The January 2017 issue of Reader's Digest carried an article after my own heart: a collection of acid quips from long-suffering schoolteachers, titled Talking out of School, by Patrick Romain (pp. 86-89). Do look it up. Here are a few of my choice quotes - I hope the RD editors won't mind my using them:
1) His parents are professionally unemployed and have promised to make their kid work.
2) I didn't realize it, but according to the parents, I have two Einsteins, five Marie Curies and eight Leonardo da Vincis in my class.
3) The mother asked me more questions in five minutes than her daughter did in a whole term.
4) It's not in my class that Rodin would have found a model for his Thinker.
5) I was lured with the promise of becoming a teacher and ended up becoming a zookeeper.
6) This pupil has two saviours: the school bell and Wikipedia.
7) Is education getting better because pupils are getting worse, or is it the other way round?
8) In high places they talk about dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysorthographia and dyscalculia. In the meantime, discipline is my problem.
After 36 years at it, I can only say 'Hear, hear!' And I am thankful that my long-nurtured reputation as an ogre has saved me from the last problem, at least. I can always terrify them and throw a particularly noxious brat out.
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