MODERN DAY MATHS TEACHING
A fellow exile from the profession - Julie Sandilands - has sent me this alarming diary, of an unfortunate chap put into individual special measures by his school:
The Diary of a Modern-Day Maths Teacher
Julie Sandilands
Somewhere in England, July 2024
It is the end of, what has been, a very difficult academic year for Mr Campbell, a fifty-two-year-old maths teacher who, on the first day of term, last September, had individually, been placed into the new flagship (staff only) disciplinary scheme called Special Measures for the crime of aggressive body language (AKA furrowed brow) during a mandatory, continued professional development (CPD) session on ‘Critical Race Theory – Confronting White Privilege’, delivered by the school’s two, recently appointed, NQTs. (Newly qualified teacher.) Special Measures required attending daily diversity courses, responsibility for the lowest ability class in each year group – every lesson observed, and a recent new feature of ‘all day observation’ for signs of improvement. Here, Mr Campbell reflects on his last week, whilst simultaneously deliberating on a possible plan for very early retirement:
MONDAY
A good news email to start the day: Mr Dalton, deputy head, has excluded (ideally from a plane at 20,000 feet) Rory, the Year 9 psychopath, for three days for setting off the fire alarm three times last Friday afternoon resulting in three fire engines being scrambled and screaming into the school car park. Apparently, on the third and final visit, the chief fire officer had offered to deal with Rory himself. Mr Dalton, smirking whilst imagining momentarily what that might mean, quickly regained his thoughts and assured the officer that appropriate consequences would be forthcoming.
TUESDAY
Managed to speak for about three minutes before being interrupted by loud barking and howling in the corridor. Alfie, one of our ‘multiple personality, non-binary’ students, had decided that today was a good day to be a dog. Rhys, who never likes to be out performed, suggested we call the armed police as the only breed Alfie could realistically turn into was an uncastrated X. L. Bully dog. This sent Kitty, (formally known as Louise) who identifies as a cat every Tuesday, fleeing under the desk in fear for her life. After ten minutes of trying to coax her back onto a chair, I gave up. At least, though, the high-pitched yowls had reduced, with the help of a damp facemask, to muffled meows. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes, solving simultaneous equations!”
WEDNESDAY
Is it getting any easier? Well, I did manage to bar Rory, (back from his three-day exclusion – yes it was shortened to two after a post on X by his mother went viral) from entering the classroom this morning. Mr Dalton had to come along to supervise him until someone from curriculum support, or, more sensibly, pest control, came to collect him. Meanwhile, he’s giving Mr Dalton abusive language and performing sexually suggestive actions, visible through the window between classroom and corridor. And what will happen? The curriculum support experts idiots will decide he's "neurodiverse" (yes, we have a neurodiversity counsellor), and Rory will reappear tomorrow for the whole charade to be repeated.
What’s neurodiverse? Oh, it’s when the subject’s two brain cells never come close to each other.
And the Year 11 class? Well, Madison (yes, she of square garden fame) managed, in the course of 50 minutes, to write the date and "3x", which might’ve been be okay, but the example started "3y"…
THURSDAY
Could have been worse. . . curiously, the awkward Year 8 class is working much better, though not all of them . . . and it may be connected to the absence of George - a thoroughly likeable boy, but a complete idiot behaviour-wise. The Year 10s, however, are the current major horrors: from Ace, (yes, apparently on the birth certificate) likeable but a loony, to several boys who are utterly immature. In a further sign of the times, an all-staff email informed us that Andrew has decided he, I mean she, now wants to be known as Victoria, shortened to Tori, and to use the pronouns she/her. Her parents are not to be informed at this time, as are the parents of two more Year 7 morons who have decided they want to join the growing school furry cohort. Perhaps we should start charging kennel fees!
FRIDAY
Another day of controlling the great uneducated, in the course of which I discovered that my Year 11 bottom of the ladder class is actually, relatively speaking, semi-civilised, compared to the second set Year 11 class of the teacher next door, which I had to cover because she, Ms Logan (currently contracted to work two days a week) was absent due to a medical appointment due to running out of antidepressants, or as she fondly refers to them, her little mood lifters. Anyway, out of all the fruit loops, I could single out Lachie, (Gaelic for complete shit) who was swiftly kicked out into the corridor, and whom Jim Haliday (a generally easy going and tolerant fellow) opined should be shot. Or perhaps the girl whose false eyelashes were just about hitting the pupil in the row in front, who argued her 3² = 6 answer was correct (there again, what would I know), but the biscuit, one might even say the star prize, was taken by the girl making a strenuous, and indeed somewhat contortionist effort, to give Connor, who was on the other side of the room, a look at her knickers - or more likely to confirm she wasn't wearing any!
All things considered the week ended moderately well as the Friday afternoon activities to celebrate ‘global citizen’ day were a welcome distraction. There were a number of options on offer. The climate club’s plan to burn a model of the planet on the school playing field had to be relocated to the sports hall due to inclement weather, where it was pointed out by the science department that actually setting light to the large paper-mache structure might send forth needless toxic fumes into the atmosphere due to the possible incineration of the building. Alternatively, there was the health and wellbeing club’s proposal to celebrate, through collective song and dance, the ever-increasing identity alphabet organised by one of our colourful (in every way you can think of) neuro diverse inclusivity officers. It had been agreed that Mr Simms (janitor) would provide an additional level of security after a knuckle duster had been found following a recent ‘discovering diversity jubilee’ organised by one of our…
After much thought and consideration, I opted for oriental cooking.
Step one: place (Year 7) cat in pot…
Note to self:
Remember to email HR on Monday for early retirement application form.
Remember to complete application form for retail assistant at popular, local German supermarket.
Sounds like we need to bring corporal punishment back to the schools six of the best on a bare arse would solve a lot of shit, sounds like it needs to be done to the parents as well.