EPTI study in Bangor, North Wales, I feel it's incredibly important here to point out that I'm not Welsh, if only to maintain good old British rivalries. I finished my first year some months ago and each year we get placed in a school for 8-12 weeks. I ended up in a school in Rhyl... for anyone who knows Rhyl they'll agree with me when I say it's one of the worst places to go in the world. It's run down and full of people who on the surface appear to be the definition of the word pleb but when you look deeper are just the products of an isolated community ruined my industrial decline; this coupled with a large influx of travellers has resulted in a community blighted my violence, alcohol and unemployment. It's these peoples children I get to teach in a school next to a caravan park.
I'll make it clear here that the kids were 6-7 and were incredibly fun too teach, funny, entertaining and too ignorant to know any better. Teaching them was a joy and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as anyone who has children will surely know, the often pick up sayings, phrases or mannerisms which would be rude, offensive or just disgusting if used by an adult, or even an older child; they don't know this and are just copying what they hear, in this case: from their parents or older siblings.
The average age of a parent appeared to be 22, just 3 years older than myself and they themselves are a product of this system and it's seeing the parents that truly makes you despair. The first issue arose a week or so in: in this particular school, every morning the parents would drop their children off at the classroom door and the children go and sit on the carpet for the register. If a child is late the parent has to sign a book giving a reason, the classroom door is wide open at this time bare in mind. One mother who appears to be middle aged drops her child off late and is signing the book when her younger offspring, a toddler, starts crying, the mother proceeds to shout "oh will you shut the fuck up!". Now if you treat your child like shit, that's on you and you'll pay the consequences later, but when you are swearing in front of a class of 6 year olds who aren't your children then you've crossed the line. I had to politely tell off the woman in charge and ask her to keep her voice down in future. I'm sure any body who's been in a position of authority over someone significantly older than them when they're young will agree with me when I say it is the most alien thing in the world the first time you have to do it. It's not telling a child off, it's telling a grown adult off, someone who should know better.
The best children in the class for inappropriate stories were two twins. Everyone knows the Batman story right? Bruce Wayne sees his parents gunned down and becomes the caped crusader, Gothams Dark Knight and seeks to rid the city of the criminal underbelly which robbed him of his parents, defeating a rogue's gallery of villains along the way? Remember the one with the 72 virgins? No me either... so when one of the twins told me this was his favourite Batman film you can only imagine my response. My jaw hung for a second before the automatic response of 'Oh right, how about spiderman?' praying to God for a more child-friendly response. The relish which he said '72 virgins' showed how completely oblivious he was of what he was saying(or maybe not I guess).
This kid came out with another great one liner, I'll paint you the scene with my imagination brush: I'm painting Noah's Ark with 4 children at a time, this was early on in my placement so I was still getting to know the class. The two twins were there and I was asking what they were doing
Me: 'So what did you two do when you got home from school?'
Kid: 'We watched a film'
Me: 'Oh yeah? Was it a funny film?'
Kid: 'Yeah!'
M: 'Was it a cartoon?'
K: 'No it was people'
M: 'what happened in it?'
The child, whilst telling me this: 'Yeah there was this funny bit where the man took off the woman's top and felt this one, and then this one!' proceeded to grab his nipples. I was of course taken back once more.
I hope someone enjoys reading these stories, I'm sure there were loads but it was several months ago and my memory is male so not particuarly good.
GLHF
Looking forward to more stories if you'd like to share more!
