Thursday 19 August 2010

More nostalgic educational tales

My favourite school was the comprehensive one in Stoke. It had its fair share of weirdos - like the kid later caught on CCTV…nicking CCTV cameras from a lorry.

The teachers were on the odd side too. There was the very camp art teacher who asked me, after the first class, whether I normally wore spectacles. I knew I couldn't draw, but that was a bit much. He tested my eyesight and then suggested that 'art wasn't really for' me and excused me for the rest of my time there. Though I enjoyed textiles - I've still got the kite and shorts I made, and the scars  from sewing the kite to my leg while I was putting the final touches to it. Shame he didn't let me off bloody technical drawing, woodwork and metalwork too.

Another rather wittily told my parents that my exam result 'didn't reflect the standard of [Vole's] work' - turned out I'd come 3rd rather than bottom, after handing in precisely no homework and using class time as an opportunity to hone my punning skills.
Best of all was the metalwork teacher. Always a bit handy with sharp or heavy objects and possessing the breath of Satan's goats, he eventually got a bit desperate. Disappearing from class one day, it turned out that he'd sent a note to Tesco demanding money or he'd put glass in the yogurts. The way I heard it, the court decided he was mad rather than bad, as he'd put his home address on the note, though this may be an urban myth. Still, he taught me to make a passable screwdriver, shiv and other weapons which came in very useful on the school bus (in self-defence, obviously). That scene was bad, man.

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