Yet another subject I suck at teaching

(from yesterday)

In addition to being the worst geography teacher ever, I found out today that I’m the worst food tech teacher (home ec teacher for Americans) in the history of English education. Not because I don’t know any proper information about food (well, I don’t), but because I am a firm believer in bowl-licking. Should I ever become a mother, I will probably be one of the few in the history of the modern world that would not shriek, “BUT YOU’LL GET SALMONELLA!” when I catch my children eating more brownie mix than they’ve poured into a baking dish. No, I’ll say, “Eat up!”

And all 28 of my theoretical children will die of salmonella.

So today in food tech we were working with cake icing—salmonella was not an issue here as icing is just sugar and butter. However, as a teaching assistant for today’s six lessons I was expected to figuratively slap the hands of the little devils who stuck their hands into their bowls of icing for a cheeky little taste. And THIS has proven to be my most challenging task as a teacher. Because I can’t blame them for it. I mean, fuck me, if I weren’t 23 and a trainee teacher I’d be fighting those kids tooth and nail for a share of their icing. God bless ‘em, lick away, the time when that will no longer be socially acceptable is fast approaching for people their age. Lick away, children.

On a related note, I hated that the proper teachers made one class leave their cupcakes for later because the kids had gym immediately afterwards and would get sick. That’s the whole fucking point. If you eat yourself sick after the age of 18 you’re a pig, but under 18 and you’re just a kid. Let kids be kids, I say.

But back to my main point: licking the bowl. It’s hard to tell the kids off for something I don’t think is all that wrong (yeah, I know it’s not hygienic in general, but in this instance it was a private bowl of icing, not for public consumption). To me it’d be like telling the kids off for liking Doctor Who or wanting to learn Hebrew. Some of the poor dears didn’t want to be naughty and asked me, “Can I lick the bowl?” And I had a burning desire to yell, “FUCK YEAH!” and triumphantly pump my fist in the air.

Realizing that if I acknowledged their question I would have to tell them no and kill a part of my soul, I chose to tactfully ignore the question. After their question I would let my eyes suddenly glaze over and act as though, “Oh wow, something absolutely fascinating just happened out the window and I’m going to walk away from you now to go check it out.” And then I secretly hoped that they would take the opportunity to go ahead, embrace their joyful youth, and shove a hearty thumbful of pink frosting into their mouths while none of the teachers were looking.

The problem is that towards the end of every lesson the kids got wise, and those mischievous surreptitious dips into their bowls of frosting gradually turned into blatant icing feasts. Which, let me clarify, I do not give one solitary shit about. The other teachers, however, kept glaring at me whenever a child would snarf some icing and I said nothing to the child in question.

Finally this one kid was quite overtly piping frosting directly into his mouth. I thought this was the greatest thing I’d seen all day, as this kid was clearly the happiest kid on the planet, with his head tipped all the way back and the piping bag in the air guiding a steady supply of blue heaven into his mouth. He just looked absolutely thrilled, with that look of joy on his face that you rarely see in children at school. Part of me wanted to give him a nod of solidarity, as if to say, “I’m with you in spirit, buddy. If you fuckers weren’t in this room with me I’d definitely give that a go.” But responsibility kicked in.

Not wanting to be too much of a hypocrite, I chose to say something friendly, something like, “You know, that icing would taste much better if you put it on the cupcake you’re decorating first.”

And this boy briefly put his bag of diabetes down and let the mirth disappear from his face. Suddenly he became very serious as he told me, “No, it wouldn’t, Miss.” He wasn’t trying to be cheeky, he was just speaking the truth.

All I could do was look at him, smile, and say, “You’re right.”