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It was Friday and I’d just finished taking a Year 11 class who make me feel like more of a zoo keeper than a teacher and not a very good one at that.  Anyway, so I have half the class who constantly shout across the room about things like drug taking, extortion and bullying which for them is a much more worthwhile pastime than the pursuit of History and a few good kids who have lost all motivation to work because of the morons shouting across the room ruining the lesson. 

The only historical discussion they ever have any interest in has to involve asylum seekers and usually ends up with them proposing a solution that would probably result in their own deportation.  The teacher before me who had them in Year 11 would send the less committed to one side of the room and let them chat while she taught the others.  This was a very controversial teaching method and apart from being incredibly unethical actually didn’t work and the class I inherited knew very little about History.  In fact many of them spoke of little beside drugs, extortion and bullying.  

So I’m sitting there with the same Y11 class and the kids are busy doing questions from a sheet.  As usual the conversations start and some of them start talking across the room.  One says to a few others “Yeah, so the other day I was down Thornton Heath and I saw a guy get out of a car, walk right past me to this skinhead guy and blow his brains out”  There was no sign of disbelief just the need to out-do the story before. 

So this followed with another student saying, “Allow that! The other night I was with my cousin in Brixton and I saw this guy get knifed for no reason, his guts were hanging out the side of his body and everything, I just pegged it.”  This continued for about five minutes with the stories getting more and more ridiculous.  No student ever questioned the authenticity of these say declarations so I thought I’d bring the group back to earth so I started a story of my own.  “I was walking home from the Shirley Inn last Friday night after a few drinks when I saw this flash of light and this magic monkey floated down from the night sky riding on a cloud of pink smoke.  “Mr Foster, said the monkey, you have been a good and faithful servant to the teaching profession and as a reward for your efforts I will grant you three wishes”.  Well I looked up at the monkey and said “Do I know you monkey?  No?  Well then get yourself and your pink cloud the heck out of Shirley, this is my manor!”  And with that the monkey vanished into thin air. 

The class stared speechless until one brave student spoke for them all, “Well sir, I if I were you I reckon I would have taken the wishes.”

Andrew Foster