Concern

With only a term to go the following things are concerning me:

• 1) Why does Trey think that “one more than 49″ is 18?
• 2) Why can’t Summer even formulate an answer to the same question?
• 3) Why, when asked any question, any question at all, from a maths question to an inquiry about the whereabouts of his coat does Timmy just blink and go silent? If he were the fruit of my own loins I must admit I would smack his legs just to see if he’d wake up. This sounds horrific and barbaric I’m sure but you try spending just one fucking day with him and see how you feel!
• 4) Why has the little boy who started off the year as the nicest boy in the class become a lying, thieving, spiteful little bastard? Actually I know why and social services are involved with the ‘family’. Still, it concerns me.
• 5) Why do whiteboard pens for the kids only last one day?
• 6) How is it that six and seven year olds can lose their sweatshirts at such a rate? They just vanish into thin air.
• 7) Why are parents of six and seven year olds incapable of writing their child’s name on the label of their sweatshirts?
• 8 ) What perverse law of nature is that makes sure that your special needs child with behavioural problems settles down and becomes a model of decency in time to coincide with all the other boys becoming very unpleasant for the week?
• 9) Why are the three women who constantly badger me with worries that their children aren’t improving academically the ones who are being hounded by the Educational Welfare Officer for not bringing their children to school very often? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
• 10) Where the fuck are all the pencil sharpeners?
• 11) Who is the thief in my class? Raffles? I can’t fathom who it is at all.
• 12) Why is it that one teacher and one classroom assistant can oversee outside play with no dramas or rioting, but with six midday supervisors it sounds like a riot in Borstal?
• 13) Most of my class have made real progress across the board this year. Why then does this not give me joy, when the lack of progress of just a couple (with a bad track record of making much progress) make me sick with worry?
• 14) Why do a small number of mums from my class think that it’s appropriate to threaten to beat the shit out of each other when their six year old sons have a playground spat?
• 15) Where is Wally? I can’t find the bastard on any page.
• 16) Why, after a year and a half of doing assemblies at our school does the vicar still insist on picking the school lunatics or very young children to answer her questions? You’d think that she’d have learnt not to destroy her own assembly that way by now.
• 17) Why do I have a hundredweight of gluesticks but no decent coloured paper to stick?
• 18 ) What the fuck is that smell? I’m sure it’s Timmy. Christ, what does that woman feed him?!
• 19) Who is it who stinks out the staff toilet by the office? I know it must be a woman and this disturbs me for some reason.
• 20) Why does James have no volume control? I think I need to ask his mum to take him for a hearing test. Surely he’s deaf.

Democracy

In an out and out push to make Napoleon go nuts and fall off his ‘niceness’ wagon I have to tell you that I’m at home today. No work for me. Why? Democracy in all its glory, that’s why. Last week it was Democracy what got me off the hook of having to do a day’s honest graft by giving me the right to walk out on strike. This week Democracy has galloped to the rescue by closing my school so that it can be used as a polling station. I tell you what, my grandfathers fought the Germans and the Japs for this very reason, so that their grandson could loaf around for a few days. I think they’d be proud.

Anyway, so I’ve got a day to fill. I might do some stuff on here. I will also post on the TES website, there seems to be a glut of extremely pompous teachers out there who don’t appreciate that some of us shoot from the hip and rap about the truth. While they hand-wring about that woman in the basement in Austria (which is revolting, but I don’t see how having a pissing competition to see who can sound the most horrified helps anyone), I point out that we’re superior to the Austrians as they gave the world Arnold Schwarzenegger and we gave the world Geoff Capes. Geoff bloody Capes! This has made me unpopular so I intend to strike while the iron is hot and see how many corduroy wearing lesbians (that’s teachers to you) I can turn against myself. I wish you all a good day’s work. A fantastic day. Now get on with your work. If indeed drawing cartoons for a living constitutes work. Which it doesn’t.