Sorry, no curtain follow-up today

Maybe tomorrow? No progress made, so you're not missing anything.

Today I "taught" 3 hours at an inner-east school, Year 8s. I tell you, it's the best school I've been to so far, for the following reasons:

1. We went to the sport centre and some dude did some gym stuff with them. I stood there and when one of the kids said "Why don't you stretch, Miss?" I said "I can't do that."

2. One of the boys said to me "Can you be our homeroom teacher? You seem like a nice person." I joked that he'd only met me, first impressions and all that; I could turn out to be really... "Evil?" his friend suggested. "Yeah," I said. "Really evil." They loved it.

3. We finished early so we went to the park across the road for 10 mins.

4. We went back to school, spent the rest of the time in the library (I sat with 2 geeks as they played Dungeons and Dragons and asked them stupid questions); I helped one girl try to find a rhyme for her rap she was writing (the word was 'children') and then the bell went and we all went home.

5. Year 8s, you don't need to worry so much about litigation. You don't need to make sure they go to the toilet in pairs or threes. You can joke around with them and use sarcasm and they get it. You can use big words. You can spend just a little time and make them feel a bit special. Listened to and cared about. Preps don't even notice/care.

6. One of the guys told me what 'necromancy' means. He reminded me of Rainman. You should have seen him on the treadmill.

7. There was absolutely NO WHINGEING, NO DOBBING, NO SNOT, NO GRUBBY HANDS PAWING ME, NO INTERRUPTIONS WHEN I WAS TALKING, NO PARENTS HOVERING JUST OUTSIDE THE ROOM.

Seriously, Year 8 kids rock. The boys are hilarious, they have an arsenal of jokes of professional stand-up quality, the girls are natural and inquisitive and funny and they all intermingled and while we were in the library I had to keep an eye on 5 students outside on the oval - 4 dudes and 1 chick... playing footy.

And it was a school where everyone in the staff room was really friendly, and didn't ignore me like they tend to in the government/Anglo-centric schools. What is it with the Anglo reserve? I know I have a tendency to be reserved, but I like it when teachers are more outgoing. There was all sorts of conversation going on, it was fun just to listen to it.

I hope I go back. One day has made me wonder about primary teaching entirely. One day.