This Year 11 boy will be me in a few years

Today was an off-timetable day at my school, which meant that I had to sit through the exact same guest lecture given to four different Year 11/Sophomore groups. Which meant that, as I was sitting in front of the class within view of all the children, I had to have a look on my face that suggested that this was the most fascinating lecture ever to have been given in the history of lectures. My goodness, children, this is such a groundbreaking lecture that as soon as this class is over I shall rush off to alert the presses. Nay, I must alert God Himself. In the meantime I shall grip the arms of my chair for support as I struggle to contain my growing excitement over the course of 70 minutes each time the lecturer uses words like "functionalist" and "essentialist." For the fourth time that day.

At some point during this 70-minute lecture, perhaps about 45 minutes in, one of the boys burst out laughing. It was the sort of joyous laugh where he knew damn well he was going to be in big trouble, but so great was the comedy that stifling this laugh would be hazardous to his health. So let 'er rip. After a few seconds he managed to repress the rebellion, but he couldn't quite manage to stop the shaking, the silent, mirthful tears that steadily streamed out of his eyes, and the occasional snorts and squawks that accompany any laughter made to be silent for a long period of time.

The lecturer ignored this boy, who was essentially having a seizure in the corner, and continued on with his lecture, either with the courage of the Titanic band or with the helpless stupidity of a Mariokart player who has just driven off Rainbow Road. I'm not entirely sure to be honest. I quietly suggested to the senior teacher that we invite this boy to step outside to compose himself and then come back in.

Instead of taking advice from someone who knows a thing or two about uncontrollable giggling, the senior teacher stomped over to the giggling boy and started bawling him out. As soon as she started doing this I had to stifle a sympathy giggle, because anyone prone to fits of uncontrollable giggles can tell you that the only thing funnier than something funny is something funny in an inappropriate situation. And so the boy started almost hiccuping laughter, alternating between silent giggles and very loud guffaws that would burst out every now and then. I actually felt terrible for him because he looked desperate to stop giggling so that he wouldn't get in trouble, but each time the teacher yelled at him to stop being silly whatever he originally found funny increased exponentially in hilarity.

Eventually the teacher realized that she was only making the situation worse. Unfortunately, she still didn't quite get it. She stopped yelling at him, but replaced the yelling with the stink eye.

And so the lecturer droned on with his horrifically boring lecture as the teacher angrily glared at a child whose laughter was actually starting to propel him out of his seat. And instead of relieving this poor soul of his misery by sending him out into the hall, the teacher continued to maintain intense eye contact, as though her looking angry enough had the power to make something stop being funny.

Eventually (after grumpily staring at this child for about five minutes with hilarious results) she took my advice and kicked the kid out of the class, leaving him to cross the room to the door as he wiped joyful tears from his eyes and noisily walked into chairs and walls because of his laughter-induced blindness.
And the lecturer just kept plodding on.

The Bungalow.

So there’s this one classroom that I teach in that’s a bit like a mobile home. Every time I walk into it I always half expect to find some obese Mississippian named Sharla who is missing several teeth, and so it’s always a shock to instead find 25-or so English 12 year olds.

What I mean by “like a mobile home” is that it feels as though it’s one tornado, or heck, it’s even one half-hearted gust of wind away from completely collapsing and killing us all in a news story that the Daily Mail will somehow find a way to blame on both immigrants and ‘elf ‘n safety.

How do I know that this bungalow is unsafe? Because it quakes like…like….shit. Every simile I’ve tried to come up with is offensive, so I’m just going to skip the similes. But I feel as though with every step I take another window pane wobbles and screams for mercy before exploding, while meanwhile the bookshelves wearily concede defeat and willingly implode into themselves as they give their children one last, sad, knowing glance. “This fate awaits you, too, my child,” the bookshelves say as they collapse into restful oblivion.

Okay, obviously nothing’s collapsed or shattered yet. Though I am convinced that my shaking our classroom trailer by my ENORMOUS T-REX FOOTSTEPS will eventually bounce some of the smaller children out of their chairs just like in a moonbounce. And, yes, I get it. I’m fat. But there is still no excuse for how much the bungalow shakes when I walk around. Or indeed when anyone walks around. One of the smaller girls who has the same mass/density/whatever the relevant science word is, as a three month old baby manages almost as well as I do to get the trailer to rattle around like a washing machine making its break for freedom. It’s the sort of eerie, inexplicable thing that the Doctor needs to sort out for us.

I gotta admit, it’s distracting. Though not, admittedly, as distracting as the constant smell of fart. I told someone earlier today that young teenagers always smell of fart, BO, anxiety, and (in the case of girls) way too much perfume. And that’s not strictly true. Much like the city of Chicago, middle school/KS3 classrooms have Fart Pockets. And I’ve said on this blog many times that I think farts are hilarious, but that’s also not strictly true—the truth is that I think OWNED farts, farts whose credit is proudly claimed, are funny. So in the case of the silent fart pockets that lurk in my classroom and haunt my teaching experience, I’m not a happy camper. Basically my teaching experience can be summed up with this: I wander around the classroom and from time to time think to myself, “Oh goddamn it, not again.”

I also want to take this opportunity to express my fear at the thought that the more I teach the more the farts of children take over my life.

Jackie: Year 8 Champion Farter, Girls Division

Today a girl farted in my lesson and laughed so hard that she fell out of her chair.

And, dear reader, I must be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a clearer sense of vocation than I did right there. I am 100% meant to be working with children.

It was during an ICT lesson, so it wasn’t the sort of thing done to interrupt a lesson. All the kids were getting on with their work. I saw this girl was giggling a bit, and her friend called me over. Without any kind of warning to brace myself, I entered into a new level of stench just as the friend announced, “Miss, Jackie farted!” At which point Jackie turned bright red and completely lost her shit (not literally, thank God!), and before I knew it she was convulsing with laughter on the floor. This angelic, well-behaved and intelligent young woman was reduced to a hilarious mess on the floor by a single fart.

“Yes, child,” I wanted to say to her. “Just yes. Clearly you understand what is truly amusing in this world. I have nothing left to teach you. Your education is complete. Go forth and be awesome.”

These kids are just so amazing. This champion farter is just the tip of the iceberg of awesomeness. Sometimes they horrify me, but mostly they just say the most delightfully bizarre shit. And I mean “shit” in the wonderful sense.

One girl decided that the British Empire was not the result of a desire for power or money, but rather a desire to acquire a bunch of lands with strange names like Swaziland. Another girl wrote a letter to her husband fighting in the trenches of World War I and confessed her affair with the milkman. Another kid created a new religious TV character who was a vampire and a Christian, someone who begged his victims for forgiveness right before draining them of all their blood. Another boy argued that Christians should be in favor of cloning because then we could resurrect Jesus, clone him, and then “we could all have our own personal Jesus.” And then there’s the Year 8 child who doesn’t say awesome things but just looks like Edward Scissorhands, minus the scissorhands.

Man, I’m going to miss these kids when I leave this school at the end of next week. I am genuinely worried that the kids at my next school won’t be as strange and wonderful as the ones I adore at this school.

Oh God. I just got all soppy and sentimental over a fart.

My cover letter

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am pleased to apply for the post of Teacher of RE at your school, as advertised on the TES website.

At this point you are probably wondering what that blinding light is. You know, that mesmerizing but slightly painful light that seems to be suddenly shining in your life out of nowhere, just as soon as you opened this letter? Well, to answer your question, that light is the sun shining out of my ass.

Now now, stick with me here. You are dealing with the biggest BAMF this side of the River Avon. I don’t even know which side of the Avon we’re on at this point, since I haven’t the slightest clue where the fuck the River Avon is, but regardless of the Avon’s geographical location I can pretty much guarantee that I am the greatest teacher you will ever see.

What do I mean? I mean my kids know the Bible so well that they can fart the 10 Commandments in morse code in their sleep. My kids understand the concept of the Trinity so well that they literally made their Math teacher’s head explode. My kids understand arguments for the existence of God so well that Richard Dawkins actually weeps with fear and dives into the nearest trashcan like something out of Scooby Doo when he bumps into my kids on the streets of Oxford.

Bitches worried about how I deal with SEN kids? I am such a goddamn champ that I actually cured my students of their SEN issues. None of this standing around trying to make provisions for these kids like a little bitch would. I cured blindness, much like Jesus. Except I did one better than JC and cured dyslexia as well.

Safeguarding? You’re worried that I’m not gonna keep your kids safe? I will personally bite the head off of any bastard who tries to lay so much as a perverted GLANCE at my kids. And then I will use his head in some kind of a fucked up voodoo ritual—that’s how seriously I take safeguarding. One time a kid had some weird bruises on his arms so I used my laser vision to incinerate his parents into an irrelevant pile of dust that blew away in a slight breeze--at Parents Evening. And then I had one of them free biscuits and ate it like it ain’t no thang.

Bitch please, you think I can’t differentiate for pupils of differing ability levels? Bitch, it be like 27 different goddamn lessons when I teach.

In conclusion, if you don’t employ a fucking BALLER like me, I will have you sectioned. And no, I don’t mean taken in for mental health observations. I mean literally chopped up into sections.

Sincerely,
Sam