It was a few moments before I noticed today that one of my students was nodding off in class. The reason? I had clearly nearly fallen asleep myself. Not because the reading wasn't good. In fact, it was wonderfully lyrical and magically funny; chosen especially for 'Rainbow,' my bright and sunny sweet sixteen year old student. No. Rather, it was 3:30pm, the hour at which, after lunch, eyelids frequently nod and blink and the phrase (called up from my own childhood schooling) comes to mind: "Okay, now children, heads on desks." But, alas, no such luck. I dismissed Rainbow - much to her relief - and settled down to the next student: a laconic twelve year old boy who's seen about as much of me as he wishes and no longer feels the imperative to work hard, and who - as I pop a sour cola candy in, in an effort to wake the hell up - I too am losing the energy to motivate.
For, on Tuesday I handed in my notice: the final countdown has begun. Three weeks and three days of work to go.
But this is not all happy making. As I said goodbye to The Boy this afternoon, I welcomed in a favourite thirteen year old - very much this teacher's pet, and in this case a pet chipmunk, named as she is after a famous cartoon one, the only mercy being that her parents deigned to change the ending to feminine: Alvina. So, as I welcomed in the Chipmunk - cheeky, sardonic, dreadfully intelligent but rather bored and weary with the world already - I finally woke up as the memories returned to answer my own questions of "did I give you any homework? to read more of Northanger Abbey? how wonderful! How did you like it? how far did you get? Tilney? really..." and so on. There is nothing like a good ironist - and who better than Austen? - to brighten up ones day, and the Chipmunk enjoying and coming alive at all her jokes... "Novels? Novels! Who reads novels?!" We, darling Chipmunk, do and this is why, because the novel is not only the work of the greatest mind demonstrating the deepest knowledge of human nature, but it is done so with wit and humour and in that shining medium, the English language! No? Yes. Ta da! (Rabbit out of hat moment)
Yep, and now I'm tired again, and hungry and you may go. "Just be sure to do your homework!" as she dawdles out, enthusiasm once again spent for the week; back to being the sardonic chipmunk she is most familiar with. But don't worry my little chipmunk, I won't tell your secret; not if you don't tell mine: I'm leaving teaching. Leaving Austen, Northanger Abbey, Orwell and 1984. Leaving you, and the Rainbow; the boys that say nothing, and the boys that stare blankly as you attempt to penetrate the stoney wall of their passivity or indifference (to poetry?! to literature?!). Leaving the girls that gossip and giggle, and the girls that roll in, roll up their sleeves and bare their hearts and souls on the page and poem. And the little boy who once a week for an hour understands nothing but says "Ok" regardless.
And I am glad to be going, yea glad to leave you all...except you, and you, and possibly you. Because while my bosses may make me miserable, you (and usually a Pacific Coffee flat white) redeem the day with your impromptu swear words ("crap!") - Jonathan! ("oh, crap!"), and your cheeky grin, and the way you apologise profusely for being late while lamenting that your life is over at the tender age of 9, which if I was really as hard on you as your grammar warranted it would be, but alas...
So, while I am leaving and while, no, (I think to myself) I will not be seeing you at Christmas when you come home from Winchester, Wycombe or Westminster, I hope your next English teacher isn't too hard on you and doesn't berate you too much, or curse me for never giving you quite enough homework but for making you read books and stories and poems instead; to know personification from polysemy, anaphora from asyndeton, and for teaching you the importance of rhyme over rules and the imagination over the imperative. Yes, I hope they are kind on you, that they nod and smile secretly to themselves and acknowledge that you are just children: wonderfully, miraculously "of the Devil's party" without always knowing it.
