Insolence
One of my GCSE options was business studies. Unfortunately, holding an actual interest in the subject didn't really make a difference in such an (how should I put this?) 'academically challenged' environment. The teacher of said subject wasn't much of a stickler for discipline, hence each lesson was generally regarded as down-time and a chance to mock and jape for an hour or so, as young teens are wont to do.

Since this particular educator was in posession of no air of authority to speak of, she was shown no more mercy than the kid who would pretend to use his calculator as a police radio.

One day she shared the informational gem that she had formerly been a photographic 'foot and hand' model. In the aforementioned environment, this simply begged to become a rather imaginative round of "too ugly to be a proper model" type comments. Unsurprisingly, she soon left to do some photocopying or somesuch task which involved being gone for fifteen minutes before reappearing with freshly applied makeup.

The occasion that sticks in my mind came about a few months into the school year. There was nothing too different about class that day, but the mockery and insults had grown to a viscious level among pupils. The teacher either had some sort of educational epiphany, or more likely received a bollocking from her head of department about our frankly pathetic progression through the curriculum.

Trying to get a pack of thirteen-year-olds to apply themselves must be difficult in itself. I imagine this is compunded on sunny Friday afternoons. Her appeals to complete her scheduled tasks met general disapproval among the class. There were a few refusals along the lines of; "You want it done so much, YOU fucking do it!".

One particular 6'2" pubescent must have missed his lunchtime spliff or something, as his response to the teachers insructions were unduly harsh. Obviously, this is now in wavy lines territory so I cannot remember verbatim although it was along the lines of:
"Why don't you have a bath Miss? That perfume doesn't stop you smelling of cat piss. I'm not answering your shitty questions so you can either shut up or just fuck off and die."

I actualy felt true pity for the woman, obiously disempowered and failing to gain a shred of respect from a group of underachievers on whom she was trying to impart some useful knowledge.

I feel guilty for watching without intervention as a silent, single tear rolled down her cheek before she retired to her supply room and the comfort of her beloved Smirnoff. I never saw her again, and endured a string of typically uninspiring supply teachers until the end of the year. how the fuck I managed to scrape a C in the GCSE is a mystery, even to me. I strongly suspect that I was in the slim minority who actually sat the exam though.

EDIT:
Jus re-read. Apols for literary images of cruelty and lack of teh funneh's.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Tue 3 Feb 2009, 1:44, Reply)