Making an idiot of myself.

I’m pretty good at making an idiot of myself. My first job was in a tough but fantastic school in inner-city Manchester. I stayed there for three years and it was a wonderful experience and I met some great kids and some inspirational teachers.

I was lucky that I actually started there as soon as I finished college, at the end of May. I enjoyed it so much, and obviously didn’t do too badly as they offered me a job for September. When I first started in the May I was standing in for an English teacher who was off for several months. As I mentioned, it was a tough school, and the kids could obviously see I was an inexperienced ninny. I walked into the classroom where about thirty thirteen year olds were waiting for their teacher and were surprised to see me.

There was a lot of calling out and shouting as I tried to introduce myself – nothing in the year’s training I’d had prepared me for this. Who are you? What are you doing here?  they shouted as I rapidly felt the situation slipping out of control. Then one shouted out Where’s Mrs Gandhi? I was impressed they knew the Prime Minister of India and that they were testing me in this novel way. I replied that she was in India, obviously, and I rabbited on about the recent election there which led to more hilarity and ridiculous behaviour. Fortunately, at that moment, the head of department popped in to see how I was getting on and within moments order was restored. She was marvellous, she somehow managed to manipulate the class so it seemed as if I really was in charge and she just happened to be passing, and before long, I was somewhat shakily teaching the lesson.

I don’t know why the kids were obsessed with Mrs Gandhi, but as they eventually left the classroom at the end of the lesson which had seemed to last an eternity, they were chanting, where’s Mrs Gandhi? She’s in India! Back in the staffroom, among the other teachers who of course I didn’t know, I was asked how I got on by one friendly person. I related the Mrs Gandhi thing and then the bell went and it was next lesson. I told all my friends about the by now hilarious seeming disaster, and the kids making an idiot of me over Mrs Gandhi.

The summer term disappeared and thank goodness it was the holidays. I returned in September, more confident, better prepared, and teaching in a different area, English as a second language. At the end of the first day a very smart blond teacher who I’d not seen before came up to me, and thanked me for covering her lessons before the summer holidays when she had been on maternity leave. She was so pleasant and grateful I was just glad she didn’t know what a pickle I’d made of it.

I asked the friendly person who by now was a real friend, who the teacher was.  Oh,  she said, that’s Carol Gandhi.  I didn’t exactly blanche, but I felt as though I did. When the kids kept asking me last term where Mrs Gandhi was, I thought they meant the Prime Minister of India.  My friend looked at me as if I was an idiot… Well, obviously not. which kid here would even know where India was, let alone the Prime Minister? Anyway, Carol’s surname is G A N D Y…