I tried it all.
I begged, “Do I have to?”
I cried, “But I don’t feel well.”
I bargained, “Just one more day. I’ll go tomorrow.”
And I lied, “I don’t know where my shoes are and my trousers are too tight.”
Okay, so the trouser thing wasn’t a lie as I have been on holiday to America. Unfortunately, there was no Mum, exasperatedly telling me that I had to go because she was sick of me under her feet ALL SUMMER LONG! WHY DO THEY HAVE TO HAVE SIX WEEKS OFF? WHAT A WAY TO SPOIL AUGUST!
No, it was all down to me to be the adult to my scared inner child and my adult was useless. The Long Suffering Husband was playing golf but he would have just encouraged me to join him in early retirement.
“What if I can’t remember how to teach?” I asked myself.
“You probably won’t. It’s been a while and you’re not getting any younger!”
“I don’t really know what I’m going to do with them.”
“You shouldn’t have spent the whole six weeks gallivanting then. I did tell you. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!”
“I feel so tired already.”
“Ha! That’s nothing. All your friends have retired already. Maybe that’s telling you something?”
If you have children who were wobbly about going back to school and you were railing against the latest TikTok trend of making a ‘back to school box’, filled with beige but aesthetically pleasing items then it’s worth remembering that their teachers were feeling the same.
Usually, as soon as you have 30 small faces in front of you, some reflecting your fear, others mirroring your tiredness and one or two hanging, adoringly on your every word, it all comes back.
It didn’t.
I have forgotten how to teach. I’ve forgotten so much about teaching in six short weeks. I’ll make a list of the things I’d forgotten.
1. How noisy schools are.
2. How much children want to touch you.
3. How difficult it is to stay upright when a child sees you from across the playground and decides that they absolutely have to launch themselves at your knees.
4. How many acorns can be slipped into your coat pocket on playground duty.
5. How small my bladder is after 6 weeks of going to the toilet whenever I like.
6. How my room isn’t quite big enough to keep all the children who shouldn’t be together apart.
7. How I work is Satan’s Armpit. The rainforest has nothing on the humidity of my room.
8. How completely unable I am to say No
9. How many children fart after lunch
10. How hungry everyone is. (9.30 conversation through tears: I’ve missed my lunch)
11. How much cake is always on the staff room table.
12. How attractive murder Tv programmes or books are after a long day of teaching.
13. How much work there is to do before and after you go to work.
14. How dangerous staples can be.
15. How honesty isn’t always the best policy.
16. How competitive children are and how you can get them back on side with a challenge.
17. How good a weekend feels after a week at school, especially on NationalReadABookDay. (Isn’t that every day?)
