The Eaton Diary of London 2001
The work I'd been told had been set was nowhere to be
found. And I was left alone in the noisy boiler room with class after class of
'the hormone year.' All the resources I could find were a well-worn piano, a 3'
by 4' blackboard with music lines sort of visible on its very uneven surface, no
chalk of course (even though this school is in Chalk Farm,) a box of scrap
paper, and some old music work sheets.
The school has discipline and security systems in
place, but there wasn't time to brief me on all of that - just another of those
now familiar 4 lines of scribbled instructions on a piece of scrap paper, and
some parting encouragements by the Deputy like 'There hasn't been a serious
physical assault on a teacher for a couple of years,' and 'Most of the teachers
find that ringing the office on a mobile is the quickest way to get help.' He
didn't think to leave me the number, however.
I was to discover that they have a special roster of
senior staff on call at all times, dealing with the fights and abuses that
constantly occur. In the first 15 minutes I had to send a student to the
time-out room. Their language was appalling, and the state of the rooms and yard
was equally filthy. I kept thinking to myself, if only I could get these kids to
Royal Albert Hall to play Variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or sing a
rap version of Joyful, Joyful, there could be a movie or two in this. What an
opportunity! But then again I’m finding the illusions of the cinema don’t
seem to work in real life. Just as I looked in vain for Hugh Grant in the quaint
old second hand bookshops of Notting Hill, I soon realised that neither Whoopee
Goldberg, nor Merrill Streep, nor I were going to get very far with these
students.
I somehow survived the two days, but I suspect several
students didn't. Suspensions are common in this school and I expect some were
earned for things like turning the fire extinguisher on fellow students. But the
last straw for me was when I discovered a CD and box of floppy disks of mine,
containing my music files, stolen from my desk during a Yr 7 class. The CD was
later located but it was damaged and unusable, but the floppies were lost. It
was then that I realised these kids need a social worker more that a music
teacher.
© Copyright 2001 H Grant Eaton Contact: granteaton@usa.net