Simon Lelic: A Thousand Cuts

Calculators, mobile telephones, personal computers, electronic chips in the brain or whatever technological so-called advancement is foisted upon us next: they are eroding the human being’s capacity to think. And mathematics – addition, subtraction, multiplication, long division – has been the first to suffer. Children don’t want to study it. The government doesn’t want to fund it. Teachers don’t want to teach it. What is the point? they say. There is no glamour in mathematics, Inspector. There is no sex. Children don’t care about pensions. They will be young forever, didn’t you know? Ministers don’t care about numeracy. They care about trees and recycling and structural employment for the poor. And teachers. Well. Teachers, I am afraid, care about nothing beyond themselves.

The young, the graduates, they have a chance to make a difference. They have the opportunity to teach a subject from which the children will actually learn. But if they don’t understand it, how can they teach it? And if no one else can be bothered to do it, why should they? It is too hard. It is too challenging. The mathematics teacher, as a consequence, is a dying breed, an endangered species that no one cares enough about to try and save. Mr Boardman has been teaching mathematics at this school for twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years, Inspector. Can you imagine anyone under forty contemplating pursuing anything for more than twenty-seven minutes? Present company excluded, I hope. And when Mr Boardman retires, as one day he surely shall, who will I find to replace him? A Chinaman perhaps. A Ukrainian, if I’m lucky.

Instead, I get history teachers. History. The study of swords and stupidity and scandal. Just what a teenager needs to prepare himself for a life of fiscal and behavioural responsibility. If it were up to me we would not offer it. We would teach mathematics and grammar and physics and chemistry and economics. But the parents want it. The government demands it. They impose on us their curriculum and they instruct us to teach history and geography and biology and sociology. They instruct us to teach humanities.

I ask you.

You would not have attended university, I assume?

Well. I stand corrected. And what, pray tell, did you read? No, don’t tell me. It is clear from your expression. And in a way, my dear, you are a case in point. Where has your history degree got you if not further back than where you began? You are, how old? Thirty.

Thirty-two then. If you had joined the police force when you were sixteen you might be a chief inspector by now. Superintendent.

But I digress. My point is that when Amelia Evans left us – and not before time, let me tell you – we had no choice. We needed a teacher who could recount in order the wives of Henry VIII, who could point on a map to the fields of Bosworth and who could recall the date of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. The first Queen Elizabeth, that is. Heaven forbid we teach them anything of relevance to the age in which they actually live.

It was the name that drew me to him. Russian, I assumed. Eastern European. Of a country that still recognises the educational import of the third of the three Rs. That’s what I have resorted to, Inspector. Scouring the international backwaters for someone to help me safeguard the future of this nation.

It was a mistake. Naturally it was a mistake given what has happened but it was a mistake a priori. I am a man who owns up to his mistakes, Inspector, and I can but admit to one here. I misjudged the man. I prejudged him. I willed him to correspond with a template I had envisioned and when he did not I adjusted the template to fit.

Although, having said that, I knew from the start that there was something about him amiss. One just knows, don’t you find? He seemed the decent type, isn’t that what they always say? Quiet, kept himself to himself. ‘Never harmed nobody.’ Well, he was quiet certainly. An introvert and I do not trust introverts. I do not trust extroverts either. One needs balance, Inspector, I am sure you agree. In your profession as much as anyone’s, words must be followed by action, compassion reinforced with resolve. Good cop, bad cop, am I right?

He had a beard, wispy and ill-considered. He was average in height, average in build, averagely turned out in every aspect of his dress. Distinctly unimpressive in other words but not offensively lacklustre either. He looked, Inspector, like a teacher of history.

He sat where you are sitting. He waited to be asked. He did not smile as he took my hand and he gripped only the tips of my fingers. It was a woman’s handshake, Inspector, and that I would say is when I knew.

Yes, I know. I hired him. You may voice what you are thinking. Yes, I hired him and as I have said it was a mistake. Believe me, it has shaken my self-belief. My ability to judge a character is something in which I take pride. Well, you know what they say about pride. Next time I will trust my instincts. I questioned myself, that was the problem. We needed a teacher and Samuel Szajkowski was the least underqualified of a less than inspiring lot.

What else? Lots of little things. His attempts at humour for instance.

How do you pronounce this? I asked him, gesturing at the name on his CV.

It’s shy-kov-skee, he says and I ask him where it is from.

It’s Polish. My grandfather was Polish.

I see. And do you speak it?

No, not really.

Not really.

I know words. Some useful, most less so. I can’t spell any of them.

You see what I mean? He was making a joke of his inadequacy. At an interview, for pity’s sake. I did not laugh and we carried on.

Why teaching, Mr Szajkowski? What has motivated you to become a teacher?

Szajkowski nods and for a moment appears to contemplate. I can think of nothing more worthwhile, Mr Travis. My father practised medicine and my mother worked in a bank. Neither profession made them happy.

They are noble professions, young man. They are significant professions.

Oh I quite agree. But so is teaching. It doesn’t pay particularly well but can you think of anything more rewarding? Again he ponders. I think the word I’m looking for is meaning, he says. Teaching to my mind has meaning. Genuine meaning.

I did not appreciate that answer either. It seemed pompous and it seemed calculated. He might have read that answer in a book.

He asks for a glass of water. I have not offered but he asks for one anyway. I have Janet bring one in and he thanks her, rather obsequiously. He takes a swig and then seems unsure what to do with the glass. He makes a motion towards my desk but then changes his mind. In the end he just clutches it in his lap. I can tell he regrets having asked for it but I do not offer to take it from him. I do not see why I should have to.

In an ideal world, I tell him, we would have you teaching just the younger pupils. Years seven, eight, nine, ten. But this is not an ideal world, Mr Szajkowski, and we are short-staffed.

Szajkowski nods, gives the impression that he understands. I am not at all sure that he does.

You would be teaching students in their exam years, I say. GCSE, even A-level. And not just history, Mr Szajkowski. Teachers get ill. I do not encourage illness but it happens. It is a fact of life. And when teachers get ill, other teachers need to cover their classes.

I would be happy to, Mr Travis. I’m more than willing to do my bit.

It is a permanent state of affairs, Mr Szajkowski. There will be no respite while you are employed here, I can assure you of that. Assuming of course that we decide to employ you in the first place.

Of course, he says and again he nods gravely. I appreciate the warning, just as I would appreciate the opportunity. I am sure the situation here is not unusual. I would imagine the demands would be similar in just about any state-run school.