Day 9 - Sound, she is, mun!

The highest praise a teacher can overhear about herself is that she's sound.

I had been given a class to teach for the rest of this term, ostensibly so that the class teacher could be released to set up a Therapy Group for Pupils with Low Self Esteem. So, every Thursday, I would be teaching PSE to 7C. Today was my first session with them.

We barely had time to do Introductions before the lesson was over, but during the session, we established that I'm a big fan of Good Manners, that if you use Good Manners all the time, there is no way you can ever get into trouble, that at least 7 of the boys were confused by my Classroom Personality and spent the whole lesson working out ways of trying to challenge my authority, and that there are 5 City fans in the room, myself included.

"Where do you sit down the ground, then?" demanded Scott, challengingly, as if he'd catch me out if I didn't know the areas of the ground. He was one of the ones who was trying to work out how to undermine me and take the class.
"Near the tunnel," I answered. Scott tried again.
"You know what a Glory Hunter is?"
"Yes."
"You one of them?"
"I've been a City supporter since I was 6," I told the little tyke. "That's 34 years, so don't you go casting aspersions, young fella me laddio!"
"Worrrh! 34 yerze! 'igh five, Miss!" interjected William, who was a member of the English class in which I supported a fellow member of the English Department, and I obliged by high-fiving him. It was, after all, Collecting In Portfolios Time. Scott gave him a look of disgust, but I could see I'd possibly taken William out of Scott's Naughty Gang from that moment on, simply by being a City supporter.

When I had dismissed them, they trundled noisily out of the room. I followed a few moments later to go and get my lunch. Voices floated up to me in the stairwell:

"What have you just had?"
"PSE with Ms B!"
"Orrrrh! She my English teacher, she is!"
"Sound she is, mun!"

As I said, the highest praise a teacher can overhear about herself is that she's sound. I smiled all the way to the fridge.