Helga

"No farewell words were spoken, no time to say goodbye. You were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why."  Unknown Author

I've puzzled over remembering her name, which is nothing short of shameful.  I know why though, she was difficult.  She was difficult in a very difficult class.  It was a wonder to me that so many slightly unhinged children had ended up in one place.  I taught them originally for English and then, the following year, for Drama.  This class bore evidence to the fact that testing is madness and tells us nothing (because all the power rests with the question maker) because in that class I ended up with 25 kids with special needs and 5 who were not, in one room.  (Interestingly, I made friends with one of them 20 years later on Facebook.  Biggest.  Mistake.  Of. My. Life.  Where once he'd been an annoying marginally cute peck of a child, he had turned into an obnoxious beer swilling misogynistic homophobe.  Unfriend.  Block.)

In that class there were 8 children on the lowest ability table all very pleasant but none of them able to read and write (they were 11).  Not one.  And this was in the day before teaching assistants so somehow I had to manage them, and the 5 bright kids, along with a very curious bag of behavioural problems.   I'd set up a task and then some minutes later, I'd emerge from the special needs table with none of them further on.  The names have escaped me but not the pain of having to get some words out of them.

Later, when they had grown a year, they became totally unmanageable.  People talked about some of those boys in the staffroom with hushed tones.  There was one boy in particular (I will not name him) who made most staff wish they'd chosen street cleaning as a profession (although I think he would have still sought them out and he'd have still made their life hell.)

I once looked on the internet (Friends Reunited - remember that?) only to discover that someone had actually married him and he seemed normal. The thing about most classes, even if they possess a couple of choice individuals they mostly rubbed along together, and they sort of gelled eventually.  This class - who I'll call Class H for the want of not wanting to call them anything else - seemed, on the whole, to hate each other.
Drama with them was a kind of weekly battle.  They couldn't sit still in the normal course of things, so imagine the total chaos that ensued when  all the desks were removed.  I recall - at my wit's end of being unable to command them in anyway at all - putting each of them on a chair, one in front of the other across the length of the hall in a desperate attempt to gain some control.  It worked, but only for so long: minutes from memory.   I also remember using every single teacher phrase on them, "It's your own time you're wasting", "I don't have anything else to do," and "Every single minute you waste will be added at the end."  This class made me realise that detention meant only one thing - a punishment for yourself.
 
The rest is here