in senior school

I just got home from work, and I'm pissed.

I have just spent almost three hours pacing up and down a room filled final year students who were completing an exam. It was so boring. The most interesting thing I got to see in that time was the kids shaking their hands in the air to get rid of the writing cramps. That was my visual stimuli for the afternoon.

Welcome to my life.

Picture this:

You are calmly eating your lunch with your colleagues. A near-hysterical seventeen-year-old in a red senior school jumper (as opposed to blue - elite, yes?) appears in the doorway, waving a fat wad of paper at you.

Please can I see you, miss? Now?

You sigh a deep sigh. You have become resigned to this. It happens once a week on average, after all. You know exactly how it is going to end. You will look over the student's work; you will point out their errors, give them encouraging suggestions. They will look at you blankly. You will repeat these suggestions in different words.

If you are lucky, you will see the gleam of recognition shining back at you (We live for this. Sad, isn't it?) Most likely, however, the student will simply stare at the page, tears welling in their eyes.

I'm just really stressed out, they might say. My mum and dad will kill me if I don't do well this year.

At this point, you tell them that the stress is not going to help them study.

Try to relax, you say. This isn't the most important thing on earth.

You have several anecdotes to use in this situation. You think back, try to remember if you've used any of them with this particular student already. As relevant and/or appropriate, you repeat one or more of the following:

1. When you finished high school, at least six of your friends got into Engineering degrees. By the end of the first year of the course, none of them were still studying.

2. Your brother quit school when he was fourteen, and did an electrical apprenticeship. He makes double what you do, and you went to university.

3. You know someone (actually your friend's partner's friend - quite a degree of seperation - but they don't need to know that) who wanted to be a doctor, but didn't get in, so they did a science degree. When they had finished that, they reapplied for Medicine, and now they really are a doctor.

4. You didn't originally want to be a teacher (they are surprised by this, for some reason). In fact, it was something you decided in my mid-twenties. Most of your friends did not wind up doing what they wanted to do when they were seventeen.

Hopefully, the above works to placate said student. Usually one of them does, as long as you give a clear explanation of the moral.

For some reason, they can't always figure that bit out for themselves.

They're very short-sighted.

Poor little buggers.