Am I missing someting?

I am thinking of writing a poem about my school and I shall entitle it “Does it have a mark?” This is because the status of learning in our establishment is directly related to the mark that one might get for shoving it into one’s head to allow one to regurgitate it on paper at a later date. And then promptly forget it of course.



One of the weaker years in our place is particularly concerned that they are not subject to “unfair” practices which will force them into the intolerable position of giving some of their precious time set aside for cramming to something which may not be in the exam and therefore, by virtue of not being examined, not being important and therefore can be dismissed from serious consideration.


Achievement has been narrowed into what can be examined and education is basically a mark out of ten.


It is exhausting to do something so essentially empty and the thanklessness of the consumers doesn’t make such a thankless task any the easier.


Ironically as I sit and fume at the impertinence of needy pupils the first of the welcome emoluments from my decades of toil should be pouring (well, dripping) into my bank account. I expect that my first cheque will be horrifically small as so-called “emergency” taxation is ripped from it but that must surely be repaid at the end of this financial year which is not too far away in April 2011.


I am sure that I should be taking some advice about what is going to happen over the next few months as the reality of what is occurring is going to affect my decisions about what to do next academic year.


Meanwhile the sun shines and all is not well with the world – although it would be if I could have the money without the drudgery of the work that goes with it. Alas, I have found to my cost that money does not come to one unasked, as it were!


Tonight should be the evening in which the Follett book is finished off and then will rust gently in its undisturbed corner for the rest of its existence until it falls into dust having been read once. Alternatively, I could take it in to school and get a few more reads for my money out of a novel that I should have ordered in its electronic form anyway.


Decisions! Decisions!