Rebecca Smith - More Than Just Mum

I gaze out across the classroom, looking at the twenty-six faces that are staring back at me. Elise has just asked me a question and I absolutely know the answer. Of course I do. I am a teacher, and therefore I possess all knowledge.

‘So is it true then, miss? Did Shakespeare steal all of his good ideas from someone else?’ she asks again, leaning forward and fixing me with a steely glare. ‘Because that’s called plagiarism, that is.’

‘It’s called cheating actually,’ Brody informs her haughtily, before turning back to look at me. ‘Why do we have to read his stuff, if he’s a cheating scumbag?’

‘I’m sure that William Shakespeare wrote all of his own works,’ I say, trying to sound authoritative. I hold up a copy of Romeo and Juliet . ‘His name is on the front, after all!’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ calls Vincent from the back row. ‘I once got Wayne to do my Maths homework and then put my name on the top and Mr Jenkins didn’t suspect a thing.’

We all turn to look at Wayne, who is inspecting the contents of his nose. Vincent’s life choices clearly leave something to be desired.

‘That was stupid,’ states Elise. ‘There’s a girl in Year Eleven who’ll do your homework for five pounds and she puts load of mistakes in so that it doesn’t look too suspicious.’

‘Anyway,’ I say, attempting to regain control of the lesson. ‘As I was saying, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, and—’

‘The tragedy is that we have to read it,’ interjects Brody, earning a laugh from the rest of the class. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just let us watch the film. That’s what Miss Wallace did last year when we had to study Macbeth .’

A mutter of agreement spreads throughout the room and I resist the urge to groan. Not this again. I’ve spent the last five months hearing about what Miriam Wallace got them to do in their English lessons last year – the conclusion being that she didn’t actually get them to do very much. Which means that I now have the thankless task of attempting to teach them everything that they should have learnt in Years Seven and Eight.

This is not the job I signed up for.

‘I want you to get into pairs and make a mind map showing how the theme of love is portrayed in the play,’ I tell the class. ‘Think about Romeo first. Who is he?’

‘Leonardo DiCaprio!’ shouts Brandon Hopkins.

I ignore him. ‘Consider how Romeo professes to feel about Rosaline right at the start and how quickly he switches his affections to Juliet.’

‘Romeo is a proper lad,’ calls Brody. ‘Way to go, Ro-may-o !’

‘You have twenty-five minutes,’ I snap. ‘And anyone who doesn’t take this task seriously will be doing it as homework.’

This gets zero response. I can set as much homework as I like but I can’t make them do it. We all know that.

Year Nine start organising themselves into pairs. By ‘organising’ I mean that they squabble and bicker and barge around the room until at least half the girls are sulking and the boys are all crowded around the back desks in one messy group.

‘Ahem.’ I clear my throat to get their attention. ‘Brandon Hopkins! Can you please tell me how many people are in a pair?’

‘Depends how large the pair is, miss.’ He snorts and elbows the boy next to him who dutifully sniggers.

That literally makes no sense. These kids can make an innuendo out of absolutely anything. It is exhausting.

‘Very entertaining,’ I tell him, narrowing my eyes. ‘There are two people in a pair, Mr Hopkins, and if you can’t all sort yourselves into pairs in the next thirty seconds then I shall be forced to select your partnerships myself.’ I pause, looking around the room. ‘And they will be mixed gender.’

There is a horrified gasp and a flurry of movement as everyone scurries to find themselves a partner. I watch the clock, counting down the last ten seconds, and then, once everybody is seated, I walk around the room dispensing large sheets of paper and coloured pens.

‘Ooh, felt tips,’ coos Wayne. ‘Miss Wallace never trusted us with the felt tips.’

This statement fills me with joy. Finally, my teaching style is being compared favourably to hers.

‘Get started on your mind maps,’ I instruct. ‘I will be coming round in ten minutes to see how you’re getting on.’

The class start pulling the lids off the pens and I return to the front, sinking down into my chair. The chair is the only good part about this job. It used to belong to Miriam and she left it behind when she got promoted to Deputy Head. I spent the entire first term having to defend it from the other members of the English department who complained that, as a part-time member of staff, my needs were less important than theirs. I’m no fool though. I set out my terms and conditions at the start of January, making it clear that the chair is the bonus for teaching Year Nine, Class C and that anyone who wished to negotiate for its extra padding and swivel seat would be expected to take on the aforementioned class along with the chair.

Unsurprisingly, nobody has come after it since then.

A superior chair is, quite frankly, the least that I deserve. In my humble opinion, Miriam could have left me a sofa and a coffee maker and my own personal water fountain and it still wouldn’t have been enough to soften the blow of making me teach English.

Because I am not an English teacher. I am a Biology teacher. When I started at this school it was in the Science department, after I’d left university with a Biology degree but couldn’t get a job. The choice between teacher training or moving back in with my mother was an easy one to make and things kind of snowballed from there. Teaching wasn’t ever what I intended to spend my life doing but once Nick and I started having kids, the long school holidays and vaguely decent pay made it a no-brainer.