Hugh Reilly: Teachers make hay in May, for all too soon it will be June

Published on Tuesday 12 May 2009 19:21

IN TERMS of the school calendar, May is the chill-out month for stressed classroom teachers. As a consequence of the SQA examinations, senior pupils are on study leave, thus class contact is greatly reduced.

Some petty-minded, non-teaching friends think it is a disgrace that chalkies such as I continue to draw a full salary, at the taxpayers' expense, for teaching only half of the week.

When I choose to reply to this green-eyed smear by invoking the Hazel Blears defence of "It's not my fault, it's the system", it somehow only serves to excite the jugular veins of my accusers.

In my opinion, the downtime in May is just reward for enduring the rest of the academic year when, as a result of constant interaction with our fine young people, Sir finds himself obsessively checking the price of a one-way ticket to that nice Swiss clinic that provides a permanent exit route from his daily torment.

By relaxing at this time of the year, one can almost forget the insanity that is the norm in most schools.

Believe it or not, many Catholic comprehensives hold masses to ask for God's assistance in passing national examinations. I'm sure the Almighty is pretty good with quadratic equations and can write a mean discursive essay on evolution, but should He really be helping His teenage flock to pass Standard Grades and Highers?

While He may receive thanks and praise from His devotees, isn't this a form of celestial cheating? Personally, I don't think SQA markers have received sufficient in-service training on how to spot Divine Intercession.

Some Children of a Lesser God, or no god at all actually, believe that eating fish will increase their brain power. I've taught kids who, if they ate the entire EU mackerel quota landed at Peterhead, would still flounder in the exam hall.

To my mind, wearing a sou'wester and eating a Subway tuna sandwich is a poor substitute for sitting cross-legged and rocking to and fro while reading Sir's riveting revision notes.

Other students put great store in buying a copy of a How To Pass… book written by an education charlatan – a work of fiction that will somehow transform their academic prospects.

Parents with money to burn rush out to purchase these bogus bestsellers as well as past papers (or "passed papers" as pupils tend to call them).

This lastminute.com approach to studying is bound to fail, but, hey, authors and publishers have kids to feed, so let's not be too judgmental.

Schools are awash with helpful hints for examinees – eg, employing mnemonics as memory aids.

Richard Of York Gains Battles In Vain does jog one's memory of the colours of the rainbow, but this is something of a distraction when the task at hand is to remember the mathematical formula for finding the volume of a cylinder. Mind maps were all the rage, but sat-nav has made them redundant.

As a consummate professional, I consider it my duty to be present at the doors of the examination hall to wish my charges good luck in their endeavour.

In most cases, this is a true pronouncement, but when offered to a lout who has made your life a misery, it is right and proper that Sir says it with the maximum insincerity he can muster – if one can manage a slight grin, so much the better.

There's a holiday in one's heart when one watches the condemned pupil sit in the chair and jolt as he stares in shock at the SQA paper.

While those around him spatter the pages with ink and intermittently shake their hands to relieve writer's cramp, he experiences writer's block as he attempts to fill in the boxes for his forename and surname.

All too soon, the new June timetable will be upon us, groundhog day for old sweats like yours truly, and May will be but a memory of the way we were.