One of the pupils is Claire, a 15 year old girl who was expelled from her last school for wielding a plank of wood at the deputy head teacher’s car. Utterly wired, loud, stubborn and extremely stroppy, I sat on my desk having a thoroughly amusing conversation with her through the window of my office last week.
“Whats yor name then?” she asked, barriers slowly coming down.
“Jo.”
“Whats yor surname?”
“Blah-Blah.”
“OHH." Her nose wrinkled "You wanna change that, you do. That’s the same name as the prick who owns this place”
-pause-
“Claire…”
“Wot”
“That’s my mum.”
“Oh. Oh. WHOOPS. Oh shit. Well, I'm gonna go before I offend anyone else. See ya later"
And with that, off she scooted, leaving me laughing my head off at how she didn't put two and two together.
I've seen her a couple of times since then, the other day she passed me a condom through the window, telling me "I'll want that back later". I took this to mean that she clearly trusts me enough to look after her stuff. Even if it is contraception.
In the wake of yesterday though, I'm beginning to think the condom may have been some sort of peace offering. On Thursday I was handed a folded up piece of paper by a teacher in the afternoon, who said it was from Claire, who had written it of her own accord and asked for it to be passed on.
Later on I caught her as she was walking out of the building.
"Claire, come here"
She looked at me, embarrassed then trundled over to the window, which I slid to the side.
"Thank you for my note." I said, "It's alright, I know my mum can be a bit of an arse sometimes. I live with her, remember?"
And with that, she wondered off to her next class, returning later for a chat before she went home to tell me about her bail conditions.
Ahhh, little rascal.
10 comments:
awwww she sounds nice!
There’s a heart beating under all that callousness! How refreshing! It’s not often you find a wayward youth with a conscious.
What is stroppy?
thats the thing aint it, you have to get down on their wavelength to understand them.
She sounds a bit of a rebel, not nice as pinkjellybaby says. "Wielding a plank of wood, utterly wired, loud, stubborn and extremely stroppy" does not call out nice to me lol
all was good in the end though ay lol
What's interesting is that - spelling apart - her penmanship is actually very good, so somewhere along the line she's capable of learning... presumably when it interests her and/or when the teacher earns her respect.
She's softening you up. Two weeks and she'll be asking to borrow a tenner or you mobile will go missing.
PJB - Nice, or feeling guilty? :D
Unbearable - Stroppy is like if you have a bit of a paddy, or you kick off about something. Petulant teenagers are abundant in stroppiness.
Mal - Add to that she thought I wasn't older than 19. Flattery gets you everywhere. I'm not so sure about nice, but forgivable I can give her.
Brennig - Most of the kids are very intelligent, a fair few absolutely fly through maths higher papers and english, drama or art pieces. You're spot on.
ninetynine - Ha, that's the thing, I like the kids, but I don't trust them one iota.
It's a good job your mum doesn't read this. Not because of the insult, I expect she's probably been called worse before by the miscreants; but she would see (as I have) that you really are destined to be a teacher and she'd redouble her efforts in that area.
:-)
haha I've done that so many times at Uni - not about people's mothers but their other halves. I've said things like "oh don't give it to the Dean of Science, he's a right waster" only to find it is the person's dearly beloved. SOOO embarrassing. I've never written a note though so this girl is clearly much nicer than me!!
So funny!
Lynx - Oh god, don't say that. I've come to the conclusion that although I could deal with the kids, there's not a chance in hell I could do the whole staff room thing. It really is like being back at school.
reluctant - haha that's what I said to the girl, I was like don't worry about it, I put my foot in it at least once a week one way or another.
I put the note in my mothers day card today :-D We all had a giggle over breakfast..
That is hilarious!! I can't believe she wrote you that note. I feel like I've almost forgotten what it feels like to be a cheeky teenager. haha!
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