Heavy Metal

It’s a power thing. Isn’t it always?

If we look to academia, it states that, ‘Power is a measure of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behaviour of other entities.’ If this is the case, I am completely lacking in any whatsoever. As much as I am perpetually informed of my manipulative, controlling and selfishly dominative traits by various past partners, this just never translates into a classroom environment. The level of hatred from them and self-loathing from me remains, it’s just there’s no make-up sex. I don’t allow make-up in my classes, you see.

Labour’s 2001 Education Act brought with it the inclusion of…. inclusion and ever since then schools have been fucked. The long and short of the policy was that those pupils who scream, shout, punch, rip, fart, waft and so on would not face the understandable and justifiable consequences of this. There were to be no more exclusions without (literally) months of prolonged court battles and by this time the little shits would have been prepped so much, brilliantly-devised soundbites, in the shape of limping angelic infants, would convincingly spill from their downturned mouths like a pitiful stream of innocence. ‘How could you, Sir?!’ The judges roared, shaking their fists in the school’s direction and gently dabbing poor Tiny Tim’s tears with a patchwork quilt comprised of teacher’s P45 forms as he barely musters the strength to give you the finger on his journey from courtroom back to classroom.

So what now? Well, now, when a child calls you a pedophile, hits you, bites you, leaves knuckle marks on a female colleague’s chest, throws a table through the window, throws themselves through a window, steals from you, spits at you and tells you exactly where to stick your education (all witnessed first-hand) you are taught to ask the question, ‘what can I do to gain you access to learning?’ I’ve often thought of this as being tantamount to running after a child with a tenner, pleading with them to take it and the kid whipping round and spitting, ‘fuck you!’ in your direction.

It’s not even the children’s fault. We give them the power in the relationship, which is a bit like giving a heroin addict the keys to your needle and foil collection for safe-keeping. Kids are kids. They’re stupid, excitable, bouncy and fun – but one thing they're not, is responsible. That’s what we have to be (although I am bouncy, on occasion) and that means giving the other pupils whose education suffers as a direct result of this power struggle a fighting chance and taking those children who can’t handle it out of mainstream education. The amount who can’t handle it will drop rapidly if they see that something is actually done and then we can avoid nasty little (but ultimately glorious) incidents like the one in Mansfield, where a teacher nearly bludgeoned a child to death with a metal weight screaming, ‘Die! Die!’

Inclusion kept that child in front of the teacher, goading and taunting him until he couldn’t take it anymore and if you don’t want to see more of the same, it’s time we overhauled the system. Either that, or take some shares out in your local metal weight emporium, sit back and enjoy the profitable carnage.

I get a horrible feeling that this is just to be a weekly vent; somewhere where I can gratify myself and endlessly go on about how hard done-by I am. You know, the sort of self-indulgent ramblings that would make Raul Moat blush. And then shoot someone in the face. To prevent this I also want to add something genuinely funny that happened to me in my teaching role every week, just so it’s clear it’s not all bad. It’s just mostly bad and sometimes tolerable.

Here’s one: last year I agreed to go to Liverpool with a group of gospel choir kids to help support the music teacher, who’d done a fantastic job in getting them to represent the school in a national scheme to get boys singing. As we sat on the train, one of the boys came up to me and asked, ‘what part of London is Liverpool in?’

At first I sniggered, thinking it was a joke, but when I realised he was serious I said, ‘No, Liverpool’s not in London. It’s up in the north-west of the country – you know, above Manchester; around that way.’

The boy thought for a moment and, obviously even more confused now, said, ‘Well, what’s Liverpool Street then?’

Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also painful and depressing. Perfect!

Thanks again for your comments from last week. What I loved was the effort that goes into coming up with all these floral descriptions and comparisons, only to have the whole thing revolve around my hair. Just for you then, as I walked into school for the first time since the ill-judged chop the air filled with the unsettling sound of exaggerated dry heaving. Just what you want when you’re feeling self-conscious anyway. To ease the pain next week I’ve decided to pluck my eyebrows and wear kitten heels.

Chat soon, bye now!