Shady
I was a schoolteacher for a few months in 2004. The school in question was desperate for someone to teach A-Level Politics and A-Level Philosophy after the previous guy had got a better job somewhere else. I have no teaching qualifications, and had no schoolteaching experience. But - hey - in the independent sector, noone really cares about these things as long as you get the results.

It was a generally happy school; the one blot was the Principal, whom everyone - staff and students alike - loathed. (He has since, I believe, gone on to ruin a school somewhere in Argentina.)

It being the summer, the time came for the Upper VI to stand down for study leave. Unbeknown to everyone, a couple of them had either contrived to be locked in at the end of their last day, or broke in later - I'm not sure which. Whatever: the following morning, the redbrick of A Block was decorated with graffiti that spelled out in clear, not to say day-glo, terms exactly what the general opinion of the Principal was.

I was based in another building on the other side of the road, but it didn't take long for the news to travel. Having nothing much else to do, I scuttled up to the other site to have a gawp at the damage. The Principal was standing there with a face like thunder. Spying me, he made a beeline, and started making pronouncements about how disgusting the episode was and how the perpetrators would be publicly birched, hanged, immolated, and birched again for good measure.

We were standing in the quad, and there was a lot of pupils in earshot, so I had to agree that such behaviour could not be condoned - and I actually believed that, too. But the devil in me won out. As I walked away, I said loudly, and in a manner designed to be heard by as many as possible, "Still, it could be worse. At least they chose quite a nice colour."

I believed that as well.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 13 Sep 2011, 15:07, Reply)