Please Sir!

Please Sir! for those of tender years that may not have seen this TV comedy series in the 1970s was a tale of a somewhat beleaguered and harrassed teacher played by John Alderton endeavouring to inculcate some learning into a group pupils in their final school year and achieving varying degrees of failure.

Having already given a little insight in previous posts as to my various careers here is yet another direction that was taken.  Having graduated late in life with a business degree there was then the difficulty of finding employment at an age when many folk were being made redundant, not an easy prospect.  Sometimes in life you know exactly where you wish to go but the fates decide that is not to be your destination.  Thus it was, having applied for more than three hundred posts in about nine months and receiving at least twenty or so acknowledgements and several interviews none of which were my desired path nor successful in getting a job. 

Around this time the anti-ageism movement was just finding its feet, until then it was seen as a cranky thing and had no or little foundation in general apart from those who were feeling its grinding oppression and depression.  The reasons, or rather excuses, for not offering me a post were legion, ranging from the laughable to politely insulting.  Overall these rejections in whatever terms they were couched read like something from the brothers Grimm book of fairy tales combined with horrors from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe himself.

So it was not to be.  From the blue I had a phone call from a friend asking if I had considered lecturing in my degree subject of Business Administration, certainly an avenue that had not even been considered.  So, to cut a long, tedious story short a pert-time temporary contract was offered to me in the Business department of a further education college on the very outskirts of East London starting immediately.

My very first session at the chalkface was not with post GCSE students (for want of a better term) but twenty or so final year secondary school pupils whose school had agreed a contract to introduce them to a pre-college business studies and IT related program.  My innocence sugggested to me that they might be of reasonable intelligence, ability and fairly well socialised as well as having having mastered the basic skills of communication.  Wrong!  That was the first of many incorrect assumptions that I naively made ...

Day one,  just after lunch I ventured into the appointed classroom, just what I expected, twenty PCs and workstations.  The chosen topic for that session was to about CVs.  At the appointed hour the door opened and in traipsed the group all with assorted looks of disinterest accompanied by appropriate body language.  My heart began to sink ...

Having got them seated and instructed in the obligatory house rules the actual lesson began with the aid of projector slides explaining exactly what a CV is and its very purpose.  Forewarned that they had already at their school learned about curriculum vitae I asked what the purpose of such a document might be.  Twenty bodies seated around a large central table suddenly stopped fidgeting, chewing pens, scratching various bodily parts and began looking intently at the table, the ceiling, the floor or anywhere rather than challenge my questing gaze, all wishing that they were elsewhere, anywhere rather than in this now sepulchrally quiet room.  Obviously my gaze was of insufficient intensity to elicit any response so the question was repeated, twice, before a timid, tremulous little hand arose whose owners voice squeaked 'Please sir'.  Delighted at a response I asked the tremulous yet bold one for his his reply - 'Please sir, is it a French car'.   Aaaarrrghh!  Hmm, mark this one's card as a smartarse.  Not one other member of the group stirred.

Finally having explained the subtleties of compiling a CV, the groups were thankfully dismissed.  Jeez, if this teaching/lecturing then what the hell have I let myself in for?

Same group, following week.  All seated at PCs with the task of compiling a personal CV, me having managed to fire up a number recalcitrant and ancient PCs they began the task.  Silence for a few minutes as thought processes began to awaken followed by tenuous poking of keyboards.  After some minutes a young lass named Jenny raised her hand and said 'Sir?'  I went over to her to ascertain the nature of her question.  'Please sir, I don't like football.'  As asked she repeated her question, during which I was trying frantically to think what on earth how her statement was relevant to the matter in hand.  Reply; 'I don't like football so I don't know any referees'!  Patiently repeated explanation and definition of referees in context.

Wandering around monitoring the group's progress I alight upon the hapless Jenny seeing that under the heading of Interest and Hobbies she had typed 'Watching telly'.  When asked if that was considered to be an adequate response, in words of one syllable, she informed that was her sole out of school activity being totally uninterested in anything else.  Several minutes later spent trying to elicit other information as to her extra-curricular activities proved fruitless so it was suggested that she retain her response so that her teacher might have more luck than I ...

The next few days were spent wondering exactly what the hell  had I become enmeshed and hoping fervently that genuine further education may prove a little less fruitless and frustrating. 

Further tales from the chalkface to follow ...