In these present days of Teaching Assistants galore, classrooms are nicely awash with support for children, but it wasn’t so long ago that only having your regular teacher in class was the norm.
That said though, a sprinkling
of substitute, cover or student teachers occasionally dipped in to the mix
which usually meant absolute chaos would ensue within seconds of them entering
the classroom.
They were often an odd sort weren't they? Horrendous dress sense, totally incapable of maintaining any kind
of decent control over the class, and seemingly prepared to accept all kinds of
personal abuse from those who fancied their chances against them.
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| "Yes, Barry Manilow DOES know..." |
In fact, none of those who
taught classes I was in seemed to exude any skills of note. Perhaps they should
have watched what Sidney Poitier did in To Sir With Love?
My memory is usually pretty
good, but it has failed me a little for this one, as there are quite a few such
specimens that I can remember by appearance, but not by name! So out of
fairness, and to promote anonymity, I've opted to revert to nicknames for all
of the candidates below:
Alan
Let’s start by
clarifying that Alan was actually a female, and was only known to us as ‘Alan’
as she looked like the brother of one of my best mates – who was called Alan!
Alan was a
student teacher assigned to teach us French in Year 11 (5th year)
during the LAST TERM before we left to take our GCSE exams. The LAST TERM!
Whoever made that decision wants their head examined… at a time when we needed
that final push and support before leaving school, it’s no wonder so many
people got low pass marks. On the whole, she was a very forgettable teacher,
but bless her she was memorable for trying
to express ‘pain’ in French, by running around the classroom feigning tummy
illness – for 20 minutes.
At least I think
she was faking it…
Denny
So named because
I think this chap was Danish. I could've gone with other food related links to Denmark, but
was advised caution against being ignorantly racist!
Poor Denny
seemed to lose the class before he'd even started. Another student teacher, he
was brought in to teach German and miraculously managed to survive just about
one term before moving on. Bright and breezy in his introduction, some of my
more ruthless classmates started tearing him a new one almost immediately. The
lessons immediately crumbled into a torrent of abuse towards him, his accent,
his beard, his dress wear, his lack of authority etc. No amount of him shouting
and literally screaming could stop the barrage of mocking coming his way.
Towards the end
of his tenure, our class was split into two, in order to help him attempt to
manage / teach a smaller group – which clearly didn't help our education.
During these split sessions, one of the heads of year asked me to tell her what
we'd learnt, so I honestly and openly told her ‘not much’ and that it would
take a miracle for the majority of the students to ever turn and warm to him.
Coming towards
the end of term, we were ‘lucky’ enough to have him cover a Design Technology
lesson for us. During which some students wound him up so much that he literally
threw a desk at a girl who had dared to laugh at him! He then sent her in to
another room and about a minute later all we could hear was screaming. Evidently
he had held her in an attempt to calm her down apparently, and she had retorted
with 'get your hands off of me you b******!’
before running out and home.
And to cement
the growing list of incidents, shortly after the above incident he had the tyres
slashed on his Citroen 2CV Dolly by a 1st year student.
Unsurprisingly
he didn't return in September, and we had a brand new female teacher in his
place. She was a breath of fresh air, instantly liked by all, and didn’t
receive one dot of abuse.
A footnote to
this story though, is that she actually knew her predecessor rather well. She ended
up being one of the best teachers I ever had, but to be fair, whoever his
replacement was would have been almost angelic in comparison. Long after his departure,
she told me how amazed she was at the series of events as she found him to be
such a nice chap!
Trusting her
assessment of him, I'm sure he was probably a nice guy – he just didn't get off
to a good start for whatever reason and it got diabolically worse from there on
in.
Hagar – But Not
Horrible
“I used to teach
in London.”
A fact he often
reminded us about. Possibly it was coding for ‘don’t screw with me’, but he was generally alright in the way he
handled the classes. He basically used to give as good as he got, and to that
end he had a fair good rapport with most students. What we ever learnt was debatable though.
He opened
himself up to abuse by declaring he was a Crystal Palace fan, which was a
burden for one of my Crystal Palace supporting mates (coincidentally the
brother of Alan above), as every time Hagar appeared before us, he’d make a
beeline for him to discuss how the football was going.
Oh and
apparently he also taught John Barnes. Just in case we’d forgotten from the
last 50 times he’d told us.
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| 'Digger' Barnes - not yesterday |
I think he also
used to lift share with another cover teacher who I think was nicknamed Charley
Farley, or Farley’s Rusks or something similar? The name Rudolph rings a bell
though, but that might be due to a red nose I recall him having. It distracted
from the tweed suit.
The Twins: Cunning
Linguist & Watoo Watoo
And finally, a
brief mention for these two student teachers who popped up at Primary School.
The Cunning
Linguist wasn’t popular amongst fellow teachers and children alike. This was
compounded when I heard other teachers slagging him off just after he left. The
nickname is because he often used to mispronounce the name of our lovely
headmaster Mr.Cunliffe (RIP) to Mr.Cunnicliffe – which as a child I found
funny, and as an adult I find mildly disturbing!
And finally,
Watoo Watoo was just a friendly play on the family name of the preceding nice
young student teacher who at least came back and visited us again.
Think
how much our children are missing out on these delights!
