by Anon
And then – and then, the coup de grâce – for the Plenary … For. The. Plenary. We all sit round the lake and have a picnic! Yes. And have cake. And ask the person to our left what they have learned this lesson.
In party hats.
Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh. Wow. If I could pull this off … I mean we are talking, what? They would have to create a whole new category. Beyond Outstanding. She would have to say, ‘This lesson was Outstanding with Exceptional features … No, scratch that. This lesson was Sublime with Beautiful Features. It was Kant’s definition of the Noble Sublime: Absolutely Great. This lesson was, like the Buddhist Nirvana, Ineffable, and therefore beyond the realm of mortal language. I can only quote Wittgenstein: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent.”’
*
5.48 p.m. I just had time to print off the resources before I went home. I shut down the computer and pushed my chair back, hastily pulling on my suit jacket. The screen reverted to the school logo.
Fuck. I didn’t save. The whole fucking thing. The orange Trebuchet. The black background. The dancing penguins. All their faces. Disappeared.
I crumpled on the desk and wept.
Head of HR came in.
‘Are you OK?’ he said.
‘Yes, fine.’
‘Tough job,’ he said. ‘I totally understand. If you need anyone to speak to …’
‘Thank you. Any sign of your pencil case?’
‘No. No! NO! Can you believe it?’ he shouted, storming out.
I exhaled violently and turned the computer back on. I ploughed on, emulating Carlyle rewriting his History of the French Revolution after he lost the first draft in a fire.
*
6.17 p.m. Little Miss Outstanding swanned in.
‘Hi. How’s it going?’
Don’t talk to me. ‘Fine.’
‘Working on your Observation?’
‘Yeah. Yeah. Just tweaking it now.’
‘Is that with VP? The one you had to redo because you were Inadequate?’
How does she know that? HOW. DOES. SHE. KNOW. THAT?
‘That’s the one.’
‘Do you want me to have a look?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘I can give you some pointers if you like. I think I know what she likes. She came to see me last week.’
Oh, I bet you know what she likes. I bet she came to see you and you were very accommodating.
‘Just make sure it’s tight,’ she said.
‘I’ll try. Did you do much Peer Ass?’
‘Yup. Paired work, group work, then individual. Visual, Aural, Kinaesthetic. We did a lollypop AFL Plenary that I was worried about, but I licked it. It was a dream.’
Oh God, you’re making me sick. Let me guess: Pathetic Fallacy in subordinate clauses? And no, you don’t need to tell me what you got. You reek of Outstanding.
She told me to sleep on it and that I should look at it fresh in the morning.
Easy for you to say, Little Miss Outstanding with Outstanding Features. Just go to Zumba already.
*
I tweaked. And tweaked. And tweaked.
I’ve fucked it up. I’ve totally fucked this up. This is going to be such a car crash.
*
2.14 a.m. I couldn’t sleep.
There’s so much that can go wrong with this lesson. I’ve got to get on top of them early. Anything, the slightest hint of the slightest mutter, they’re straight out. But what if none of them get the Starter? I mean, maybe none of them know what vanity means? Mercedes is going to say something rude, then everyone will be in hysterics and I’ll spend the whole lesson trying to regain control. Just don’t let her speak. Must remember muzzle.
THE DAY OF MY FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
5 a.m. I looked at the lesson on my laptop while I ate cereal. It didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
*
6.06 a.m. Bought three packs of Haribos and some tin foil from Bananaman. He looked concerned.
*
6.36 a.m. Couldn’t get into classroom, so had to finish it off in the atrium. Still had to write Lesson Plan.
Fuck, Lesson Plan!
I hastily wrote my Lesson Plan then tried to print it off, but there was a paper jam, so I printed it off on a printer that was located on the other side of the school. I ran across the playground, up the stairs. Wrong room. No printer. I finally found it tucked away in a DT Lab. I couldn’t get in, and ran around frantically until I found a technician with a key. Nine pages had come out all streaky and garbled. I spent another ten minutes trying to work out how to print it two-sided.
Fuck Lesson Plan.
*
7.14 a.m. I still had to photocopy the resources, so I ran down to the photocopier, but there was an enormous queue of people photocopying their lessons for the whole day.
Honestly. It’s not like any of them have Observations on Which Their Lives Depend. They’re just printing off exam booklets for BTEC Social Sciences. Who gives a shit?
I remembered that Little Miss Outstanding always used coloured paper, and she was Outstanding, after all. Nothing wows SMs more, or says ‘Learning Is Taking Place Here’, than the old multi-coloured card.
Card’s stuck. Shit! Shit!
‘Bill! Sorry, can you … How about that game last night … sorry, it’s not coming out … thanks!’
I had three minutes to guillotine and laminate.
Ah! Not again! What’s wrong with this?
A Maths teacher came in and said, ‘Observation?’ And I said, ‘How did you know?’
‘You’re having a Laminator Moment.’
‘I didn’t realise that was a Thing.’
‘The only people who ever laminate are being observed.’
The card came out of the laminator all lumpy.
Honestly. What am I doing? I’m a teacher not a fucking Blue Peter presenter. Why can’t I just go in there and read the book? I’ll show you vanity. This! This is vanity! All is vanity.
FRIDAY, PERIOD 1
Nobody did any work on a Friday. The whole Department just sat there eating Cheese Strings, watching me sweat over my lesson. HoD told me to put a Cheese String Challenge into my lesson. I told him to fuck off.
FRIDAY, PERIOD 2
Year 8. Gave books back. They complained that they hadn’t been marked. Told them to Peer Ass, then write about ‘A Mysterious Parcel’ while I tweaked my lesson.
FRIDAY, PERIOD 3
Year 9. Gave books back. They complained that they hadn’t been marked. Told them to Peer Ass, then write about ‘A Magical Journey’ while I tweaked my lesson.
Lesson #74
You Will Not Teach Any Other Lessons Properly on the Day of an Observation.
Your Classes Must Just Get On with Something, Anything, While You Obsess over Your Monumental Work. Like William Golding ‘Teaching’ While Writing His Novels. Or Any of Those Old-School Cats.
FRIDAY LUNCHTIME
Pleading emails abounded.
From: The Secret Teacher
To: All Staff
Does anyone have a computer room P8?
Please help!!!!!
Please, please help.
PS Hope to see you in the Library this afternoon.
Then:
All Staff: Yeti is missing from Geography in Rm 10.
I tried to prepare the classroom during lunch break, but there was a boy praying on the floor.
And he only has one god! I have to teach all of them!
FRIDAY, PERIOD 7
Anyone with any experience or sense has booked a computer room. Room after room of deadened souls, headphones on, zoned out from the world and each other, working on something face-clawingly dull.
I went through the timings in my head, checking my props and rehearsing my lines. Fifteen-slide lesson, check; clipboards, check; large clump of scrunched foil with laminated buboes, check; nine-page Lesson Plan, check.
FIVE MINUTES BEFORE FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
&nb
sp; Need the toilet. Rush downstairs. Fuck. MegaDumper from ICT is in there! How dare he! They’ve got a toilet outside their Department! And there isn’t another toilet for miles!
Oh God. What does he eat?
FRIDAY, PERIOD 8: MY FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
A catastrophe. Everything went tits up.
They didn’t understand nuffing. Not vanity, not Narcissus, not nada. They were drowning in a silver sea, adrift in the middle of the buboed foil, looking for guidance from me – the pathetic milquetoast, exhorting them to have fun and express themselves – then to VP – the terrifying Mrs Trunchbull who could make them sit down and shut up with a flicker of her eyes.
TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE END OF FORMAL OBSERVATION WITH VP
They’ve not completed any work. No manifest learning has taken place. I’ve just got to skip to the Plenary.
We sat around a scrunched-up, buboed lake in party hats, as a series of adverts for washing powder played on YouTube.
What have we learned?
Donnie?
Mercedes?
Three things we have learned this lesson.
Three things.
One thing we have learned this lesson.
One thing.
The Post-it fell off the ceiling.
FRIDAY, PERIOD 9: MY FEEDBACK WITH VP
I sat on the nice chair and tried to break the ice.
‘Nice chair.’
She smiled. ‘How do you think it went?’
Self-reflection. I am staring at my own reflection in buboed foil.
‘Um … not great.’
She went through the lesson in detail.
‘Starter – all distracted, chaotic beginning; main task – no one knew what they were doing, chaotic …’
Yeah, yeah. Just give it to me straight. I know it was Inadequate. Look, I’m being self-reflective. Can I get some extra points for that?
I knew what the problem was. Knew it the moment I started planning the damn thing.
Lesson #82
Don’t Pitch It Above Their Heads. Go Low And Then You Can Move Up Through The Gears Once They Are With You. Don’t Do What You Think Is Whizzy and Cool. Do What They Can Access and Understand.
After she went through all the problems, she said that she was impressed with my marking. She gave me Inadequate with Requires Improvement Features.
FRIDAY, PERIOD 9.5
I went back to the Department and dunked a teabag repetitively into a polystyrene cup.
*
Inadequate with Requires Improvement Features!
*
Now to aim for Requires Improvement with Inadequate Features. Or Outstanding with Inadequate Features. Or Inadequate with Outstanding Features. That’s the moonshot, right there.
*
I opened up my email.
All Staff: Milosz thrown out of Oracy Extension Class for playing inappropriately with a Pritt Stick.
Next:
All Staff: Yeti found
Mentor came in and congratulated me.
‘Progress!’ she said.
‘At last! Now for Good!’ I declared. Then, tentatively, I asked, ‘How do I become Good?’
‘Why don’t you go and watch VP?’
‘I have done.’
‘And?’
‘Frankly, it was really boring.’
‘For you maybe. How did the kids behave?’
‘They were rapt. Immaculate.’
‘There you are.’
‘But it was just the same old slides! Arial, 18 point, blue for questions, green for answers. No alarms and no surprises. And here I am, with all my bells and whistles, breathing some fire into the fuckers, giving it the full Art Tatum, and I get told, “Actually, can you just play ‘Chopsticks’ over and over?”’
She nodded as if this was something she heard often.
‘They may look the same, but look closely. Every lesson she has tweaked and tweaked. She has thought and rethought every lesson to the point of mania. I have watched her spend three hours planning a Year 8 Set 3 lesson. She is always thinking about what they have just done in the last lesson, what they understand, and what they need to recap on. All those questions in the Starter are carefully tailored to consolidate the last lesson and to advance the learning at a pace the class is comfortable with.’
‘Yeah, but where’s the excitement?’ I said. ‘The passion? The imagination? Comprehensions every time? What is an adjective? Fuck that!’
‘You’re up there doing all your singing and dancing, and they’re just getting overexcited. But they’re not learning anything. You need to stick to the formula. Starter, Main Task, Plenary. Bish, Bash, Bosh. It’s like Pavlov’s dog. When every lesson, in every discipline, is taught in exactly the same way, then student satisfaction and good behaviour will follow because they like the security of the routine, and it conditions their behaviour. Ding! Dog biscuits. Slobber. Never take a class over from her. Once you’ve had VP, you never go back.’
Lesson #99
Great Teaching Is about Routine, Structure and Purpose.
Lesson #100
KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
And so I put away my childish things and taught exactly the way VP taught.
I stormed up to class, a man on a mission. I imagined that the class I was walking into weren’t kids, but a boardroom of expectant investors.
Buy! Sell! Nail it! What’s the Take-Out? Guys, I’ve got a plane to catch! What’s the Bottom Line?
From then, I was preternaturally calm. A Zen Zeus. I stood still, front and centre; I scanned the room for the slightest infraction; if there was the tiniest movement, I disappeared the miscreant with a single gesture; I did not need to say a word. All the instructions were on the board. Up to this point, I had pooh-poohed Lesson Objectives, thinking them reductive nonsense. Now I was all over them. Suddenly, my lessons gained the same urgency, purpose and direction as my walk. I could feel it, and so could they. We could feel the collective thrum of learning happening. We are going places, people! Get on the charabanc of destiny!
*
Every day, the same way.
*
Ding!
Slobber.
Questions.
Answers.
Clarity.
Structure.
Security.
Success.
Progress.
Confidence.
Calm.
Plenary.
Post-it.
Get it?
Got it.
Good.
GOOD.
Oh, Good.
At last.
Wag wag wag.
7
Salim
I think that Narcissus is really vain and when I say vain I mean really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really vain.
*
Hmm. I’m not sure I can give him any marks for that. I guess he made a point. He just needs some evidence. And a proper explanation. And to vary his vocabulary. Tick. One mark.
*
He was getting there, mind. He understood the formula. And he was filling the lines. I gave their books back and celebrated him as much as I could.
As they had been good – and so had I – I decided to let them go to the computer room to create a Facebook page for their favourite god or goddess, which for them was like the bestest thing ever. They leapt and skipped and whispered excitedly as we walked down the stairs, then scurried to their places.
You have to be ultra-vigilant in computer lessons, because one click and they open Pandora’s Box. They sat for an hour, without looking up, placated and zombified. Five minutes before the end of the lesson, I told them to print off their work. I thought this would be an easy process. Couple of minutes, tops. It took forever – I had to tell them which printer to select ten times and there were the inevitable paper
jams – so we drifted into break. Their work was vivid if underwhelming: a series of fluorescent slides with images of alabaster gods at jaunty angles; skulls and hearts dotted around; random facts about gods cut and pasted from Wikipedia; the Facebook logo splashed across the middle.
They rushed off into the playground, shouting, ‘Bye, Sir!’ and ‘Thanks, Sir!’ and ‘Can’t wait for the next computer lesson, Sir!’ I watched them as they dissipated into the world: Mercedes ran straight to her friends who held the skipping rope, jumping straight in; Milosz joined his friends under the tree and ate chocolate; Kieran put on his big Puffa and joined the other Puffas in the corner of the playground, gently swaying from foot to foot as they surveyed the playground with incipient swagger. As I tried to arrange the papers into some semblance of order, I had a sense that someone was standing too close to me. Salim.
He wanted to stay behind and talk about his god, Nataraja. I had some detainees for break, so I ushered them to their desks, then sat down with Salim and looked at his work. He was nervous to begin with, but quickly became impassioned as he took me through it. There were photos of statues of Nataraja, the Hindu Lord of the Dance, dancing the Dance of Bliss within an arch of flames, a cobra uncoiled from his right arm. Salim had provided a couple of annotations – denoted with large yellow arrows, bigger than the god itself – with blue hyperlinks within them, explaining that Nataraja was ‘the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations for the god Brahma to start the process of creation!!!!!’ He stuttered and widened his eyes as he tried to convey the astonishment of it all. The dance is ‘the source of all movement within the universe’ and ‘the purpose of his dance is to release the souls of all men from the snare of illusion!!!!!!!’
