New School

New School

Starting a new school isn't easy. It's never easy whoever you are. If
you start a new school in year 7 it's easier because there's another
100 people just as lost and baffled as you are and you're not the
newbie, you're not the freak. All you have do to survive is surround
yourself with people who look, act and sound the same as you and cling
to the corridors walls.
For those unfortunately people who have to move schools the easiest
thing to do is to find someone knowledgeable and stick with them. The
problem here of course is that you don't know who. Who's the in-crowd?
Who's the geeks? Who are the ones who always get in trouble? First
impressions count and the most efficient way of not making a complete
fool of yourself as a first impression is to be shy, reserves, quiet
and yet 'fit-in'. A bit of a contradiction there. Unfortunately, if you
pick wrongly you are guarantied to be an 'outcast' for a very long
time, but if you pick correctly you could, just, almost, might
be&;#8230; okay.
However, new teachers are an entirely different species. New teachers
couldn't be more different from new pupils. While new pupils try and
diminish themselves into mid-air, teachers tend to try and mark out
their territory. This is the animal bit coming out, like a dog pissing
on a lamppost - marking out it's territory. Teachers have a gap to
fill, the pupils all know the last teacher, know their way around the
labyrinth of school corridors and they know that new teachers equal
trouble. New teachers are not evil (or so I'm told) but they have a
problem. Major concern number one is that they need the pupils to
respect them, this is not because they have large egos that need
satisfying (although some do) but because otherwise you wouldn't be
teaching any lessons - you'd be observing monkeys.

So these new teachers come sweeping along each new year, with their
fancy-Dan qualifications and the slim hope of teaching someone
something. But first they need that thing called respect. This is done
mainly by shouting:

"Do not chew in my lessons, I AM THE KING!"

"But Sir&;#8230;"

"I AM THE KING!! Thou shalt not chew in thy lessons!"

"I wasn't, I'm allergic to chewing&;#8230;"

"Do you want an after school detention or shall I staple your tongue
to the desk?"

And so on&;#8230;
The good news is that the majority of teachers get their respect very
quickly and settle down teaching their pupils and they put their tongue
stapler back at the bottom of their draw - phew. Unfortunately
sometimes this process can take more than a few days. One day I was
innocently walking into school at break time and a "new teacher" was on
duty.

"Where do you think you're going? OUT!"

"But&;#8230;"

"OUT! You're not allowed in, break has NOT finished yet!"

"But I need the toilet."

"Well, you can wait until the end of break."

"But if I wait until the end of break before I go to the toilet then I
will miss the beginning of my next lesson, won't I?"

The teacher, unable to find fault in my logic, allowed me to go the
toilet that break time. They also let me go to the toilet the next
break time they were on duty without questioning. This however is the
flaw with the new teachers. They need their respect but they don't have
so much of the logic to back it up.