Adam

I am not taken to crying at Facebook as a general rule, but for the second time in a week I find myself weeping at a post.  What’s the chances?
Quite high, as it turns out.

When I was 22, I began my very short teaching career.  For reasons I can’t remember now, except for some vague notion of being close to London, and as far away from my family as possible (the next step in my reinvention process, I suppose: I AM BRAVE I AM STRONG I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM) I had taken a job in Basildon, Essex.  I am not one for saying disparaging things about this or other new towns but they are pretty soulless sorts of places.  I loved the people but the truth is if you’ve seen one roundabout, you’ve seen them all - and I pretty much did see them all. 

The school I worked in is no longer there - Barstaple School, and when I arrived, so too did 26 other new staff.  That’s a turnover in a secondary school that tells you everything you need to know about it - it had its rum folk and not everyone could hack it.  On the first day one older teacher regaled us with tales of how she’d gained respect by beating children up.  This was meant to impress us - it did not - but it is also true that within weeks as a new teacher you are driven to the extremes of your tolerance and to thoughts of violence that shock you.  

There was a generous gesture on the part of my Head of Department (I taught English: badly as it happens - I still shiver when I remember the apostrophe lesson I taught!) that I did not need to take a year 11 class.  Excellent idea, except this meant that I was free when when everyone else was delivering their year 11 class, meaning that whenever a teacher was absent during those sessions, I covered them.  It was a baptism of fire.  I felt that if I managed to herd them into the same room, and mostly stopped them shoving implements into one another’s orifices, I was doing well.  If I could corral a handful to their desks, all the better.  If someone actually wrote something, this was akin to a miracle. 

Besides, what I lost in Year 11s, I gained in Year 10s - including last two periods on a Friday.  Goodness, whose idea was that?  As I walked to the classroom, I would hear them swopping football chants: Millwall! Millwall! Tottenham! Chelsea! Chelsea!  My heart sank as I walked to the room: and I spent much of my time trying to ensure that a) they didn’t kill each other and b) I didn’t kill them. 

But over time, I grew to love that group.  They brought me cream eggs that had fallen off the back of a lorry, offers of knock-off goods, homework in tattered books and tales of all sorts.  They made me laugh, particularly when a couple of them hid in the store cupboard to ‘surprise’ me as a joke until I started ranting about how they would amount to nothing as a group and then they were too afraid to jump out!  I knew there was something afoot when the rest of the class listened earnestly.  They never did that. I laughed like a drain when they finally sheepishly appeared...

At the back of the class sat the two Claires.  One Claire was a big built girl who was a wonderful character often telling me how best to control the group and offering me very sound advice on how to deal with the psychopathic boy in the corner (the only funny thing he ever did was hang a chair from the ceiling struts.  “You’ve a poltergeist, Miss,” he said, as it hung there, with dead eyes and smirk-free.)  The other Claire was a bit colourless, and before the year was out, got pregnant.  At 14.  

Relatively early in my tenure, my sister gave birth to a little boy: Adam, three months prematurely.  I told character Claire this, and in addition to her teaching tips, she would also ask on a daily basis how he was.  “Not great,” I’d say, “I’ve bought him a ted with the words ‘tough ted’ on its vest.” 
 
“He’ll be alright, Miss,” she said, “They can work miracles now.” 

Continued here