Teacher, Teacher

Not a popular point of view: being a teacher is great fun. But then, I've always been quite the contrary one.

I've had all sorts of great times leading classes here. In a few short months I've collected some priceless anecdotes. A modern-day Joyce Grenfell I ain't, but I've had my fare share of laughs. The good outweighs the bad, for sure.

I taught a class of 4 year old kids not long ago. One lad had an in-no-way-homoerotic obsession with soldiers. My first two days were spent with him calling me a soldier, and me thinking I'd finally perfected a tough disciplinarian air. I later twigged that it was my camouflage backpack that had him fooled. Disappointing.

Later, he took to interrupting my lessons by busting out 10 push-ups, or a load of squats. I assumed he had a family member in the military but, when I asked him, he told me that he watches videos of soldiers working out on YouTube. Bless.

I did an adult conversation activity on childhood, briefly mentioning that I had an imaginary friend when young. Most of the audience looked completely dumbfounded. One girl mentioned that most serial killers have imaginary friends when young. Try arguing your way out of that in front of 15 students. Awkward.

My favourite recent class has been with two 10 year old lads. They're going through that classic pre-pubescent phase of being obsessed with the word “poo”. They wrote me the following story (I promise I had no hand in it):

“Once upon a time there was a poo called Kung Fu.

He lived in home.

He lived with Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, Colonel Gaddafi and Bin Laden.

One day they went to the supermarket.

When they were there, they met Captain Jack Sparrow and Hellow Kitty. And they all played the Angry Birds.

And then, at the end of the day, they all play in the bathroom and eat the poo and all died.

The end.”

Granted, the grammar could do with some work, but there's an off the wall sense of humour there that would get them a scriptwriting deal with BBC3.

So here's a message for all you bellyaching pedagogues – quit whining. Granted, there's the tiresome prep time, the disorganised schools and uncontrollable pupils, but there's also that rarefied job satisfaction. I mean, in what other job can you be paid a reasonable wage for laughing at two 10-year-old scat fetishists?