Recently, in a bid to make myself look more employable and less like a drag on society, I signed myself up (by accident) to an agency that places people into exam halls under the title of 'Exam Invigilator'. This agency also places the young, work-shy and generally horrendously awkward signees into Teaching Assistant positions for short term or one-day posts. Last week, I had my first ever encounter as being a TA.
I was summoned to a well-to-do faith school that sat quietly in the posh suburbs of Cardiff. Obviously, I can't say where, who or what, as I would probably be breaching a contract that I should've paid more attention to before signing. Despite traffic being a cow and parking being equally bovine, I arrived mostly on time, and headed in to be torn apart by the hormone-inspired little shits that dwelled within the jaded walls.
To add to the mystery, the agency give you only bare details by text. The rest, as they say, is up to you to conquer. The text in question asked me to arrive at the school at 8:20am and ask for a certain teacher. That I did, despite my untimeliness, and I was sent to a block just around the corner. I was then handed a timetable for the day, with my point of contact scribbling down the names of those I'd be helping in each of the spaces, and a map. 'He's a handful', she'd say. 'Watch out for him, he'll not want to do any work'. 'These pair are fine, they're quite funny'. 'Don't expect much of him, he's very weak'. Music to my wary, anxiety-drenched ears.
Feeling very much like the new boy, I followed the map precariously and found my way to the first lesson. Biology; not awful. 'Hardly the environment where little wasters flourish, mind you', I thought. Heading into the rather unassuming classroom, I spied my captors. They were a year 9 class; an odd year physically insomuch as puberty is taking its toll in varying quantities and at radically different paces around the class. I resigned myself to being ignored for an hour, and sat down where I needed to be sat.
Except I wasn't ignored. I was inquired over, asked questions, and accepted as part of the running of the school. The two boys who I was to look over knew the drill and engaged in surprisingly un-sarcastic and inoffensive conversation, and were altogether very pleasant to talk to. How odd, I thought. Beginner's luck.
As the biology teacher crept in, I expected to see the rest of the class following him. There was no 'rest of the class'. There were a total of 10 pupils populating the classroom. Surely not? There were at least 30 to a class in my experience. The classroom suddenly felt very big, but not intimidating. I relaxed, anxiety delegating elsewhere in my body for the remainder of the hour.
The biology teacher, a slim, bespectacled man with dark hair falling into a light sprinkling on his cheeks and chin clapped his hands together at the front of his class. They fell silent. Note the 'his class' and not 'the class'; the kids, like a hypnotist's clientele, were under his spell. It seemed very alien from my own experiences of GCSE Biology. Kids behaving? Surely not. Even the boys who I was sat next to, the two who had seemingly been made out to be Satan and Beelzebub themselves sat quietly (mostly) and listened.
The teacher wrote out some rules for a 'surprise test' on the board before placing a jar on each person's desk. Inside these science-y looking jars with their comical markings and triangulated spouts were fish, one for every person in the class. These fish had originated from a large tank sat atop the work bench at the back of the classroom. Now, this seemed very odd. These children were being trusted with an actual living organism, much to their glee. We were barely trusted with stationary, back in my day. The oddity continued.
The class was then asked to observe the fish and write down their observations, sketching anything of any interest they notice about the two species they were provided with. The fish seemed very much alarmed at his new, minuscule habitat; a mere parody of the grand tank he had been derived from.
Then, the oddest thing of all happened.
They actually did the work. Not one attempt to kill or maim the fish was made. Not one. There were no bunsen burners under jars, no games of tennis being played with notebooks and fish across the classroom. I didn't know how to react. What do I do? Everyone was working. I found a slightly puzzled looking girl sat opposite to help, but she was more concerned with turning the jar to the correct angle in order to get a better view of the fish, despite his abhorrence at being studied. It was an odd experience that I'll sort of treasure. It's like attempting to spin a roomful of plates with no success, and then one day, after a period of not trying, having every plate sitting perched on top of a stick, gyroscopically adjusting themselves to stay aloft on their own, enabling you to look back and think about which deity to give praise to. Rather magnificent.
The rest of the day was spent much in the same manner. I talked for the entirety of an RE lesson with one boy on the topic of ants, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. I was told at the end of the lesson that the boy seldom responds to TA's, and to have him complete his work and talk about something at length was most odd. The RE teacher, who I must say was most welcoming and helpful despite her youth and current pursuit of mastering the art of teaching, asked for my name and said she would ask the powers that be to give me priority should any other TA opportunities in the school crop up. Despite feeling that I hadn't done anything groundbreaking, and even a tad undeserving, the gesture was reassuring and put me on a high for the mid-morning break.
The rest of the pupils I was sent to aid were very much repeats of my first lesson; pleasant, well mannered pupils who just needed the odd prod or a question rewording. I was expecting hell, as I had seen in my own experiences of the pre-GCSE curriculum, but it never arrived. It was, in all honesty, quite fantastic to see that the pupils in this school tried hard, despite differing and often difficult home-lives. As the RE teacher pointed out to me, a lot of this has to do with the area; an affluent suburb full of supportive parents and carers who want the best for their children and will do everything in their power to see them get the best from themselves. The melting pot is much smaller than the one I experienced growing up, and it makes for a different feel and attitude in the school. I still can't quite get my head around it.
On a rather more poetic note, I felt it rather apt that my first ever lesson in my first ever position as a proper TA was spent studying fish. I suppose I could empathise with the fish; I too was taken from the safety of the big, wide tank and shoved in a small space to be ogled at and discussed by children. In this case, I was lucky that the children were hardworking and conscientious. They chose not to play tennis with me (using me as the ball), but rather to include me in their lessons and place me back in my tank at the end of the day without harm.
