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Shorts
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| Who? | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||||||||
| 13 December 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Isn't it odd how, if you repeat or study a word for too long, it loses all meaning, and then is free to take on an entirely different persona? I've always thought that Chlamydia would make a charming girls name. I can see her now, a middle class Victorian woman, unlucky in love, but consoling herself with studying botany. Maybe in middle age her illustrated book of English hedgerow flowers was finally published. In the silence of the deserted classroom he started to transfer the latest homework marks into the register. The official school year was just two weeks old, still fresh. The world-weary cynicism of the slow lead up to July had been washed away (or at least faded some), and a new class was growing. It was odd, he reflected, how different each class was. You’d think that with 30 kids of the same age, the class personality would average out from one year to the next, but it never did. Sometimes a class was fun-loving, sometimes earnest. A class could be hungry for learning, or sated before it had even started. It could be hostile or friendly. Non-teaching friends would ask, horror on their face, how he could teach the same class year in and year out. He had given up trying to explain that it was only the subject that was the same; the class was different every year. But of course, the class personality was an amalgam of all the individual personalities of the kids. There were standard pigeon-holes that the kids could be dropped into, but the mix, the conflicts, the compromises all swirled around to make up the class unique each year. Not even each year. It was a constantly evolving creature as individuals waxed and waned, barging and colliding through their growing pains. And at the end of two weeks he prided himself on being able to identify by name each of his charges. He picked up the next book. John Edwards. A head completely dominated by hair and freckles. The hair was bushy, tangled and sprung out at impossible angles, even though it was kept relatively short. It stayed just shy of ginger. His freckles crowded so close that they almost become one monster freckle. He was bright, but hid it from his peers. He stood out enough from his friends without inviting undue attention. So his homework marks were high, but he wouldn’t volunteer answers in class. The next book. Anne Kelly. Sassy. Took on the boys in verbal fencing, and usually won. She would defend her clique like a tigress. Any boy that dissed her posse would know about it (Did one still diss a posse, or was that just last year?). She had strong opinions, and would express them well, loudly and often. If he let her, she would drown out the other quieter class members. She was a leader. If he wanted to convince the class of something, he would try first to convince her. The next book. Thomas Meyer. He was bright. Very bright, though you wouldn’t know it. He had become bored very quickly. Within days he had decided that the teachers could teach him nothing that he either did not know, or could do without. If he could be engaged in a subject, he would exhibit a phenomenal intellect. The problem was that the three R’s didn’t engage him. Not until he had discovered Meyer’s passion. Who would have thought that the class tough would be a budgerigar enthusiast? It was exhausting trying to work it into English essays, and Maths was just impossible. All he could hope for was that whilst enthusing about the birds, he might accidentally learn enough not to disgrace himself during SATS. The next book. Anne. He frowned. He couldn’t place the name. Odd. He looked up the map of the class. For the first term he had them sit in alphabetical order, the better to memorise who they were. Then he looked at her desk. Still a blank. Very odd. There was her chair, in front of Adrian Perkins, behind Thomas Meyer. He thought back over the day. His mind completely blanked out any reference to the girl. He checked the register. She had attended every day so far this term. Yet still he could not recall her face. Even more worrying, he couldn’t recall a single interaction with her. He felt it important to draw an answer from everyone in the class, even the shy ones, at least once a day. He was particular about it, noting the shrinking violets and ensuring at least one directed question at each. But he had not done so, as far as he could remember, for Anne. Definitely not today. Maybe not this week. Her surname was Irish. Could he recall an Irish brogue in class? No. Not that she was necessarily Irish. Her forebears could have come from the Old Country generations ago. This was most curious. He would definitely have to make a point of talking to her tomorrow. He transferred her mark across and reached for the next book. Adrian Perkins. Like Meyer, difficult to engage. Unlike Meyer, not too bright at all. He wore a surly expression during lessons, and rarely smiled during break. He would need extra attention, perhaps even some Special Needs tutoring later. He was going to do something tomorrow. What was it? The doubt nagged at his mind. He had meant to do something, something he thought important. No, it had gone. Oh well, it couldn’t have been that important after all. He wrote Perkins’ mark down in the column, underneath Anne O’Nimmitty’s, and reached for the next book.
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Though as a supply teacher I'm rarely one place long enough to learn the names of more than the occasional troublemaker! 
) and was one of the YOUNGEST there!
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