind some of the shelves, so while the rest of the class were engrossed in their picture books I went to investigate.

I wasn't quite prepared for what I found. Shane was lying face-down on the floor, with Fat Barry straddling him. (Fortunately, both were fully clothed, although I'm surprised Shane could breathe.) Fat Barry was gyrating somewhat suggestively atop his friend, and I foolishly said the first thing that popped into my head.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"We're doing a bum-sex, sir!" replied Fat Barry.

In retrospect, what I should have done at that point is open the library door and yell down the echoey school corridors "What's that, Barry? You're doing a bum-sex? That's a bit gay, isn't it?" because, as everyone knows, accusations of being gay are like the worst things ever at secondary school, leading to the whole problem where genuinely gay teenagers feel that they can't come out for fear of being ridiculed. I was aware of this problem, which is perhaps why I chose not to do it.

Fat Barry wasn't gay, incidentally. He had a Grandad with a shotgun that he thoughtfully brought along to one of the rehearsals of the school play — a mildly terrifying moment — and would probably have been on the receiving end of some redneck punishment if he had come out as gay. So his proclamation of the fact he was supposedly delivering anal pleasure to his best friend on the floor of the library occurred for one reason only — to shock and appal.

It worked.