Princess: The Return · Mon Dec 4, 22:52 by Eleri Straker
Next week, Princess returns to the fold.
She was excluded for twenty days for some stupidity or other and teaching the remaining members of my year 11 class has been an actual pleasure.
During Princess’ absence, it has been possible to teach properly. The atmosphere in the classroom has changed. There has been good-natured banter and real learning going on. Over one week, we have managed to review the entire collection of literature poetry for the Mock GCSEs. With Princess present, to get through one poem in a lesson was deemed a success. Students that I believed were the same as Princess, as they seemed equally disruptive, without the poisonous presence of the Chav, have shown themselves to be thoughtful and bright. In fact, Princess’ partner in crime in the lessons settled down to work and achieved a decent B in the Mocks, something that I hadn’t believed possible before.
Over the last eighteen months or so, I have dreaded every lesson with this class, believing that they didn’t want to learn, and that they just wanted to make life as difficult as possible for those of us who were trying to work.
Over the last twenty days I’ve learned that the majority of the class actually want to learn and quite enjoy being with me.
Isn’t it sad that one student can be such a destructive force in a class?
What I’m hoping is that the remaining members of the class have noticed the difference both in atmosphere and learning and want this new, pleasant environment to continue. If that is the case, then I hope that it will be they, not I, that force Princess to change her ways.
Peer pressure is often regarded as potentially harmful. This is one time that I hope it will have the opposite effect.
