ys completely different. Every time I start in a new school I always feel surprise at how dissimilar schools are. As communities. The most recent two schools I’ve worked in are geographically close – less than a mile as the crow flies – but in every other way they are poles apart.
I take memories from every school in which I teach; (all eight of them now) even when, as in these two most recent, I was only there a day or two. In the last one it’ll be the way a senior pupil walked into the classroom halfway through a lesson I had with a junior class. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and watched me teach. Now the fact that he appeared to be paying more attention to my teaching than the year eights notwithstanding, I was confused and a little intimidated. He was huge and somewhat terrifying. He wore a uniform, of sorts – he’d ripped the sleeves off his shirt, presumably to show off his muscles and numerous tattoos; and he wore his tie around his shaved head, Rambo style. On his left arm was a ragged looking cast with various anatomical sketches and badly spelt swear words. I started to ask if I could help him with something but something in his swagger, his confident stance, his bulging arm muscles, and his assorted scars, told me he was in confrontation mode, and it’d be a confrontation he wasn’t going to lose.
Luckily the school VP walked in that very second to speak to me about something administrative. My saviour. When he saw the teenager he paused, looked a bit nervous, and said,
“Darren? What are you doing here?”
“I was in Ms Clover’s class but it was boring so I took a bit of a walk. But my leg’s hurting so I thought I’d come in here to sit down for a while.”
“It wasn’t hurting when you were kicking young McKeown around the playground at lunchtime.”
“Must’ve been how I hurt it then.”
“Well, if you’re not doing anyone any harm…”
With that he slinked out into the corridor leaving me with a look of astonishment and an extra pupil (one who clearly runs the school.) The whole thing troubled me greatly.
Another thing troubling me greatly is what I’ll remember about the next school – the one in which I currently exist. This is my first time here. It seems nice enough – the pupils are polite and attentive, the staff are friendly and helpful. But why? Why in the name of all that’s right and true? Why are the rest of the teachers in the English department dressed in costumes? We have here a ghost bride, a gothic witch, a fairy princess, someone who looks like they’re straight out of Little House on the Prairie…
They want me to come back tomorrow; but to be honest I’m not sure if my Robocop costume still fits.
