Open Writing

So now I know why I wasn’t fluent in French when I left school.

Along with the other 29 boys in Class 5A I spent far too much time staring at our French master, Walt.

He commanded our full attention, not by force of character, and certainly not by his disciplinary authority.

Poor Walt, who then I suppose would be in his late forties or early fifties, had little or no control over us. His classes were bedlam. Threats of detentions, of having to stay in school for 45 minutes after the final bell of the day, did little to quell the din.

Walt paid a terrible price for his lack of authority. His features were constantly on the move, presenting an ever-changing pattern of twitches and grimaces.

Even when he was not in front of a class, as he paced with gown flapping through the draughty corridors of our Victorian grammar school, his face was prompted into constant mobility by a stream of harassed thoughts.

Walt also frequently muttered to himself.

Often, during class, he would set a piece of written work. A translation of dull paragraphs about bakers, postmen and trains from French into English, or vice-versa.

He would then bend his head to mark previous written work that we had half-accomplished. Each movement of his pen was accompanied by a mumble and a twitch.

During one exam Class 5A played a despicable trick on Walt. At the start of the exam we had each been issued with two large sheets of paper. The understanding was that if we worked assiduously and filled these sheets, we would walk to the front of the room and collect a third, or even a fourth, sheet from a pile on a corner of Walt’s desk.

As we struggled to recall the French words for a streetlight and a bus driver, Walt sat before us, muttering and twitching as he marked the exam papers of another class.

On a pre-arranged signal, we stood up and marched towards the stack of paper at the front of the class.

Walt glanced up, saw 30 leering boys advancing towards him, and fled from the room.

He returned within five minutes, accompanied by the much-feared headmaster, a tall, commanding individual known to boys and masters alike as The Boss.

Of course we were all back at our desks, scribbling away with a quiet determination.

The Head surveyed us for a few moments, then, with the slightest movement of a hand, indicated that Walt should follow him.

The classroom door was closed, but we could see The Boss and Walt through its glass panels. The Boss, looking stern, talked to Walt for a minute or so.

Then poor Walt, looking thoroughly subdued, came back into the room.

There was a good deal of chuckling and chortling at break time. But I don’t think I was the only boy to feel guilty at the extent of our cruelty.

We stared at other teachers, besides Walt.

We stared at the mathematics teacher because he was given to chucking pieces of chalk at anyone who was not paying attention.

We stared at the permanently grumpy Latin master who gave out detentions in every lesson. As we stared though we were ready to avert our eyes in an instant as he cast around the room for a victim who would be required to stand up and translate another dull paragraph from Caesar’s Gallic Wars.

We stared at the Divinity master who was given to sudden outbursts of temper, the French master who seemed to know our every thought, the Geography master who reputedly kept a leather strap in his desk with a view to applying it to the backsides of particularly ill-behaved pupils…

Come to think of it, my grammar school education was one long stare.

Which, according to psychological researchers at Stirling University, could explain a lot about me.

Their investigations indicate that children who avert their gaze while adults are speaking to them are probably taking in the facts rather than being distracted by someone’s face.

Exasperated parents who tell their children “look at me while I’m talking to you’’ should be telling them the opposite.

All those years ago then, Class 5A were not only being unkind to some chap who was more than likely in the wrong job. We were also punishing ourselves.

Serve us right.