Loving the chalk

Yesterday was the last day of our Year 11 students' obligatory secondary education. They were absolutely ballistic. It was a great reminder of what people like myself are there for.

Thursday was our last lesson together, and they were almost beyond control. We had a few last things to cover on the syllabus and amazingly we got through most of them, which was a lot more than I thought we'd get done. Then they chose a spokesperson to tell me what they make of me as a teacher, and then asked me to sign yearbooks, have pictures taken with me... This is the class I've been battling with for the last 6 months, having to raise hell for the first 15 to 20 minutes, and threatening detentions etc. to get them to do anything. It always comes as something of a surprise to find that students who are the toughest to teach are often the most attached.

The strange thing is, all the conflict going on is what seems to make all this work. The kids in most of my classes don't really have people around who have insisted they calm down and concentrate on anything. Their lives are fraught with conflicts, urgent orders to help out around the house, around the shop, pick up their little brothers, or fight with the rest of their siblings to earn some attention or any other sort of reward. So anyone who can get them to sit down, shut the hell up, and concentrate on a piece of writing is actually doing a hell of a lot for them. Doesn't feel like it when you're the idiot at the front of the room dealing with 30 kids trying to pull every trick in the book to wind you up, but it has its value somewhere.

My last few posts have sounded a bit disillusioned with teaching, as a couple of my friends remarked. Of course I love this job; I got out of it for a time and realised nothing else was quite so satisfying. So it's worth remembering why I'm in this.

Beyond the Hegelian struggle that was year 11, finally behind me now, the real solace of my week's work is creative writing lessons with the younger kids, particularly year 7s. One of my classes is a lower set with mostly non-native speakers, who are amazed by the fact that I can type really fast and spell correctly each time. They do exercises in their workbooks, and correct them using mini-whiteboards on which they hold up their answers. When I use the interactive whiteboard (a big screen where I can project documents) to type up our corrections, they look around in amazement that all my fingers are moving at once, and I can put all the commas in the right places without looking at the screen.

My year 8 class - a top set - a bit sneakier than year 7s, after a year of having streams of English teachers going past, so they're not so easily impressed. They clearly read a lot, though, and two of them are always keen to perform their writing in front of the class. Last week was an extract from Touching the Void which is a biographical account of two mountaineers who survive an incredible mountain accident over three days. They had to write a chair-gripping interview with one of the survivors, and our lesson ended with the performance of one of their scripts, which was like a cross between a circus clown act and a Brazilian soap opera.

When things get tough at school, the moment you think it's the most frustrating, pointless system of government hackery, and you'd prefer a 9 to 5 in KFC than sticking around the stinking staffroom for another second, a partially-sighted 11 year old with a backpack bigger than he is stares up at you from the front of a classroom and tells you it was the best poetry lesson he's ever had, and can he take it home to show his Mum. Now who could turn away from that?