Last Day of Term

So, there you have it. 1,095 days ago I was considering changing careers and becoming a primary school teacher and, three years on, the General Teaching Council saw fit to pass me as an English teacher at secondary level. I’ve taught in two schools, first in Peckham and then Greenwich, been on dozens of school trips both in the UK and abroad, had 18 parent’s evenings, two tutor groups, seen tears of rage, sadness and happiness – although mostly rage – and made the phrase, ‘who do you think you are?’ an almost daily mantra. But now it’s over.

I wondered how I’d feel after the final curtain dropped, and to be honest it’s a bit numb actually. The last two summers have been great, but at the back of my mind I always knew what I was going back to and did the odd lesson here and there to ensure I was prepared, but now I have nothing. OK, so the reality is that, while the last couple of summer hols did include some work, now I really have to pull my finger out (that’s metaphorical this time – thankfully). I’m officially unemployed at a time when no-one can get a job. Have I lost my fucking mind?!

Well? What’s the big idea then? I’m glad you asked. My hope is that I can take some of the stuff I’ve learned as a teacher and use it in a capacity where I’m not bullied by a bunch of 12-year-old girls every day. You know, so that the entire experience hasn’t been one colossal waste of time. I have a few ideas about this, but rather than brashly announce these to the world (9-10 people) I’m gonna work on them a bit first, in case it all comes crashing around my ears. Supply teaching, anyone?

In the meantime, I’m off to South-East Asia in late September until the new year where I intend to pretend I’m much younger than I am, exploit the hell out of the rate of exchange and learn how to play projectile ping-pong at the Chairman Miaow tittie bar. I’ll be back on the blog for this, so keep your emails and your minds open (yes, it’ll be a deep voyage of discovery) in preparation. I can’t wait to travel again and this’ll probably be the last time I get this kind of chance, so I’m taking it. Sorry, Mum.

I’m so grateful for the fact I had such a good last day, as it’ll be that which remains with me, rather than those days I felt like writing ‘shutthefuckup’ backwards on my forehead and head-butting my way out of the school gates. It began, as every other day had that year, with my tutor group and there were already tears in the morning of our final registration, as well as an unprecedented amount of farewell gifts. Apparently the girls all want me to be drunk and fat. Look at them all in the pic at the top which includes, as I understand it, a perfectly valid certificate of qualification. I will be adding this to my CV.

There was an assembly where the rest of the departing staff and I were sat at the front and told how great we were before receiving more presents. Loved it. Then I watched a film with my difficult year 9 class who, despite having me shout at them for talking throughout it, put together a home-made card with really touching messages in it. Appreciated it. Afterwards it was nearly time to go, but first I showed my tutor group the deliberately emotive film I’d made to get them all weeping, which worked like a charm. Relished it. (see it here: http://vimeo.com/26757821) And finally made a speech, got more presents and cards and achieved new levels of obscenity down the pub until the wee hours. Forgotten it.

There’s so much I haven’t told you about my time in the classroom. Deleted scenes, if you like, which never made it to the final DVD. The way the boys used to wait until a really tense moment in the lesson, where the behaviour had gotten so bad it’d driven me to scream at the top of my voice causing the whole room to go silent, before some anonymous voice would completely undermine me with the classic, ‘waa, waa, waaaaaaa’. Or when Ofsted visited, like the Dementors in Harry Potter, and everyone would be absolutely terrified except the kids, who drank it in like sweet nectar. ‘Why are you writing objectives on the board?’ they’d ask, adopting faux confusion on their face because they knew an inspector was in the room. ‘You don’t normally show us how to reach the next level’, they’d continue as teacher grinned and sweated anxiously.

No? How about sitting through an entire speaking and listening assessment where a girl debated the necessity of abortion and kept referring to foetuses as faeces? ‘Faeces have feelings too!’ Or even a classic case of confusion when a science teacher saw a couple of boys clearly pulling their trousers down and looking at each others’ bits. ‘What do you think you’re doing?!’ was justifiably bellowed across the room at the boys, to which one simply replied, ‘chill out, bruv; Jefferson just didn’t believe I had any pubes.’ Oh, that’s fine then.

It all happened and I saw it all. Well, most of it anyway. And that’s what I’ll miss the most. Not the pubes, but the unpredictability of children. Adults have to abide by rules and you very rarely see public displays of lunacy from them, but kids; well, they say and do the oddest things at times, which can be infuriating, but also incredibly funny and endearing as well.

I’ll also miss being a form tutor – the role in which I felt the most confident. Having kids confide in you and trust you completely is quite disarming and although it’s a big responsibility, I always did my best to sort out their issues. This included a wide range of problems which could be as serious as self-harm, but also as frivolous as self-tanning too much and staining the forehead.

In conclusion, I will miss a lot of things about teaching, but I’m not going to kid myself; it has been, without doubt, the most stressful thing I’ve ever done. Children are different now and prey on teachers for sport, making trying to teach them and reach targets exceptionally traumatic in a lot of lessons. How people do this job for decades is beyond me. I’m just grateful to have come out of it alive and without any pending court cases. To be honest, I’m not sure my bottom could take another one of those. Dad always told me that having a job you love was the most important thing in life – I loved lots of aspects of teaching, but it just wasn’t enough. Next chapter…

Waiting to Exhale

A little while ago my good friend and long-time reader of my blog(s) – he was even there during the ‘Andrew From The Blog’ days (www.millsdoescanada.blogspot.com) – asked me to write about the way these kids smell. There is no doubt that they are, on average, twice as smelly as what you find in your belly button after a couple of months of absent-minded fingering (my girlfriend once told me it smells like a miscarriage in there) but really it’s more about their ability to ignore the smellingly obvious and act as though their particular brand of olfactory obscenity is perfectly acceptable that’s of real interest.

After every class leaves another enters and almost without fail says something along the lines of, ‘Oh, Sir – can’ yu open a window?! Oo was dat you jus ‘ad in ‘ere?’ – at least I think those are the words they’re using, combined with the usual grunts and slavers. It seems that they’re only immune to their own specific class fragrance and react like a rival gang when they get wind of an unfamiliar waft – eyes narrowing and curling lips with suspicion, like a chimpanzee who’s bounced back into the enclosure from Chimp Camp only to find, upon inhaling luxuriously, that his favourite wanking rag has been covertly stolen and washed by the meddlesome zookeepers.

Before I began teaching I thought that a lot of these smells were exclusive to adults. However, it transpires that things like BO, cheesy willies and fishy fannies are just as prevalent among the young and, worse still, their as yet unrefined washing habits mean that you get a heady cocktail of these ingredients in most classes. It’s like walking into a wall of smell sometimes, especially if you’re on a cover lesson where the stench has been given some time to gather its strength before you arrive.

Summertime is without doubt the worst. As I can vouch for, being a smelly boy myself, boys are definitely the most pungent of the lot and at the all-boys school I used to teach at this rang true with a frightening adherence to stereotype. I can only assume that the little stinkers were made of asbestos or some other kind of heat-resistant fibre as during the sweltering summer months, where the blinding sun glared in through the patchy blinds all day long and the classrooms’ heat built like a foul-mouthed pressure cooker, they wore layers upon layers of clothes.

When the bell went to signal lunchtime they would peel off one tier, to reveal their running-around-like-a-mad-bastard clothes and then proceed to do exactly that for the entire duration of lunch. Upon returning, sweating like Rupert Murdoch at the point of realisation that he’d contacted the wrong person while trying to get in touch with a foolish Arthur from EastEnders (Silly Fowler – do you see?), the boys then simply reapplied the previous film of clothing and sat panting like a car window dog – adding shitty kid breath into the equation. On occasion I’m sure I’ve actually seen authentic comic book-style stink lines rising above them.

Smelly girls are, admittedly, a lot rarer, but equally offensive when encountered. Leaning in to help some girls is like being punched in the nostrils by an angry trout on the turn and they have a far greater ability to linger around in your hairy batcaves all day. As if their curdy genitals are not enough to be getting on with, they also buy the world’s cheapest perfumes and drench themselves in it before, during and after lesson, so that your classroom ends up smelling like a combination of a whore’s armpit and a strawberry Refresher. Sweet, but repulsive.

So there you have it. Ask and you will, eventually, receive. Thanks goes out to Al and Rob for being both repelled and elated by last week’s posting. I have to say, a lot of people liked the bum worms – to the extent of there being talk of a spin-off blog – ‘Bum Worms – A Modern Fairytale’. Well, if it’s disgusting you want, I have it by the anus-load. Last week at school and as a teacher next week, so expect nostalgia and blithering last-minute contrition in equal measure. Maybe see you then?

A Bum Deal

Readers of a nervous disposition look away now. I have to warn you that this week's subject matter is likely to make a lot of you squirm. A verb so appropriate, you can't even imagine. OK, so don't tell me I didn't warn you.

(To be sung with an inane open-mouthed expression while skipping at full speed down the dirty Streatham streets with your trousers slowly falling down) Summons came, summons came, summons came in the post today! La la-la, la la-la, going to court with the other scum! How did it come to this? Well, simply put, I was driving without any insurance, as you might remember, and finally the summons came in the post to remind me, like a big papery finger. It'd been ages since the incident - 14th March, if I remember it. My. Cocking. Birthday - and I thought there was an off-chance they'd forgotten about the whole thing and we could return to being firm friends and sharing needles together on the park bench; but sadly, no.

As the day approached there was a furious compilation of paperwork. Everything had to be meticulously arranged so that I had the best chance of presenting myself as a fine upstanding member of the community and the court would have to let me off. Paper trails were printed showing payments made throughout the period in question, while notes were taken and documents produced. It really was a work of intense personal scrutiny, for which I can take virtually no credit as it was all done by my girlfriend, who looks after me in a kind of carer's role. Feeds me, wipes me, holds me through the night terrors and such.

One thing that would be a massive boon and help our case enormously would be a letter from the insurance agency taking full responsibility for their error and for the incident completely. Now this should be an almost impossible task, but believe it or not, we found the world's thickest insurance agent who was happy to write out exactly as we dictated, so long as we let him chase torchlight on the wall every 10 minutes. Go get it! I've put one of his letters on the post to show you his childish scrawl and that he spelt 'being' incorrectly. How can you get that wrong? It's 'be' 'ing'. Jesus.

Anyway, the day was approaching and I was starting to get a little nervous. We arranged to meet up with a lawyer friend a few days before who was fantastically helpful, but pretty much assured us we didn't have a leg to stand on. This made things even more fraut for me and I started to consider cutting my losses and pulling out of the case altogether. It was around this time that, in the evening, my bottom started to feel itchy.

As the temperatures soared in our late June burst of summer, I found myself on the sofa at night constantly adjusting my pants and scratching around the bumhole, where the itching sensation was building nicely now. I was pretty sure I knew what this was as I'd had it as a child, but what the hell was I doing with it now? It wasn't until a couple of days before the case that I looked down into the bowl after delivering a couple of witch's fingers and saw the tell-tale tails. Bum worms. I hadn't had it for about 20 years and was assured that it only came from kissing cats too much (I can't help it!) but without any cats in the vicinity I can only assume I got it from the kids at school. Thanks a lot, you bastards.

Treatment is a pill that, after 24 hours, should rid you of the wriggly swines and give you feeling of awesome power when you look down at the clump of death gently swirling in the murky water. It's quite beautiful, actually. Thinking I had plenty of time, I took the pill a good 48 hours before the hearing and waited for the toilety holocaust to present itself; but sadly this wasn't to be. If anything I think it just made them angrier and more desperate so that by the morning of the case they were writhing around in there like a bait box of maggots.

The timing couldn't have been worse. While we drove towards the courthouse my mind was supposed to be on the extensive notes we'd made, the case we'd built for ourselves, the plea and the speech, but all I could think of was how insanely itchy my arsehole was. When we arrived I can still see my girlfriend trying so hard not to be utterly horrified, as I goose-stepped my way around the scorching hot waiting area, pulling and scratching at my suit trousers; a look of mania and fear etched into my contorted face. An all-time low was going into the toilet at least five times just for the simple act of plunging my finger up to the knuckle in pure, fleshy anus. The act itself was vile, but the consequential sensation was almost orgasmic. Closed-eyed and open-mouthed, my head tilted upwards as I rummaged around in my colon as though I was trying to identify the culprits one-by-one by pointing to each of them.

A wild-eyed, fixed-grin on my face meant we were finally in front of the magistrates and, God knows how, we actually pulled it off. I'd only got halfway through the first of seven pages of notes when they simply asked for copies of the bank statements and asked us to wait outside. Wait, wait, wait. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Back inside again we were informed that the charges were 'withdrawn' and almost immediately the itching stopped. All sounds a little too convenient for the purposes of this story, but it's true. The worms died with the case and I couldn't help but see the poetic symmetry of the whole sorry affair - two pains in the arse ending at once.

Well, there you go. I've often opened my heart to you, but this week it's my sphincter. Consider yourselves honoured. I'd like to say that's my happy ending, but I pranged the car a couple of days ago so the premiums should be right back to where we started again. But so the saying goes - shit happens. And sometimes there are worms in it. Goodbye.

Mike Hunt

And look, I found one! You should know who this is and if you don't we can't be friends anymore. When I saw him he was tugging a granny trolley behind him and looked like something out of one of his own films. I love how 'real' he is.

I actually have a massive problem with the propensity for every argument to come down to a measure of how 'real' or 'fake' you are these days. Where did it all come from? Concerning yourself with something so obviously a fabricated construct of the media - 'real'ity television' has a lot to answer for (but I still love it and hate myself for that) - and then proclaiming another to be 'fake' is the clearest example of an oxymoron I've ever heard. Emphasis on the moron. It seems to me to be an excuse to say poisonous things to whoever you wish because you'd be 'fake' if you didn't. No. That's not right. Not telling someone they're fat or annoying or ugly is not being 'fake', it's just being a normal human being with a modicum of empathy. To do the opposite means you're an obnoxious twat. For real.

Anyway, really short rant as I just wanted to put this pic up and show the world how much I love Mike Leigh. I told him as much and he was lovely about it all. Why is it I always want to please older middle class men? Nothing good that way lies. Maybe it's because my own mother had only this to say about the blog - 'it's a bit moany'. Well, so's hardcore pornography and I understand that's been going from strength to strength. Toodles. X

Cave Worms

What a beautiful day. The birds are chirping in the trees, the sun's lapping around the streets like a docile house cat and passersby compliment each other on their respective hats. What's that, little Jimmy? Of course I'll push you higher on the swing. Higher and higher we go, Jimski, ha-ha-ha-ha! God it's good to be alive. I think I'll adopt Jimmy and together we'll help each other through the hard times - if only he'd stop obsessing over these bloody bean sprouts? Hang on - bean sprouts? That doesn't seem to fit into all this. I hate bean sprouts, they're nature's nose hairs. Why am I in Germany now having bean sprouts rudely crammed into every hole by Reinhard Burger? Oh, that's right, it's a dream and the radio alarm's headlines are invading my mind like one of those brainy serial killers off of the films. Fucking typical.

This is how I imagine you think of me - a person so unswervingly tied up in his own mission to bring all children to justice that any dribble of positivity may only be experienced behind closed eyes. That's the impression I've got from speaking to a few of you about the blog's contents in the last couple of weeks and it's strange really because I don't actually see it like that. I suppose that while you're in the middle of something - in this case teaching - it's hard for you to imagine that other people don't feel exactly the way you do. It just makes sense. OK, so here's the thing - this week will be a wholly positive experience for all involved. Upbeat doesn't even cover it - by the end of this post you'll be smiling so broadly that the arrival of a beaming Hare Krishna man descending upside down from the ceiling would not only be appropriate, it would be essential (see Airplane for details).

My tutor group are stars. They're only year 7 and, for the most part, they act this age; which makes them fun, engaged, interesting and obsessed with Justin Beiber. Must... Contain... Cynicism... Nearly every day they come to school with a enthusiastic story about how they narrowly avoided a dog attack, did a new dance move at their cousin's (which everyone's copying now) or got ever-so-very-slightly hurt attempting some kind of circus trick. Knee or elbow grazes are presented as a testament to the 'danger' they put themselves in for this last one. They are the top set in the year and produce the most incredible pieces of work which the kids in my last school would struggle to... No... Put-downs... Rest-assured - these are good girls who make childhood look like it should - a massive, trembling balloon of joy just fit to burst.

Over the next few weeks, the humanities departments (English, History, Geography, ICT, Music) have all come together for what's called an 'intergrated project', where year 7 pupils will see how the different subjects link with each other and how one can inform the next. The title of the project is '80 Days Around The World' and my contribution to this was a week-long scheme of work based in India which I taught last week. I actually surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this and, as a classroom experience, it's probably my favourite to date. Given the short amount of time left this term, I'd say this is unlikely to be beaten; unless the final week's project is called '80 Comments Around The Blog'. Hint alert.

Every lesson we journeyed further down the country, taking in the sights and sounds of Amritsar's Golden Temple, Cochin's river villages and, of course, the great Taj Mahal - complete with an almost entirely fabricated history made up by moi. The highlight, though, without a doubt was their visit to Mumbai, where the girls were picked to be in a Bollywood musical and all learned and performed a dance number which I turned into a film - you can see this at http://vimeo.com/24870301

The idea for this only came the day before and relied entirely on my girlfriend's goodwill to come in and dance in front of these kids with hardly any practice. I am a lucky man, no doubt though, because that night we made the whole dance up from scratch and it was at that point I finally got a single, tiny, glow-worm in a cave at night-like pang of regret about leaving the profession. What other job would have you spending a night coming up with a Bollywood dance to teach the next day? There are lots of reasons why I'm leaving this career behind, but when it's good, you just can't beat it. The lows can be all-consuming, but the highs are dizzying too and it's easy to forget that - particularly if you read this poisonous vitriol.

Big props to my girl for having whale-sized testes and giving it her all in front of the girls. You are the glowworm to my cave - although maybe that should be the other way round. Thanks also to Rob for last week's comment - it alludes to a time long past when I used to have a quick temper. These days I'm all relaxed, you see - in a way... Now I'm off to snap a baby's neck and drink the mother's love directly from its spinal cord to address the imbalance occurring as a result of this post. Peace and love. X

The Wrong Trousers

There are three things you need to know about my car. Four, if you count that it only cost 150 sheets – a principle contributing factor in the existence of the other three. Number one is that the passenger seat rail that the chair slides up and down with is broken. This means that as you drive around, the seat lurches backwards and forwards next to you at every light, roundabout and crossing accompanied by unnerving clunking and snapping noises. The speed of this movement is directly proportional to the velocity of the stop and so for prolonged traffic jams a gentle swaying motion can actually be quite soothing, whereas a sudden (but unavoidable) collision with old people or children can force the chair to quickly phantom forward beside you like some kind of Saw-esque torture device.

Number two is a sudden and inexplicable (easily explicable if you know about cars I’m sure, but I don’t) increase in revs. This is both very embarrassing and quite dangerous and can also be relied upon to occur at least once every journey. The embarrassment stems from sitting next to another driver at the lights in my dirty, pint-sized, red shit-mobile as it suddenly screams into life like a wayward toddler, making me appear as though I’m up for it. Let me assure you, I’m not. Some people have even burned me off at the lights, mistaking the revving for a twatish invitation to a race, but I always thought revving was meant to be an up-and-down thing in those circumstances? Instead, put your car in neutral and your foot right down on the accelerator to experience the kind of noise I’m talking about. That’s not playful fun, it’s car autism.

What’s dangerous about this is when it happens just as you put the clutch down so that when you go back into gear the car is at full speed. Hairpin bends are the worst as you can find yourself trying to manage a treacherously out of control vehicle, which was fine only moments before, and taking corners with a Mario Kart-style power slide. I loathe people who give their cars names (you know who you are) but there are unavoidable parallels to be drawn between these attributes and famous car-with-a-mind-of-its-own, Herbie. It can only be assumed that a life of wild abandon at the helm of a career spanning five decades has had its affect on ol’ Herb though, and this is the result. The automobile equivalent of Charlie Sheen.

Finally, number three, which I’m told is connected to number two, is its flat-out refusal to start. The thing is it will start eventually, but only after turning it over and over and over and building frustration to life-shortening levels. It’s always fine if it’s been left for a little while, but if you do a quick stop, that’s when she doesn’t like it one little bit. This capitalises on its ability to habitually humiliate me and quick stops at petrol stations, newsagents or anywhere where lots of people can see you shouting and flailing about in anger at a car can be counted upon every day.

That’s my car. That’s my life.

Last Thursday, while I was trying to open a window in the computer room at school, I ripped my trousers. I quickly sat back down in the chair, as this was a nice, easy cover lesson, and felt about under the table (if only Ofsted could see me now) to assess the damage. As I fished around in instant dismissal land, it turned out that although the boys could taste freedom in their new convertible, they were still very much in the barracks and I could finish the day without too much droopy shame. Later on, however, after the pupils had left, I light-heartedly flashed my little rip for some choice members of staff by jutting my arse out and ended up ripping the whole lot right up to the belt line. These were my only trousers and it was 6pm. There was nothing else for it, I would have to wear jeans the next day.

As I prepared for work the following morning, I couldn’t help but feel a little maverick. OK, I was leaving, but wearing jeans to school was definitely atypical for Mr Mills and as I strode into the headmistresses office I imagined this is what it must have been like for The Sex Pistols on that show they swore on. Yeah – witness my anarchic jeans, bitches! However, even though I may have been all devil may care as I approached the office, inside a familiar sense of dread and insignificance was mounting and as I entered I was more Sid Little than Sid Vicious. After more sorrys than a TV intervention the judgment was over; I was being sent home! Those are the actual words my headmistress used, ‘I’m sending you home, Andrew. This is a professional institution and all our teachers dress professionally.’ I wonder what would have happened if I walked into a classroom with my unprofessional jeans on? A bloody revolution, that’s what! 40 days of night, boiling blood-red seas and cats moving in with dogs. Unrestrained pandemonium, instigated by a blatant disregard for professionalism. So that’s how the world ends. I didn’t see that one coming.

To save civilisation my only option was to see if I could find a professional shop that sold professional trousers – and all of this had to be done within 20 minutes because of an assessment taking place in period one. I jumped in the shit-mobile and zipped through the narrow Greenwich streets, wild-eyed and furious about my predicament and my stupid bitch-cow-twat-cock-knob-knocker of a headmistress whose short-sightedness and desire to be seen as completely unreasonable had led to this. 8:50am is not the best time to go clothes shopping in Greater London, but needs must when you’ve no other choice and in what I think was Deptford, about 5 minutes away from the school, a dirty and nasty-looking parade of shops honed into view. They were all shut, obviously as it wasn’t even 9am yet, but outside one of them an equally dirty and nasty-looking man was shuffling about looking like he might own it. Good enough for me – I screeched to a halt and leapt out making a beeline for what I now saw to be a smelly old charity shop.

The man looked surprised as I bounded towards him, but I quickly realised that the cigarette was meant to be fastened to his bottom lip when he started talking. ‘We’re not open, mate. I’m just cleaning up some graffiti from last night – little bastards.’ I ignored him and speedily began flicking through the racks of unwanted bacteria for something professional. ‘I need a pair of trousers!’ I spat, reeling a bit from the skin flakes flying out of the clothing and nestling in my mouth. Everything was about 10 sizes too big for me – why are only fat people charitable?! ‘Here’, I found a lovely shiny pair of Aladdin-style culottes which would just have to do, paid Smelly an extra pound for his help – bringing the grand total to two – and bounced back into the car; all done within 3-4 minutes.

Once inside I tore off my rebellious jeans and turned the engine over so that I was ready to go once the trousers were on. It chugged, it groaned, it spluttered, but it definitely didn’t start. Over and over I tried, pleading with it, promising impossible debts of gratitude, but to no avail. The frustration had become intolerable and, I’m sorry to say, I lost it. I used to laugh at those poor unfortunates who spend their days shouting at inanimate objects, but let me tell you, it’s a fine line between laughing at them and sitting in a car with no trousers on, swearing like a sailor and waking up the estate you’re parked next to. Finally, when it seemed the car couldn’t take any more of the filthy, sexually explicit abuse, it coughed into life and that’s when I caught myself and was ashamed.

How had it come to this? I imagined myself as a younger man looking into his future and seeing just that: a man in no trousers, shouting sickeningly foul language to a car which revved louder and more obnoxiously than ever at the traffic lights as the seat jerked and smashed back and forth next to him. Mummy, I want to go home.

Thanks again to Al – it appears you alone are able to confound the devious machinations of the wicked Blogger and its attempt to steal your soul when adding comments. Thanks for that and for reminding me of Skipsey. I remember he once punched Fawkesee in the stomach for throwing up on him as well. Classic bastard. Bwye!

Insignificant Others

Anyone reading this would think I have an inherent hatred for all beings under five and half feet. Except midgets. I like the way they run. Like penguins. But this is simply not true. I also have significant misanthropic tendancies towards taller (supposedly) more enlightened individuals and I think it’s time we had a look at rubbish teachers. There are plenty of ‘types’ under this umbrella and here are my top five, with examples, to let you all in on it.

1. The Drill Sergeant: A teacher who relies entirely on fear to educate the poisonous shrimps. This individual makes behaviour management a nightmare for all the other quivering and fearful members of staff, among whom I timidly count myself, and can occasionally lead to woefully misjudged attempts to replicate the style to try and maintain order. They achieve the double whammy of pissing off teachers and pupils alike, while living a ‘perfect storm’-type existence, oblivious to the negative impact they have on the school. Don’t try to speak to them about it though as they’re likely to stick a Smart Board up your arse – creating a Smart Arse Board.

2. The Mummy: This teacher constructs a wholly inappropriate relationship with pupils and is likely to give out their Facebook details quicker than you can say sex offenders register. One such example concocted such a powerfully strong relationship with their class that when I was to take the group and, during a fact and opinion lesson where they had to state whether certain statements were ‘fact’ or ‘opinion’, I stopped the lesson because of disruption to announce I was to be her replacement, one member growled, ‘opinion’. Hugging and fawning are also conventions of this form as well as perpetual use of the phrase, ‘bless’.

3. The Smug Fuck: Just when the day couldn’t get any worse, this supercilious cum bag is happy to let you know you’re entirely to blame. ‘7.2? But they’re perfect for me? Only last week they all bought me flowers and asked me to adopt them. Silly little things! You just haven’t created a relationship with them – they’re really lovely kids.’ Yeah, thanks. That you’ve spent the best part of a year bobbing and weaving from their tongues and fists makes it even better when someone lets you know how angelic they are for them. Smug fuck.

4. PE and Art ‘Teachers’: It’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not fair! Long, mark-free holidays, 1 minute lesson planning, kayaking and street dance on the syllabus – this isn’t a job, it’s Butlins! How I seethe with rage as you leave at 4pm every day, content in the knowledge that tomorrow’s trampolining and potato printing lessons are in the bag and I settle in for another evening of trying to decipher whatever banal ramblings 8.3 have punched into their books.

5. The Mentalist: There’s one in every school. An individual so far removed from reality you get the feeling they only became a teacher because they failed the harmony singing stages of oompa-lompa training. Everything about this person is inappropriate and, as such, like catnip to the monsters. Styled by Playschool with X Men hair, they cry their way around school perplexed by the constant harassment they suffer as day-by-day the taunting just gets worse and worse. I’ve sat with The Mentalist at lunch once, about 5 feet from the kids, as they relived the horror of a particularly bad episode. ‘Then he called me a FUCKING CUNT!’, they nashed, frothing at the mouth while a forkful of jellof rice froze at my open mouth and then splattered incredulously back onto the plate.

So there it is; a summary of how the adults can be just as bad as the kids in education. But which category would I put myself in and where do I fit into this whole sorry mess? Well, I suppose I don’t fit in at all really and that’s why I’m giving it up. The teaching aspect, standing at the front of the class and showing off for a little while, is fine, but it’s the red tape that kills me. That the profession has become a series of box ticking exercises is infuriating – not just for me, but for thousands of teachers out there – and I just can’t see myself coming to terms with that. Plus the kids are dicks.

A very quick turnover from the last post this week because I obviously have to maintain my ‘four a month’ target I plucked out of inconsequentiality. One comment from Olly from a previous post should be noted though, as it was very complimentary and does result in him having a free pass to my bottom at his will. The joke’s on him though, it’s rarely a clean bottom. Peace. Unless there’s any work in it for me. In which case war’s fine too.