Allow it.

So unsurprisingly I've not been keeping up with this blog. I'm either too knackered or too jaded to want to write anything about my day to day life as a teacher.

There have been loads of little things that have been amusing me this term but to be honest they have been lost in amongst the other crap. But hey that's the reason I started this blog and so I need to try and trawl my brain and get them down on paper to keep me sane.

I've got a lad in my class, Dwayne, who is a real mouth. He has this amazing manner about him and the way he speaks and says things should be funny but when you are trying to get him to shut the f*ck up and get on with his work it's hard to have a chuckle.

However I was marking his book the other day (a rare event) and discovered that his style extends to the written word.

A boy in my class had regrettably sanded the tips of his fingers off on the Bandfacer doing something really stupid and so I had to stop the whole class doing practical and the next lesson get them to brush up on their Health and Safety.

I thought it would take them ten mins to write down 10 things that could go wrong in the workshop and then ten things that could be done to prevent those accidents.

Easy.

You would think.

It took me an entire, spirit crushing hour to get 75% of the class to get it done....shitly.

I understand the irony of me taking the piss out of the kids written work when I write words like shitly by the way. I just think that it's the perfect adjective for the situation.

They completed the task "shitly".

Where was I?

Oh yes... Dwayne. Dwayne writes like he speaks. So his evaluation of his clock project went like this:

1. How did your final design differ from your initial idea?

"Well...basically...I started off doing a Manchester United clock but the design was going to take long so I did something else."

Witness the shitness.

"Long" is a favourite expression of mine at school actually. Virtually anything that takes even the slightest form of effort is described as "long" or "Bare long".

I also love the use of "allow it".

A typical exchange might go something like this:

Me: "Ok class seeing as you can't be arsed to do anything at all can you scratch an X onto your book with a pencil and that will suffice as your entire year nine project.

Them: "Oh sir man! That's gonna take bare long.

Me: "Oh come on the act is going to take about as much effort as breathing out."

Them: "Siiiiiir allow it!"


The girls are at least inventive. I challenged a year nine girl the other day for doing her makeup in class. She had a mirror out and was doing her Mascara.

Me: "Rachel you can't do your makeup in class. Put it away or I'll confiscate it."

Rachel: "But sir I'm doing technology to my face"

Two weeks to go till Christmas.

[Twitch]