The Strange Scotsman (Part the Second)

He wasn't quite as strange as this, but close.



As I mentioned in Part 1, I am responsible for the relief teachers at Nuova Lazio High School, which means amongst other things, that I have to recruit, retain, train, protect and organise a smallish team of mugs dedicated professionals who I use to cover the classes of the wimps poor sick teachers who have had to skive be absent for various reasons.

Get up and back to work you skiving bast*rd

Recruitment is actually quite a problem.

Various ex-teachers can sometimes be induced to return on a part-time and intermittent basis to the living hell we call the modern classroom, (ex-Clive amongst them), but most never wish to see a whiteboard again.  For some of these poor benighted souls, the sight of a whiteboard can reduce them to gibbering, screaming wrecks, and in some extreme cases, they have been known to become allergic to chalk, the colour white and especially the mention of the word "Pedagogy".

You mentioned Pedagogy you, you bloody pedagogue

To make up the numbers required, which can vary from 3 to as many as 14 per day, I urge my colleagues to persuade any non-employed teachers they may know.  Some lucky poor, newly qualified teachers are pretty anxious to start practising the esoteric skills they have laboriously attained in their teaching practises and schools of education, and they can often be kidnapped horns waggled induced to go onto my relieving teacher list.

I NEED THE MONEY...Please let me be a reliever at NLHS

Sometimes I get phone calls or emails from prospective relievers, who want to see the school first and observe the rabid animals pupils at close quarters before they actually start, and some even do, after I give them back their white sticks, walking frames or hearing aids. 


Very occasionally, I get a drop-in.  Someone who just decides that they'd like to experience the unalloyed hell joy of relief teaching at first hand.

Over the years I've had some really strange drop-ins.

I had an ex-psychiatric nurse, not trained as a teacher in anyway, but who thought it wouldn't be too dissimilar to his previous experience, and he was probably right.  I know he'd feel right at home in the staffroom, but probably he'd be a bit out of his depth in an actual classroom.

He was either a psychiatric nurse or a nurse in psychiatric care...whatever

I should point out that I have very strict criteria applying to these prospective relievers.
They must:

• Be actually breathing
• Be able to distinguish light from dark
• Not jump at loud noises
• Have a vague idea that all these small (I use this word advisedly, some of our Samoan boys can in no way be described as small, for any value of small smaller than a bull elephant) people are what we professionals call "children"
• Be in possession of a New Zealand Teaching Council (NZTC) Registration.

This last point is quite important.

Firstly it means that if I check that the registration is current and valid, I am no longer responsible if the holder of the said registration is a convicted child murderer, notorious pervert or even not quite human.

She's a teacher.  Seems safe enough to me.

To get a NZTC registration, the holder has to convince the NZTC that they are "qualified" and have no criminal history or other unsavoury previous which would put our little kiddies at risk.

So I carefully check every applicant in this regard, especially as my job is at risk if I don't.

Then this rather strange Scotsman wandered in.

Bugger, I have to stop and set relief for tomorrow.  More later.....