Out Out
From the failing memory of a retired teacher.
I shall not say the name of this school. It is only one of the many schools I have worked in. It was a Secure School, a unit for High Risk children: kids at risk to themselves and at risk to others. It was once a Borstal, a school of not necessarily fully qualified teachers who, 20 yrs on, were now being summoned as witnesses to abuse cases going back to the 70s and 80s. A couple of these men wandered around in painters overalls. They couldn’t be sacked so they were walking around doing very little on about £40-£50 grand a year. As a new teacher in 2006 I was on the starting teacher level of around £18,000. A one man English dept with only a few hours training in how to restrain and sit on a child, how to de-stress, and how to de-escalate situations. My first lesson was with a murderer, 14. A sex abuse case, 15. A violent offender on drug abuse charges, 15. And another sex abuse case who was around 15 yrs old. The murderer asked me for a pair of scissors. I gave him the scissors. He returned the scissors after a very very long 5 minutes. The basic training certificates were undertaken in a school near Erskine. I needed a letter of Approval as these schools were owned and run by a religious organisation. In one of these schools, not my school, two lonely and traumatised young girls were recorded on CCTV escaping onto a main road. They were filmed walking hand in hand to the Erskine bridge and, still holding hands, jumping to their deaths.
During my “two year sentence” at this establishment I began to develop a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. Inside, behind the locked doors, it seemed that we were all prisoners. We watched the deer leaping freely across the fields outside. I was learning mostly to keep the children busy and entertained. I was working on relationships, grammar units, and ignoring the less positive behaviour. Planned ignoring has always been recognised as a valuable part of a teacher’s repertoire. There was a lot to ignore.
I am in a class with RBoy and G when LY comes to the door for her first day. It is the anniversary of her mother’s death through drug abuse. She is already upset. Young kid. Wound up. RBoy is laughing at something that G had said and LY throws my steel pencil sharpener across the room. It just misses my head. The ex-army boys march her right out. I always try to avoid pulling my alarm keys. I have seen one child being restrained. It is enough to inform my approach. I never want to see that again. Frothing at the mouth. Carpet burns. No. That is to be avoided at all cost.
I speak with LY afterwards, she is such an angry child, but I tell her everything is ok and tomorrow will be a new chance and a better class. She becomes calmer. She is listening. She gives me a little smile. We move on. Over the next few weeks we read poetry: Out Out by Robert Frost. She works on grammar. Sometimes she gets angry. She gets past it. We record LY reading the poem. I make her do it over again until she gets it right. When adults walk into the class LY stands and puts herself between me and the strangers. She does this too often for me not to be struck by it. Very soon LY is not considered enough of a risk to stay in the unit and is to be returned to her local authority. I dont think I’m cut out for this kind of teaching. I say I’m going to leave. I don’t feel valued. They agree to get me a laptop if I stay. The usual Staff Base gossip comes around in the next few months and the PE head tells me LY has been stabbed. She is alive. I feel sick. I will leave teaching for a short time soon after that and begin work with a computer company.
Around 10 years later I bump into RBoy. He’s looking well and is happy to see me - both of us on the outside now. We chat for a few minutes then I ask him if he’s heard anything from LY. His face sinks. My guts churn. “Didn’t you hear?” He almost whispers ”Did nobody tell you?”.
What nobody had told me was that LY had became pregnant. Drugs. Police. More trouble. She was an angry child. Her baby was taken into care. Shortly after that LY had hanged herself. “Out out brief candle”.
Teachers do not value themselves enough, and sometimes they will fail to value the kids that are in front of them. The general public have every reason to treat people who do not value themselves with derision and distrust. Who would do such a thing? What other professional class would work an entire term unpaid except a student teacher? As they said to us at university: it is a calling not a career. Whenever a new class are studying Out Out by Robert Frost I always play the recording we made years ago in the Secure Unit. For a moment I hear LY’s voice again… Little. Less. Nothing. Every time I have to leave the room for just a few minutes.
Why this, why now
I have always written but this is different. This isn’t really about my own interests of art and literature. This is about all the things I feel and experience as a teacher. Things which other teachers and those interested might want to hear. There are some things I will write about that many teachers will never say out loud because they need to work. Which is why I will keep it anonymous for now. I will need to fictionalise as much as I can. A new friend, having read some work, said to me “if not you, then who?” “if not now, then when?” So I’ll try to make my start.
What kind of community am I looking to build here
I don’t want to argue my case. I have no interest in convincing people or attacking people or putting people down. These are simply my observations to take as you find them. Perhaps you will see the situation differently. Perhaps I can inform. Perhaps I can stir up trouble. I am open to building as well as lobbing my little hand-grenades.
I’ll be specific
Having scaled the highest peak of a pensionable age I have the time and the inclination to vent and share now. To say what other teachers might be thinking. My pension isn’t a particularly substantial sum of money, it never is. I still work and I love it: and I would like to continue working but I am afraid that what I am writing about won’t make me particularly popular. I will not write every day or even every week. I might be teaching instead. I might run out of stories and experiences. I don’t know exactly how interesting what I have to say will be.
