Interruptions fail to spoil sweet moments of actual teaching

Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009 22:22

YOU have the students in the palm of your hand as you movingly explain why the lack of human rights in the Ivory Coast should be of concern to them.

With the lights dimmed, a silent video of cocoa plantation slaves toiling under the sun plays as you speak. Some kids are close to tears.

Suddenly the classroom door is thrown open: "Anybody want tae guess how many sweeties urr in the jorr? First prize is a teddy bear," shouts the over-nourished girl, her chomping jaws suggesting that the sweetie count may be in single figures by the time she finishes her tour of classrooms. In the rush to purchase a ticket, children don't hear your head repeatedly banging off the desk.

Interruptions are the bane of a chalkie's life. At home, my phone rarely rings – indeed, there are times when if it weren't for the nice people working in Mumbai call centres, I wouldn't receive any calls.

Things are rather different in school. The damn phone never stops ringing. Can I relay the, daresay, urgent news to a pupil that he can collect his dinner money at the office? I'm sure that if he had to spend just one lunch hour with his face pressed against Gregg's window, he would never forget his money ever again.

Ring, ring. Can you tell an absent-minded child his bus pass is at the reception? It's tempting to forget to inform him – having to walk a trail of tears back to his house would help him remember to stick the pass in his trouser pocket.

Pupils are not always to blame. Teachers often treat Sir as an in-school directory service.

Pest caller: "Oops, wrong number. I'm trying to find Mr Brown. What's his number?"

Sir: "Just hold on while I look up the internal phone number list, which you also have a copy of. Don't fret, I'm certain the class I'm teaching are capable of teaching themselves."

When I taught in a school where nuisance phone calls were a particular problem, I employed "the busy tone test". By taking the phone off the hook, individuals who sought to interrupt my teaching were forced to get off their backsides and come to my room. Filtering communications in this way proved highly successful.

There is nothing one can do, however, to prevent the fleet of pupil messengers who arrive at your door. Many of these runners have been sent by The Borrowers, teachers whose lack of forward planning has led them to suddenly decide they need your DVD player, Blue-Tack or Tipp-Ex. On other occasions, the sheriff of a classroom across the school moseys along with a demand that a classroom varmint be handed over as part of an ongoing investigation into graffiti that cast doubt on the sheriff's sexuality.

Then there is the public address system, whereby a Tannoy Tokyo Rose demoralises the troops with incessant messages regarding sporting achievement, letters to parents, etc. I've worked in establishments with no Tannoy and, shock, the schools functioned perfectly well.

And don't get me started on fire alarms. There are occasions when a teacher's perfect lesson is destroyed by the klaxons announcing the arrival of Trumpton's finest.

When the all-clear sounds to signal the return to classrooms, the kids are as high as kites and show little willingness to listen to the pearls of wisdom dripping from the teacher's lips.

I would write more, but there's someone at my door and my phone is ringing.