I Hope Today’s Teachers are Doing a Better Job than mine…
I guess it was never the smartest move in the late eighties to start your first day at high school looking like the world’s biggest nerd. Thanks Mum for the heavy fringe, sideboards, blazer buttoned up to the neck, maroon school tie (it was optional, why wouldn’t you listen?!) and knee high socks. I made such a striking first impression and most of my peers never let me forget it.
#bestnottovolunteertobethemodelinartclass
Miss Flemming, the art teacher, would’ve been sacked, sued or dragged to tribunal nowadays for not ripping up every last one of my beloved twelve year old classmates’ Spitting Image paper creations. She should’ve gathered from the smirks and guffaws as I walked the lonely plank that was the table with the chair sat atop it, that this wasn’t going to end pretty. This was bullying in broad flippin’ daylight! But no, not Miss Flemming. Maybe her boyfriend had left her the night before and run off into the arms of another woman. Maybe her cat had shat on her carpet as she left for work. I didn’t know. I didn’t particularly care. It all just seemed a tad unfair that a ‘responsible’ adult couldn’t interpret her pupils’ lowly actions. And to add insult to injury, after enduring an hour of what can only be described as persistent mental torture, I was made to walk ‘the walk of shame’ around the dear pre-teens’ makeshift art gallery to peruse the variations of myself on canvas. It haunted me for quite some time…
Still, at least I was sassy, loved by my little group of misfit friends, switched on, nifty with a hockey stick, and eager to learn; driven to make it big in the world. Oh yes. I was doggedly determined to prove every last one of the above-mentioned artistic bastards wrong.
But it didn’t stop me getting booted off the hockey team.
I was no Olympian, for sure. But I was as on the ball as the best of them. During hockey matches I came into my own… when anybody could be bothered to acknowledge me to pass the ball that was. You see, partaking in sport in my school (and possibly partaking in sport in your school in the late eighties/early nineties) was dependent upon one of two criteria:
1) Being in The Family (aka the IT Crowd, in-group, popular ones)
2) Being built like a brick shit house whom neither the P.E teacher, nor the designated captain wanted to bump into down a dark alley after the match
No middle ground. No in-between.
So that pretty much sums up why Miss Lloyd batted not an eyelid when Zara Bennett bid me adieu. Abbie Bathgate suddenly wanted to join the team after we’d played two away matches and won (both of which I had scored goals in). Abbie Bathgate was in The Family. Zara Bennett was head honcho of The Family. I was neither. I was out. Democracy at it’s finest.
P.E lessons followed the same Draconian formula
Miss Lloyd always chose somebody from categories 1) and 2) above. And us Misfits hung about until the end. Dribs and drabs. Leftovers pushed around on the dinner plate.
‘Oh okay then, I s’pose you can come on our team… If you really have to.’
I’d pick my self esteem up off the floor and charge about that netball court like an angry bull, hellbent on showing ’em what I was made of. Yep. Miss Lloyd really knew a thing or two about equality (when she wasn’t scratching her bottom that is).
Surely being in the Drama Club, crafting and honing my acting skills would make me a forerunner for the lead… okay then, a speaking part with more than a line in the school production?
Well d’uh! Not if you weren’t mouthy. Not at my school. I was shy, yes. I was the kind of person only inclined to raise my hand during French because I knew I was top of the class and would always get the answer right – but I wasn’t so timid that I’d rendered myself mute! Miss Lacey, Head of Drama, begged to differ. Which kind of goes against the grain of acting, don’t you think? According to the Collins English Dictionary (well, my well-worn edition of it), the second listed definition of an actress is: a person who puts on a false manner in order to deceive others.
So of course I was never going to be contender of the year for Head Girl.
Or Deputy Head Girl, Head Prefect or Prefect… Did you have those in your school? Practically everyone in the top set was made a prefect. It was an absolute given, a kind of unspoken privilege in return for five years of swotting away. Unless, it seemed, you were shy.
That was the turning point in my life.
And up those stairs I marched to the Headmaster’s office. My gaggle of buddies waited excitedly in a U shape down below. I was still me. But I was me on film. Hah! Who’s being an actress now, Miss Lacey?
Mr Meehan, our well-past retirement, stiff upper lipped, bloomin’ well scary when angry Headmaster, had to pick his jaw up from the floor by the time this ‘new me’ was through with him. Oh, it may not have earned me any brownie points when I told him to stop putting me in the chorus line. I certainly couldn’t get him to change his mind. And I was having none of his sloppy seconds suggestions of being put on the short list to become a sodding Library Monitor. I’m not even sure where this rocket up my arse came from, but boy am I glad it ignited a spark. Ever since then I have never doubted the instinct of a good ‘Wait What’ moment. You know; the kind of sudden impulse you get to change the world. It’s a step out of the comfort zone where your feet carry you off before you’ve had time to fast forward to the outcome. You’re finally getting down from the perch on your fence and you’re damned well going to do something about it!
It’s Inspired Action.
I could go on and on about the indifference, the sheer bloody laziness of some of the teachers at my high school.
There was my English teacher who, two months before my GCSE coursework was due to be handed in, refused to help me polish it up to anything more than a B plus.
‘That’s just how it is,’ he said flippantly.
And then there was my Form Tutor who sat back, put his feet on the desk and let Zara flippin’ Bennett delegate everyone’s roles in Sports Day. I, it transpired, didn’t even have one. Yep, that Old Chestnut again. So a few of us skived rather than being cast to the sidelines to watch the school’s ‘elite’ in The Great Event. And in the spirit of the sporting prowess that we knew ourselves to have, we enjoyed a day of tennis on my rich friend’s tennis courts instead. I know. Genius!
The next day we were granted a mass detention. There are no words for the hypocrisy!
This is a rant, for sure.
And I rarely indulge in one. But every now and then, oh, it so has to be done. And I feel so strongly that our teachers understand the part they play in helping shape us into the kind of adults we turn out to be. Their role should be one of uplifting, engaging, supporting and nurturing. In short, letting us know from an early age that there are no limits. Absolutely none.
Despite it all, I wouldn’t actually change a thing about my school years. I have learnt to stand tall, put myself first, big myself up, blow my own trumpet, steer clear of the sheep, trust my gut instinct and follow my heart.
Just remember teachers: It’s always the quiet ones.
