Teaching -the hard way
Shortly after university, when I had been fired from a selection of retail jobs, I decided to try my hand at TEFL teaching and went off to Greece with no qualification or experience to teach some of the most spoilt little bastards in the world.

One class of 11 year-olds contained pretty much every kind of anti-social, sociopathic and behaviourally-disordered creatures you could imagine. They saw their lessons with me as an opportunity to take the piss and insult me in Greek. But there was one fat little shit who thought it hilarious to sing in a falsetto whine every time I spoke, much to the amusement of his followers. Even when I was screaming at them, he would start his faux-operatics.

I asked the other teachers how they controlled him and their advice was somewhat unexpected: "Hit him. Hard. His parents are Cretan and they beat him all the time - it's the only thing he respects."

Much against my instincts, I started the next lesson with an expectation of violence. Sure enough, during a test, the rotund tosser started to play the drums with some pencils, distracting the others. So, approaching from behind, I swung a hardback dictionary at the top of his head.

I was aiming to skim it off his crown as a surprise, but he moved back at the critical moment and I cracked him with something like a golf drive square on the back of the head. He bounced off the book and hit the desk face first with a resounding crack.

Funny thing, though - he was quiet for the rest of the lesson. Or rather, he lay face down snuffling pitifully and not showing his snot and tear-streaked face. It was a very pleasant lesson thereafter.
(frankspencer, Mon 30 Apr 2007, 11:01, Reply)