Chinese whispers · Tue Apr 25, 22:30 by Eleri Straker
My first teaching position was in my old school. This might seem strange, but quite a number of us old students returned to our alma mater as teachers. It probably tells you something about how much we enjoyed being in that school….
Anyway, during one of my lessons I was told a curious story. About the infamous Killer of old, who was still teaching at the school. The story was circulating that he was really dangerous and shouldn’t be crossed as he had, the kids insisted, thrown a student out of a second storey window… It took all my self-control not to laugh out loud as I knew the real story, but there was absolutely no way that I was going to tell it!
What really happened was this: Some years earlier, when I was still a student at the school, the Geography room in which Killer taught was a ground floor room which had a floor- to- ceiling bay window (the building was originally a Victorian mansion later used as a college before it became a state school). He was teaching a class, which contained a rather difficult student, that, for now, I will call John Smith.
John Smith was apparently being a bit of a pain, so Killer, standing up had said, “John Smith, get up!”
John, stood up and with Killer bearing down on him, his metal-tipped shoes clattering threateningly on the parquet flooring, stepped back. John’s desk was in the bay window and as he stepped back, he stepped out through the bay, which was wide open. The playground was about three inches below the windowsill, so he stepped out onto the tarmac without even a stumble…
As in the manner of all stories based solely on an oral tradition, this story changed and grew with each successive telling until the final tale bore little resemblance to the truth. What was interesting was the insight it gave me into the way Killer maintained his terrifying reputation. I discovered that Killer knew of the story and did nothing to refute it as he realised that it helped to propagate his infamous reputation for each successive generation of school children.
Like the children that I taught at that school, I too was terrified of Killer. Now however, the bogeyman of my past provides me with endless anecdotes with which to entertain my students. I’m not sure if he’d approve, but when I explain the oral tradition to my students, the way that this frightening teacher from my schooldays maintained his ferocious reputation provides the perfect example.
