This Week’s Bit of String: Another Year 11 group flies the nest
“Miss, what are you going to do without us, when we’re on study leave?” It’s the last English lesson with bottom-set Year 11s, and a particularly loquacious boy is curious.
I assure him the Year 10s will keep me busy, and he nods sagely, “More grey hairs for you, then.”
I had worked hard with this little fellow, insisting he can absolutely pass, if he focuses. Many times per lesson, redirecting him toward tasks he’s somehow oblivious to, reminding him to face front and stop making silly faces for attention. I joked last week I’ve named a couple of my grey hairs after him, and I guess that made him proud.
“Will you sign my shirt on leaving day? And write about the grey hairs?” he asks.
Sure, kiddo. So long, and thanks for all the grey hairs.
We have another seven hot and tiring weeks of school left after the half-term, but the Year 11 low-set English class I’ve supported for the last two years will only be in for exams, and a couple of revision sessions.
It’s been a journey. There’s still a way to go before most of them reach a destination, but progress comes in many forms. And they are who they are, each with very distinct personalities, strengths, and stresses. The exam results won’t be stellar, but hopefully they’ll take some encouragement with them and I’ll certainly take some tales with me.
At the beginning of their Year 10, I had to request of one boy: “Please don’t stick my highlighter up your nose.”
Note the personal pronoun here. He had refused to produce his own equipment, I loaned him some of mine, and he treated it like a preschooler might.
However, during our final English classes in Year 11, several students used borrowed highlighters and pens and classroom glue sticks to build towers and balance them. This was while the teachers were imparting strategies for taking exam papers, but hey. Personal growth!
This is the class with the Trio of Fortitude. One member of the Trio came into school every day but one this term, while up till now he averaged two days off per week. Again: progress.
Breaking Records
One of my dad’s most famous sayings is “I’ve never said that before.” He relishes using it to mark life’s many unexpected encounters.
To me, this is a fun way to notice stories. It can denote unusual occurrences, or different ways of looking at the everyday.
Each year group I work with spawns plenty of things I’ve never had to say before. It can be exhausting, but on the bright side it means my job continues to be interesting. It’s 11 years now since I was helping a group revise for GCSEs and had to dispel a 16-year-old’s notion by saying, “Women don’t get pregnant from dildos.”
In one of my revision groups just this past week, I worked with our semi-reformed partial attender from the Trio of Fortitude. He’s a clever but uninspired boy, all scrawny angles and tattered uniform and imperious glances. Also in the group was a mischievous, elfin, blue-haired girl who has been a selective mute for her entire school career.
They kept kicking at a chair between them until she managed to trap his legs against the table with it. He complained of having his bones crushed, so I wrote on the whiteboard: No bone-crushing allowed.
“It’s official now. You’ll have to stop.”
She let the chair go with a disappointed sigh. The boy said, “What if she amputates my leg next?”
So I added to the board: And no nonconsensual amputations. I’d never said that before. Hurrah for some more special memories.
Progress is as Progress Does
For one of the very last lessons on Friday, the teacher brought the group out to the field to play rounders. I sat in the shade with a few others, including a particularly childish fellow who didn’t want to play sport, but was clearly bored.
He complained about the dewy grass. “Miss, my bum’s wet. My bum’s wet, Miss. Miss—”
“I heard you the first time. Thank you for keeping us informed.”
Maybe there should be a category of “I never wanted to hear about that” to go with “I never said that before.”
Less than ten minutes before the lesson ended, on his last day of secondary school, this same 16-year-old came out with: “I should probably learn to tie my shoes.”
There was something I might help with. I spent 2 years trying to help his class remember themes from Lord of The Flies and identify personification, and remember the Poor Law of 1834 which motivated Dickens to write A Christmas Carol… The whole time we worked on that, this boy and a few others could still barely construct sentences. Standardised exams leave no time to teach basics.
But on the damp grass while others hollered over rounders hits, I helped him with his laces and he did seem to get the hang of the first knot.
They know they’ve annoyed me sometimes, but that I always try to help, and in that way perhaps we’ve both achieved something. They learn to open up a little, and I am reminded to count small signs of progress.
What are some ways you’ve made progress lately? Have you had occasion to say something you never said before?