Why School Excursions Are Not As Fun As You Think!

                             

It was messy chaos at 8:30 in the classroom this morning. The school bus was leaving at 8:45 sharp and what with misplaced permission slips for our class excursion, missing lunches, water bottles and late or absent students, I was feeling a mite stressed.

“Mrs P’s in a bad mood,” I heard one of them inform the others, “she has that witchy look she gets when she’s cranky, plus she just snapped at me when I told her we were running late for the bus and Miss T’s class left five minutes ago.”

Finally, the highly strung throng of ten year olds all had their backpacks sorted, hats on heads, were queued up in two relatively orderly lines and chafing at the bit to get the show on the road.

I counted the kids on to the bus; twenty-five, twenty-six… the bus was full. A second coach was parked behind us with O’Reilly and the new Irish teacher’s classes ensconced inside.

They could squeeze my extra two students in; but guess what? 

Both buses were completely full so long suffering Pinky was going to have to assume a standing position for the half hour journey.

I use ‘standing’ in a loose sense of the term. 

Ricocheting between the seats as the driver careened around corners, lurching forward perilously close to the windscreen and falling heavily into the laps of frail children is closer to the reality of the situation. And all the time my much younger teaching buddy, Rachael (Miss T), sat comfortably in her seat gazing at the scenery and ignoring the hapless old biddy clattering around the bus like a solitary Malteser in an otherwise empty box.

With shaking legs I disembarked the bus leading the sixty students to our first port of call, the ornate and historical, century old Sacred Heart Cathedral where the Bishop was to guide us around the stained glass windows and numerous sacred spaces. 

We were even privileged to hear a demonstration of the massive organ being played.

“This would be a great place to get married,” I commented to Rachael, “what with the organ and the bell tower outside.”

She looked dreamy for a second then turned to me abruptly, “Yes it would,” she said, “but don’t think I’ll be inviting you, Pinky. You’d drink all the wine.”

After morning tea in the park, (where I ate my bruised banana and longed wistfully for a hot cup of tea… or a rum and coke) we moved on to our next destination of the pilgrimage, St Joseph’s Church; which is the oldest Catholic Church in the city, dating back to 1862.

Our intended expert speaker had been unfortunately called away to other pressing duties so it was left to me to do the guided tour which was slightly unnerving as I really didn’t know much about the church. 

Some parents had driven in to help manage the sixty odd kids and I was quite conscious of the fact that the non-factual facts I was about to inflict upon the students was not going to cut it with adults.

“I was married in this church about twenty-five years ago!” I began, grinning like a fool and hoping for a sign of interest. There was silence. At least no one piped up with, 
“Which marriage was that then Mrs P? The first or the second?”

Somehow I managed to blather through a half hour talk expanding the flimsy knowledge I owned by using a sh#t load of adjectives. Unlike me, don’t you think?

At last the field trip was finished and as one of the boys decided to drive back to school with his mother I was euphorically in possession of a seat on the bus for the homeward journey.

I sat beside little Matthew, who is a computer game addict and effusive chatterbox. The unsteady rocking of the bus, caffeine deficiency, the high decibel racket of sixty kids and the constant garrulous one-sided conversation from Matthew somehow managed to send me into a semi-comatose state.

I awoke refreshed when we arrived back at school and cheerily stood at the bottom of the bus steps asking the kids if they enjoyed their excursion.



“NO!” replied one little boy emphatically, “It was boring! Churches are boring! Why couldn’t we go to the animal sanctuary?”

How "Show and Tell" can do a teacher's head in!

One thing I don’t look forward to in my weekly schedule of teaching little kids is “Show and Tell” time.

Occasionally a fledgling raconteur will bring in something worthwhile to chat about, but most times the objet du jour is nothing more than a rock they've acquired from the bottom of their driveway.

They stand proudly with their arms extended proffering the dreary lump of granite for the rest of the class to admire. As they stand mutely with a bashful grin on their small freckled face I attempt to extricate some sort of commentary.

“That’s a really nice rock, Hamish!” I’ll say encouragingly. “Where did you get it from?”

“I forget.”

“What sort of rock do you think it might be?” I’ll persist hopefully.

“I dunno.”

After several awkward moments I eventually throw it out to the class.

“Okay, who has questions for Hamish about his rock?”

The questions are almost as lacklustre as the initial lecturette.

Question: “How old is it?” Reply: “Two weeks.”

Question: “Is it your favourite rock?” Reply: “Yes.”

Question: “How long have you had it?” Reply: “I don’t know.”

“Right,” I will interrupt, “time to finish your show and tell, Hamish. No I’m sorry but you can’t pass it around the class. Remember what happened last time when we passed around Tamara’s crystal unicorn and someone accidentally dropped it?”

One morning, several years ago, one young lad turned up at the classroom door tenuously holding on to the collars of a pair of fully grown, extra-large Dalmatians. The two hounds were straining to escape his grip and it was amazing he was able to keep hold of them as he was a scrawny little fellow.

“Cecil!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing with those dogs?”

“They’re my dogs, Mrs. P! I’ve brought them for show and tell!”

I peered apprehensively around the door, urgently scanning for his mother who I felt sure would be around the corner waiting to take the dogs home as soon as Cecil had finished his canine presentation.

“Where’s your mother, Cecil?” I entreated, noticing that the dogs were getting very restless and wondering why Cecil’s mother hadn’t at least put them on a leash.

“She’s at home,” he replied.

“You’ve got to be frickin kidding me!” I thought.

Cecil gave his little talk, hastened on by my insistent petitions to finish quickly. He informed us all of the dogs’ names, what he fed them each day, where they slept and how much he loved them.

I rang the Deputy Principal and after explaining my predicament, she came down and took the dogs away to be imprisoned in an airconditioning enclosure until Cecil’s mother could be contacted.

Cecil sobbed unrelentingly. “They’ll be scared!” he bawled. “They aren’t used to being locked up.”

About twenty minutes later I had a call from the office. Cecil’s mother had been contacted.

She didn’t know anything about the dogs.

She didn’t own any dogs...

After some investigative work it was revealed that the Dalmatians had escaped from a house a few streets away and had been scavenging around the school tuck shop where Cecil had evidently decided to adopt them on the spot.

What would happen if teachers started acting like the kids?

                                  Kyles the music teacher.

Watching the school children cavorting in the playground today started me thinking about what it would be like if we teachers began acting like kids.

Cue dream sequence music…

Kyles, our music teacher would play imaginary hop-scotch on her way to the classroom whilst Rach would gallop like a My Little Pony, whinnying and neighing with conviction. 

                                            Rach

J.B would artfully sneak up behind Greggles, slap him vigorously on the back and yell ‘Tagged ya!’ then tear off down the path with Greggles madly in pursuit, pushing all the small teachers over in the process.

Greggles

                                            J.B.

None of us would walk sanely anywhere; we’d skip, hop, walk sideways or backwards. There’d be no treading carefully around flower beds but instead we’d use every obstacle as a Jana Pittman-type challenge meant to be hurdled with great aplomb then spin around to our colleagues and shout,

“Did ya see that??? Suck it up, loser!”

In the staffroom at lunch time, Emmsie would remove the surplus tomato from her salad roll and flick it at unsuspecting colleagues.

                                   Emmsie

 Kaz would throw her empty juice popper on the ground, jump on it forcefully and create a resounding explosion startling everyone in the vicinity and causing them to scatter the contents of their chip packets all over the ground. These would be jumped on and trodden into smithereens by all of the other teachers.

                                         Kaz

Some teachers would throw entire, meticulously packed and untouched lunches in the bin and drip chocolate ice blocks all over the front of their shirts. All of us would have the outline of whatever food we’d been eating staining the outside of our lips, like Bozo the clown, for the rest of the day.

In staff meetings, after delivering crucial information regarding the new Literacy Program, our Principal would ask a question, anxiously hoping that someone…anyone… had been paying attention.

O’Reilly would be the first to raise his hand. Pleased to see such a prompt and eager response she would excitedly ask,

“Yes, O’Reilly, what question do you have about our literacy program?”

“Can I please go to the toilet, Miss?” he’d answer.

(O’Reilly would be allowed to go to the toilet but he’d become distracted and not return for half an hour; deciding it was more fun to spread toilet paper all over the floor of the boys’ dunny.)

                                         O'Reilly

Pinky would slowly raise her hand looking very self-assured.

“Yes Pinky… what do you think?” the Principal would enquire.

Pinky’s eyes would glaze over, “I forgot...” She’d say after a confused thirty seconds.

                                           Pinky

From the corner of her eye the Principal would finally spot Emmsie with both hands up in the air.

“Emmsie! What’s your answer?” she’d ask optimistically.

“I was just stretching, Miss.” Emmsie would reply scratching her head.

Kyles wouldn’t have heard any of it because she would have been braiding Kaz’s hair and Greggles would have been surreptitiously whistling under his breath just to annoy everyone.

Rach would suddenly burst in to tears. “What’s the matter, Rach?” The principal would ask in alarm.

“My chicken died last year, Miss… I just remembered,” she’d sob while Greggles sniggered at her, making her cry even louder.

O’Reilly would let off a ‘silent but deadly’ and the entire group would start groaning, covering their noses and shuffling away in feigned panic.

The principal would be trying to restore calm when JB would shout out brazenly,

“Miss! I just found a funny jumping ant in my hair.”

That’s what would happen if teachers started acting like the kids.

Pinky the Shallow Pal

                  "You'll get your snow globe when I'm good and ready!"

A couple of days ago I wrote about my excitement in taking possession of a snow globe my teaching buddy Rach had brought back from her holiday in New York for me. Read about it…here

Tasteless and vulgar to the core, it is predictable that Pinky should be the titleholder of an extensive and kitsch snow globe collection.

By yesterday afternoon I was beginning to suspect that the photo of the snow globe Rach sent me had been selected from Google Images and that she hadn’t really bought it for me at all.

“It’s in my classroom,” she replied, when I enquired after it as soon as I arrived at school yesterday.

Not wanting to seem pushy, I didn’t mention it at all for the rest of the day.

“Perhaps she’ll present it to me after I fulfil my promise to view her holiday snaps after work,” I pondered hopefully...

“You don’t have to look at these you know, Pinky,” she said when I knocked on her classroom door after school finished for the day. “I know you’re only being nice.”

“Rubbish!” I quipped cheerily. “You know I’m not nice! I’d really, really love to see them!”

So for the next half hour or so I gushed over her hundred or so slides of Times Square and Greenwich Village. I raved about the fifty odd snaps of Niagara Falls and positively extolled the photographic talent she displayed in the seventy shots of a rabid looking squirrel which Rach seemed to have taken quite a fancy to in Central Park. 

Finally the presentation was over and I sat expectantly waiting for Rach to bring out my precious snow globe. After a few minutes I realised none was forthcoming.

I walked slowly and despondently to the door.

“Pinky!” Rach called out. I turned around grinning in hope. “Do you have the right time?" she continued tauntingly, "My watch has stopped.”

So I left for the day empty-handed, but very well-informed on the frivolous antics of squirrels in New York.

Today there was still no mention of the elusive snow globe. As I sat dejectedly in my classroom this afternoon my sudden delight at seeing Rach strolling through my door, her handbag slung over her shoulder on her way home, quickly changed to frustration… her hands were empty.

“Where’s my bloody snow globe?” I blurted out impolitely, unable to wait any longer.

Rach disappeared out the door, returning in a few minutes with her arm outstretched and the coveted snow globe glittering in her palm.

I have to say it’s a bit small… nowhere near as big as the one Kyles bought me back from her holiday to Disneyland in Hong Kong last year.

Teacher on Duty!

First day back at school today and as soon as I arrived, after pushing my way through the glass staff room doors, I scuttled urgently to the noticeboard to inspect the new term’s lunch time roster.

 I don’t think the general public fully appreciate just how critical these rosters are in the well-being of a teacher’s mental health and how they can make or break our tenuous sanity.

What you don’t want is to be rostered on at first break because there is nothing a teacher desires more at ten-thirty in the morning than a hot cup of strong tea permeated with galvanising caffeine and sugar. 

If you happen to be luckless enough to be allocated duty at first break you must somehow agonise through withdrawal symptoms until one o’clock by which time the shakes set in and you begin to hallucinate and flinch fearfully like a beaten dog when small children call out, “Mrs P? Mrs P? Mrs P?”

Peering closely at the roster on the board I was incredulous and delighted to notice I had been awarded the Holy Grail of duties on a Wednesday; the heart’s desire of every teacher on staff… library duty. 

Normally the reserve of the heavily pregnant or the teachers so close to retirement they have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin, I had somehow procured the favour of our Principal and been allocated the crème de la crème of duties. 

How so? I thought. I’m not preg… oh I see… they think I’m old.

Library duty entails gently padding around the shelves, like a creepy monk who’s taken a vow of silence; whilst noiseless, well-behaved little nerds play chess and scrabble or sit on the carpet leafing mutely through picture books. 

No one is allowed to speak loudly, there is no running or unexpected movement permitted, the air conditioning is blowing a cool draft and it’s widely accepted as the Shangri-la of the entire school grounds.

Far preferable to the duties I had last term on the dreaded sport's oval where I spent my half hour in the burning sun, vigilantly dodging soccer balls powerfully booted with the dexterity of David Beckham and coming from at least five different and unanticipated directions. 

More than once did I experience an alarming incident where a fully inflated and vigorously propelled ball ricocheted off my head leaving me staggering and dazed and with my eyes spinning in their sockets like Wile. E. Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons. The truth is… it would almost be worth getting pregnant just to be put on library duty.

Pinky's Resolutions for a Brand New School Term!

Today is the final day of the school holidays so that means back to work for Pinky (Bleeaeaeah!).

Resolutions I made at the beginning of the two week break:

#Go for a one hour power walk every single day.

#Take the big dogs (Borat and Willy) for a walk every day.

#Cut down on alcohol and food in order to lose spare tyre around midriff and preserve last remaining square centimetre of functioning liver.

#Sleep in as many days as possible.

# Read at least five good quality books.

# Write some top quality blog posts instead of the usual nonsensical drivel.

My Adidas runners are in the cane basket out the front exactly where I left them two weeks ago; Borat and Willy have both gained five kilos, I have an extra spare tyre on my mid-section, my liver is staging a coup and is planning on going into cahoots with one of my kidneys and abscond from my body on grounds of neglect, I read only three quarters of one book and I’ve written quite a lot of silly claptrap every single day of my holiday including a story about wanting to manhandle my own flesh and blood into an unmarked van and forcibly deliver them to the vet to be neutered.

But you’ll happy to know that I did indeed enjoy quite a few sleep-ins.

According to Winston Churchill, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
So in keeping with that wonderful advice I’m making a few resolutions for the coming school term and since I’m actually recording it, I may be held accountable in the future.

# When I ask my colleagues how they are I will listen intently to their reply instead of annoyingly talking over them and launching into a litany of my own recent carry-ons and whinge-fests.

# I will try not to prattle on with a full mouth of my tuna salad causing people to duck and weave in avoidance of fishy spit balls because we only have 25 minutes for lunch and I have so much to talk about.

# During those tedious curriculum planning meetings I will refrain from distracting everyone by making silly jokes in my attempts to divert all the attention on to myself and delay the commencement of real work.

# I will use dulcet tones in my classroom never raising my voice above a honeyed purr even when one of my students takes the bottom lunch box from the pile in the fridge and thirty other lunch boxes cascade on to the floor for the fifth time that morning.

# I will practise my “death stare” in the mirror so that I can utilise it during incidents such as lunchbox avalanches, instead of loudly voicing my displeasure thus nurturing polyps on my vocal cords. 

And finally,

# I will patiently and uncomplainingly peruse all of my teaching buddy Rachael’s boring photos from her two week holiday in New York because she bought me the souvenir snow globe I requested.

                                  Thanks Rachy!


Click here for more worrying teacher stories!

School Holidays... the reason I became a teacher!

Instead of being woken up by the inane banter of radio jocks (why are they doing visual jokes on the radio now… it’s radio, don’t they realise we can’t see anything?) when the alarm went off this morning, I was roused by a Chihuahua tongue slurping up my nostril and the delightful sound of a full cup of coffee being placed on my bedside table by Scotto.

The school holidays could not have come at a more fitting time for Mrs Cranky Pants Poinker.

The ill-tempered, grouch-cloud encircling my persona over the last few weeks was explained to me in an article I just read in this morning’s Saturday paper.

“Older workers are grumpy, complain too much and don’t like being told what to do,” according to a survey of bosses by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

I hadn’t realised what a cantankerous crone I’ve been over the last few weeks until my forthright friend Emmsie warily asked me on Monday, “So Pinky, are you in a better mood today or are you going to snap our heads off all week again?”

Ohhh… I thought. Is that why I’ve been getting the feeling everyone has been avoiding me.

Come to think of it, Scotto has made a few comments of a similar ilk.

I even managed to put the boss offside with a strident, public whinge about having to miss out on lunch one day.

(David Attenborough voiceover)

In the wild the Pinky Grizzly Bear becomes very territorial around its food and has been known to quite literally tear another animal apart in its hunger.
If I desire to remain in marital bliss, preserve frail friendships and maintain my current employment it seems I must take therapeutic action.

Therefore I have sensibly decided to run away from home.

On Monday I’m flying the coop and heading down to spend time with my parents who snap at each other all the time and will make me feel completely sane.



When you’re feeling old hang around with older people is my plan of thinking.

Mind you... Grandad doesn't exactly act old!

Poem for Teachers- about Writing Reports

“Worst report I ever saw,

You’ve failed both Maths and Science, you’re

a lazy girl Pinky!” my mother shouted.

“It’s not my fault,” sour Pinky pouted

back at her mother whilst watching TV.

“It’s those stupid teachers! Don’t blame me!”

“She should try harder! Not up to par!

If Pinky tried she could go far!”

continued Mum as she read my report.

“Maybe I just need parental support…”

My mother exploded, “You silly twit!

You’ve had plenty of that, you just don’t give a sh#t!”

Many years passed and Pinky soon learned

it wouldn’t be long before the tide turned.

Her own kids would bring home a pitiful letter

reporting how they could also do so much better.

“Hagar’s not reaching his true potential.

His effort has been almost inconsequential.

If only he wasn’t so strongly attracted

To exotic things that make him distracted.”

“Padraic’s attendance has been quite appalling,

and the office ladies are sick of calling

to ask you why he's not at school,

and you make excuses like a foolto explain away his conspicuous absconding,

we are sick and tired of this corresponding

with a mother that seems to not have a clue

where her son is and what he should do.

His schoolwork seems quite vegetative

Except for his artwork, which is quite creative…”

So now my friends the worm has turned.

And it’s Pinky’s students who should be concerned.

But teachers now are so regulated

It makes our writing constipated.

When writing ‘bout our studious minions,

Teachers must hold back opinions.

We may not mention aberrations

merely state kids don’t meet 'expectations'.

We cannot say, “The boy is rude.”

It's not allowed to ever allude

To any particular bad behaviour,

and the comment bank becomes our saviour.

And now our remarks sound quite robotic

Verging on the idiotic.

I long to write what I really think

But I’d probably stir up a bit of a stink.

“Your son displays no dedication

What he really needs is medication!”

Nobody Listens to Pinky.

                                    

“So as part of this unit we will be learning about Mary MacKillop.” I said to my grade four students today.

“Awwww!” came the collective moans of dismay.

“We learnt all about her last year Mrs P,” they insisted.

Hmmmm, I thought, that’s good, maybe we can get through that part of the unit quickly then.

“Okay, hands up and tell me what you know.”

Three hands went up. 

“She was Australia’s first saint.” 

“She started the first Catholic school in Australia.”

It was going well until the final enthusiastic answer, 

“She was there when they saw the rock moved away from Jesus’ tomb!”

At least it wasn’t as bad as Rach’s class next door who asked her if Mary MacKillop was the same Mary who appeared when you turn the lights off in the bathroom and say,’ Bloody Mary’ three times into the mirror.

In the middle session I gave a very comprehensive (even if I say so myself) science lesson about friction. We went out to the car park and examined the tread on the tyres, (by the way Mrs Robertson, you need new tyres) and even did an exciting experiment involving rolling canisters along different surfaces and measuring the distance they travelled. It was all written up, tabled and aptly diagrammed in their books.

“So guys, what did we learn about friction today?” I asked optimistically during the afternoon session. Little Jacinta tentatively raised her hand,

“Um… if you cut up a pizza then each piece is called a friction?”

The only way you can be almost sure kids are actually listening is to say, 

“Look me in the eyes and repeat after me…” Even then there’s only a slight chance it’s sinking in.

Not that I can talk. I was dreadful at listening and even when I was eighteen I recall an incident which sent my father into a well-justified apoplectic fit.

Mum and Dad were going out for dinner and my boyfriend was over for the evening.

“Pinky, I want you to listen very carefully,” said my father gravely. “A man is going to phone me tonight to ask if the job at the hospital is on or off. He doesn’t have a home phone so I can’t call him back. Please make sure you answer the phone and give him the message.”

“Yeah, sure,” I murmured, waving him off dismissively.

“It’s very important Pinky,” Dad stressed, “We are turning the electricity supply off to all the operating theatres at the hospital just so we can do this job tomorrow morning. You must tell him the job is on, okay?”

“Yep, sure Dad, bye.”

About an hour later, while my boyfriend and I were watching the telly, the phone rang.

“Just ignore it,” I flippantly remarked.

“But it might be that bloke your father wanted you to give a message to.”

“Oh yeah… that’s right. I’ll be back in a sec.” I was a bit annoyed at this inconvenient chore taking me away from 'The Sullivans', but I slouched over to the bothersome phone and picked it up.

“Hi… yes he lives here… he had to go out but he gave me a message for you,” I paused suddenly, realising I didn’t know what the hell the message was supposed to be.

“Well…?” the bloke on the line queried. “Is the job on or off?”

“Ummm… It’s off.” I blurted, hedging my bets, I mean to say there was a fifty/fifty chance that ‘off’ was the correct response.

Dad’s first anxious question when he walked in the door was naturally to ask if the phone call had been dealt with.

“Yes Dad,” I drawled indifferently, “I told him the job was off.”

The look of murderous fury on my father’s face would have sent Charles Manson scuttling away to hide under his mother’s skirts. Even my boyfriend (the traitor) just stood shaking his head at me in disgust.

After a volatile and vociferous sermon on how much of a f#cking idiot child I was, and how I was the reason they'd invented the pill, my father was forced to drive around the suburb the bloke lived in all night. Dad had to scan driveways for the bloke’s car so that he could inform him that the job was indeed on, not off.

I’d be a liar if I said I have improved my listening skills since then. Just ask Scotto. 

He often tenderly takes my pointy little chin between his thumb and forefinger, gazes into my face and says, “Now look me in the eyes, and repeat after me…”

Pinky's Tribute to ANZAC Day

 Lulu placing a wreath at the cenotaph 

               
“This morning at ten past nine we are all walking up to our senior school for a very solemn and special ceremony to honour ANZAC day.” I informed my grade four class this morning.

The high school campus is about one kilometre up the road and I thought it necessary to reinforce some of the expectations involved in our mini excursion.

“So what are some of the things we should not do on the way?” I asked the class.

Twenty-eight hands sprang up in the air.

“Walk on the woad instead of the parf?”

“Kick up the dirt with our feet as we walk?”

“Step on the back of people’s heels and be silly?”

“Yes, yes and yes,” I agreed. “We don’t want a member of the public driving past and seeing us walking along the road like a mob of ratbags do we?”

“And you must be very quiet when we stand up for ‘The Last Post’ and the minute’s silence,” I emphasised.

“Who knows which musical instrument “The Last Post” is played on?” I quizzed them and noticing the blank faces I added, “It starts with the letter ‘B’”.

“A bumpet?” suggested one of my more inventive students.

I have to say that the ceremony was one of the most moving I’ve ever attended. The opening song ‘In Flander’s Fields’ by the small but exquisite choir immediately set the tone. The sensitive guest speaker (an army lieutenant) told the story of our fallen soldiers at the battle of Gallipoli and had the thousand plus audience in the palm of his hand. 

Our principal read the “Ode to Anzac Day” and we gravely sang the National Anthem facing the Australian flag at half-mast. 

But the highlight of the ceremony arrived at the closing song. A measured delivery of “Waltzing Matilda” by a young male student with a beautiful voice and accompanied by a guitar, resonated over the sound system. When he reached the chorus, the entire hall spontaneously joined in the singing and the school was upliftingly united. 

Did Pinky sing along, I hear you ask? No she didn’t, because she was too busy trying to swallow the golf ball of emotion and national pride in her throat and blink back the tears before the kids cracked on to her.

And I suppose you would also like to know if my students behaved themselves on the walk up to the school. Well… we were so ensconced in our mesmerising Maths lesson that I didn’t even glance at my watch until 9:20. 

I stuck my head out of the door in panic and observed a completely silent and abandoned school. A tumble weed blew past. Somehow, in my air-conditioned cocoon of a classroom, I’d failed to notice all the other classes leaving. 

Shite! I thought. The Principal is going to kill me!

“Put down your pencils and grab your hats!” I barked. “We’re late!”

If any member of the public had happened to see us on our way along the roadside, they would have noticed a flustered, red-faced and puffing Pinky almost jogging along the path with twenty-eight ducklings furiously scurrying behind her and excitedly discussing how silly and forgetful Mrs Poinker was getting.

Maybe we sometimes get a bit precious about our kids.

Frankenstein, Morticia and Lulu the vampire.

                         

Our Deputy Principal thanked all of the dedicated teachers for their generous presence and supervision at the school disco last Friday night and I’m certain she was giving me the stink eye because I was one of the slothful teachers that failed to make an appearance. 

Now I know she sometimes reads my blog so… I really was overseeing my daughter and her new, virile, hormone-charged, seventeen year old boyfriend on Friday night, Janet, dammit.

You know, I really don’t feel one shred of guilt because in the last eight years I’ve put in plenty of evenings at the school; running fete stalls and directing musical productions and plays, etc.

One year my teaching buddy Lisa and I, decided that we would be extra creative and set up a Haunted House for the school fete. 

On the afternoon of the fete we were in a frenzy of decorating our classrooms with fake cobwebs, bats, skeletons and some seriously morbid paraphernalia, when we received a terse phone call from the office informing us that a parent had made a complaint. 

The cardboard ‘gravestones’ we’d painted and placed out the front were apparently far too frightening. We’d painted epitaphs saying “Gertrude RIP 8 years old” and “Alfred RIP 6 years old” on the props.

“Oh for Pete’s sake!” I exploded. “Isn’t that the point of a Haunted House?” I complained bitterly to Lisa. “Kids love to be scared witless don’t they?”

But in fear for our livelihood, we begrudgingly changed them to “Gertrude RIP 87 years old” and “Alfred RIP 96 years old” 

... and began to question our selection of fete stall and indeed, career choice. 

We enlisted Scotto (Frankenstein) to be the ticket seller and I (masquerading as Morticia) played the part of the sinister guide; leading the frightened children through the dark and menacing house whilst narrating a chilling tale about lost and abandoned children.

Lisa, malevolently disguised as an evil witch instructed her hubby, ‘Mr Pumpkinhead’ to stand at the exit and hand out lollies. 

Somehow I had coerced a reluctant Padraic and Lulu to participate in our corny theatrics, decked out respectively as a mad monk and a pallid, red-lipped vampire.

“Slouch in the corner beside the jars with human parts floating in them,” I instructed Padraic, “and don’t move so that the kids think you’re a dummy; like that one over there with the spaghetti for guts. When I finish my scary story jump up, lunge at them and yell out something disturbing at the same time.”

“Lulu!” I continued, “Lay down on that table and pretend to be dead. Wait for my signal, then sit up suddenly and give a blood-curdling scream.”

Lisa’s job was to crawl around under the tables grabbing kids unexpectedly on the ankles.

Now we hadn’t really thought the entire thing through and we could only safely take groups of about six through at a time. Each grisly session took about ten minutes and by seven thirty, word had spread about the petrifying Haunted House. 

The pack of rugrats lined up at the door, wound around the corner and seemed to go on indefinitely. Hundreds of kids had abandoned the ever popular oval, where all the rides were, and had formed an angry mob hustling to gain access to the Haunted House. Even the parents were impatiently arguing about who was first in line.

Each group of kids exiting the House tore out, shrieking in terror and even though Mr Pumpkinhead tried to chase after them with his bucket of lollies, they were too freaked out to care. They’d just excitedly scamper straight to the end of the long queue and wait for their turn again, telling everyone how AWESOME and FREAKY it was.

None of us got a break all night and by ten o’clock, exhausted and mentally shattered, we closed the mausoleum. 

Lisa had sustained major carpet burns on her knees and I had no voice left. It took me all weekend to recover but scaring the willies out of those kids was seriously the most fun I’ve ever had.

Pinky's special poem for teachers.

Half eaten Easter egg

Ode for teachers.

Alarm goes off, it’s the last day of school.

Pinky sits up and wipes away the drool

From her middle-aged mouth, she’s been snoring it seems,

Loudly intruding on poor Scotto’s dreams.

One more day and it’s holiday time

Stagger to the shower, wash away the grime.

Trips on dog on the way downstairs

Shuffles outside in the pyjamas she wears

To get the paper from the dead brown lawn

She squints at the brightness of the gentle dawn.

Espying a jogger, Pinky darts behind a tree.

There is no need for a jogger to see

Pinky’s pyjamas with the hole in the a*#e.

She hides til she sees the jogger pass.

Back inside for her first caffeine hit

Without that coffee she feels like sh#t.

Swears at drivers on way to school

Why does she always get in front of the fool

Who drives a big truck and sits on her tail

With a honking horn and arms that flail?

Arrives at school, colleagues full of glee

Only six more hours and they’ll all be free.

“We’ve eggs for you Miss!” the children shout

One of the eggs has a bite taken out.

By one o’clock the teachers feel grand

As they all know after school drinks are planned.

The girls will be heading to Shazza’s place

Where no doubt they will all get off their face.

With only one hour left of school to go

There’s a disco in the shed for the kids and so

Pinky does the chicken dance, and grooves to the beat

Til she gets puffed out and has to sit on a seat.

Like Gabriel’s trumpet we hear the bell ring,

P#ss off kids! The teachers sing

Under their breath so no one can hear

Why did we pick a teaching career?

Is it all for the kids and their learning we wish to raise?

Don’t be bloody stupid…it’s the holidays!!!!



# I don’t really mean that, I love teaching the rugrats.

The egg in the photo was actually presented to my colleague, Rach and had indeed been bitten in to.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 


Since Padraic’s scandalous interview with the Deputy Principal …Read more on this he appears to have pulled his socks up and has been arriving at school on time every day and staying put, thanks to a strict card signing system introduced by his vigilant teachers. My darling eighteen year old son even presented an autonomously written English assignment for me to proofread on Sunday afternoon. 

Shaken with joy at this promising sign I sat down to peruse the essay and was brought to an abrupt halt at the third sentence, “The young girl was very pulchritudinous.”

“Pulchritudinous?” I chuckled, wondering where he’d got that one from.

Then I remembered the week before I’d been fed up with him dithering over the draft of the same essay and had shown him where to find the thesaurus on Word. I’d unleashed a monster; the entire essay was littered with flowery prose and numerous words of four syllables or more. The English teacher should be entertained if nothing else.

At least he’s 'having a go' unlike ‘Hagar the Illiterate’ who just didn’t bother to put any effort in at all. Thaddeus and Jonah never asked or needed my help with school work but with Hagar it was essential to question him at least once a week as to what assignments were due and how far had he progressed in writing said assignments.

“I’ve got to hand in the draft of my English assignment tomorrow.” Hagar answered me one Sunday evening.

“Is this all you’ve done?” I asked incredulously as he handed over a crumpled paper with three lines of chicken scratchings across it.

The task was to write an argumentative essay about the movie, “The Castle” and whether or not the family in the movie symbolised materialistic values. I loved that movie.

“Get upstairs!” I ordered a reluctant Hagar. “We’ll write the draft together.”

So there we sat together; Pinky typing with the enthusiasm of Virginia Woolf and Hagar reclining back in the chair with his eyes closed and head lolling. I have to say by the time I’d finished it was pretty damn good.

“So what did Mr Rogers think of m… your essay?” I eagerly intercepted Hagar on his way to the fridge a few days later.

“It’s all wrong, Mum!” whined Hagar, “He said it didn’t follow the criteria sheet.”

Bells rang. Criteria sheet? Hagar didn’t tell me there was a criteria sheet.

I didn’t bother with Hagar this time. Snatching the sheet I rushed upstairs to marry Mr Roger’s notes, the criteria sheet and my literary genius together in a glorious piece of masterful literature.

It was a long excruciating two weeks but Mr Rogers had finally got around to marking the essay and once again I pounced on Hagar as he walked in after school.

“You got a B minus, Mum.” Hagar said reproachfully.

How could this be? I thought. It was my best work! I have an honours degree in Education for God’s sake! Mr Rogers is a bloody b#stard.

“He’s said it’s not going towards my assessment because I didn’t hand the draft back in.”

Right! That was it. I was straight on the phone to this officious Mr Rogers.

“To be quite honest,” said Mr Rogers after we’d sorted out the draft issue, "I just don’t believe that Hagar wrote this essay. It’s too good, he’s taken the opposing argument and it’s better than anything my A plus students have written. I’m afraid I can’t accept it.”

Little monkeys began to dance around in my brain doing somersaults and cheering. He said it was better than what his A plus students wrote!! Yippee!!!

The moral of the story is: if you have a passion for writing, don’t waste your time cheating for your kids, start writing a blog.

Pinky has a headache.

                      

There were workmen outside my classroom all day today making a God awful, droning noise with some seriously heavy machinery. Coupled with twenty-eight frisky and highly strung nine year olds, the hullabaloo has infiltrated my brain cells and led to localised swelling in the frontal lobe.

There is no university subject schooling prospective teachers on the unpredictability of student behaviour dependent on variables such as; the end of term, the weather, birthdays and the teacher’s fragile emotional vulnerability at any particular time.

On windy days the teachers will shuffle into the staffroom, not making eye contact with anyone and head straight for the coffee jar. “It must be the wind,” they will wheeze, “Little Joel Blackmore just sucked on a gel pen and had red ink oozing out of his mouth. I thought it was blood and sent him up to first aid and the office ladies are p*ssed off with me.”

Rainy days are just as bad. The minute it begins to pour down the whole class has an urgent need to go to the toilet. Of course we teachers are all clued up and know that all they really want to do is walk around in the rain and get as wet as they possibly can. That way when they return to the classroom they are so saturated all their classmates laugh at them when they appear at the doorway looking like a drowned rat. 

Personally I don’t let them go to the toilet until the third request and they have to be jiggling around like a Riverdance performer on speed before I even give them the benefit of the doubt.

The end of first term is a different story entirely; the teacher is damaged property. Already sapped of the will to live by the shock of having to get into the groove after Christmas break, we are effortlessly crushed by the unrelenting enthusiasm of a large group of Easter bunny aficionados. 

The kids appear at the classroom door every morning with fistfuls of chocolate ecstasy; farming out their sugary eggs to all and sundry, fuelling the already hyperactive individuals with even more vitality and wickedly corrupting the usually calm students.

Kill me now.

Anyway precious readers, my head is hurting so I won’t be writing on my blog tonight!

Why Pinky isn't fussed on Bunnings

Scotto in the garage.

                           


I spent last night (a Friday night no less!) in church, as my class was presenting a dramatized version of the Stations of the Cross for their parents and any super keen parishioners who showed up. We had rehearsed in the morning with no major stuff ups and I was optimistic all would run smoothly. 

As the teacher it was my task to deliver the opening prayer and I forgot to take my reading glasses up to the lecturn with me. It was a lengthy and self-conscious skulk down to her handbag and back up again for Pinky. 

The kids stepped up to the mark though and apart from Jesus’ crown of thorns falling off during the crucifixion, it went without a hitch. In fact you might even say…we nailed it.

Saturday morning is my favourite time of the week. Unfortunately that blissful sleep in and undisturbed coffee in bed with the newspaper has been besmirched by the entrance into our lives of the baby Chihuahua, Pablo Escobark… Read more here

Waking up with a sharp-toothed Mexican rat chewing on my earlobe has become the standard and there is no more lying in or reading of newspapers. In fact our main priority this morning was to get up early anyway and go on a reconnaissance expedition to the Shangri-La of all home renovators, Bunnings. 

Paranoid about Pablo inadvertently getting out the back door and falling into the swimming pool and drowning, Scotto decided some pool-fence work was in order and guess who felt duty-bound to go with him to purchase the necessary materials. 

I feel at this point I must express my deep-seated aversion to that particular genre of retail outlet. Many jokes have been made about women dragging their long-suffering husbands around department stores and dress shops, but what about our side of the story? 

It’s not the concrete floors or the cheesy smell of fertilisers that put me off. It’s not even the flock of scavengers blocking the front door, who are only there for the cheap, two dollar sausage sizzle. I really don’t mind the sweaty, pongy blokes walking around in singlets with their tufts of grey underarm hair poking out either. 

The reason I hate going is because of Scotto (I had to write that in a small font so that he won’t notice his name if he looks over at my screen), however, because he was going for the sole purpose of safeguarding the well-being of my mutt I felt guiltily compelled to accompany him.

A few years ago I dug in my heels and stubbornly refused to enter the doors of the hardware store any more and would sit in the hot car panting like a dog waiting for him to return. My reasoning was that if Scotto was conscious of his overheating spouse in the sweltering temperature of a car in the North Queensland sun, he might hurry the f#*k up.

Scotto is quite the handyman and I love him for this quality. His ability to take an hour to purchase one screw however, is not so endearing. He will stand at the shelf comparing screw widths, lengths and then move on to hinges trying to check for the right fit and on and on and on and on. Call me unadventurous but I really don’t see the appeal.

Miraculously it didn’t take Scotto long to find the correct sized edging so we were in and out in ten minutes. Yay! 

Some stupid, clumsy twit carrying a whipper-snipper over his shoulder nearly knocked my effing eye out... but never mind.

Are We Mollycoddling Our Kids?

Walking around my classroom today while my students were writing a story, I noticed one of my brightest boy’s handwriting looked like a chicken had scratched across the page.“That’s terrible handwriting Harley!” I said calmly. “You need to rub it out and start again.”

The next time I looked at him he had his head in his hands,

“What’s the matter Harley, why aren't you doing your work?”

“You said my writing was terrible,” he moaned.

Oh crap, I thought, I’m going to be in trouble now. Teachers aren’t supposed to say things like that to kids any more. It damages self-esteem and can cause long term mental issues… apparently.

One day at Kindergarten when I was four years of age I got into trouble with the teacher for trashing yet another paper lantern with my inept scissor-cutting technique.

“If you ruin this one I’ll cut your fingers off.” She snapped at me. 
When I told my mother she pulled me out of the Kindy immediately. 
Akin to going from the frying pan into the fire my parents enrolled me into an all-girls convent complete with a plethora of horrible, vicious nuns.

Fearsome (and probably overheated) in their voluminous black habits they were an unsettling and intimidating presence in the eyes of a four year old.
One of the old crones swept imposingly into our classroom one day.
“You! Girl in the corner! Were you talking?”

“No sister.” I blinked back tears of terror.

“Liar,” she snarled, “Come here to the front of the class you bad, bad girl.”
She then proceeded to put chalk all over my outstretched tongue as retribution for talking and lying.

I was only four and was convinced the chalk was poisonous. 

By the time my mother picked me up my tongue had dehydrated like a prune from my having had it stuck out of my mouth for the remainder of the day. Soon after that I was relocated to a State school.

For the rest of my primary schooling my parents ignored any complaints I made. 
Short, skinny, sh#t at sport and in possession of an oddly shaped nose I experienced my fair share of bullying. I just did what normal kids did and picked on someone weaker.

If teachers persecuted me for whatever reason, my parents would just say it must have been my own fault. 
If I was in strife at school then I was in trouble at home ten times the magnitude of school. 

Eventually I learnt resilience.

I had a mongrel of a teacher in Year Seven. Getting off on the wrong foot with him in the very first week was my father’s fault.
“Mr. Fitzgibbon, my Dad says your name is Irish.”

He looked pleased.

“My Dad says that ‘Fitz’ means ‘son of’ and that a gibbon is a monkey, so you must be the son of a monkey.”

My father was such a smart arse.

Fitzy was the old-school type of teacher that would hurl a blackboard duster at inattentive students and called everyone either ‘girly’ or ‘boy’.
One day I was reading aloud in class and I pronounced the word France as ‘Fr-ar-nce’ as opposed the colloquial ‘Fr-air-nts’.
“That’s not how you say it!” he mocked loudly. “Who do you think you are Miss Hoity Toity!”

The whole class laughed while he brutally humiliated me for about ten minutes.
Did I go home bleating and sooking to my mother? 

No…what I wanted was vengeance.

Fitzy was in charge of the Sports Room which housed the entire school’s sporting equipment. Useless twit that he was, the key to the Sport’s Room was constantly going AWOL. 

Fitzy was forever standing up week after week at assembly going red in the face about how his beloved key was missing again. 

Eventually the moronic gorilla had the common sense to dictate that he was to be in sole possession of the key. The lock on the sports room door had been replaced for the final time and no one (except for him) was allowed to touch it under any circumstances.

His crucial mistake was to hang his precious key on a hook in our classroom. My friend Lyndell and I furtively hid the key behind some books on a shelf and waited to see what transpired.

Fitzy hit the roof. I swear I have never seen an angrier or more florid face. His blood pressure must have been off the scale and the school was in an uproar.

From memory I think Lyndell and I continued the torture for a few days. Eventually it was we two heroes who ‘discovered’ the key which had somehow fallen behind the books.

Fitzy resigned within a month.