The schoolgirl on the bus
Posted by Abel on 14 May 2008 at 08:06 am | Tagged as: Perverting Reality
I’ve been very virtuous these past few days. See, the kind folks for whom I’m running a project at the moment will quite happily lay on a taxi from my hotel to their offices and back each day. Total cost to them - around £30.Or, as the weather’s nice and I’m so considerate, I could jump on the local bus for 90p each way - and take a short stroll in the lovely sunshine.
This morning, we were joined en route by a group of schoolgirls, all smartly-dressed in neat blazers. They discussed the revision they’d done over the weekend - good girls, clearly.
Good, that is, save one of their number. For she, dear readers, took out her mobile phone (banned on school premises), uttered an astonishingly rude word to the person she called (swearing: banned), and managed to combine the immaculate uniform with several items of jewellery (banned) and make-up (banned).
One can picture her face at the start of her first lesson of the day, when she spotted that the gentleman who’d sat next to her on the bus was their new supply teacher*. He’d have to send her out of his lesson to report to her Housemaster’s study, naturally, with a carefully-written note. After all, new masters need to establish their authority, and her tearful look as she winced her way into her desk on her return from her caning would demonstrate his strict approach most clearly.
* No, I was going to an office. I doubt they’d have me as a schoolmaster.
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But it was a public bus so it wasn’t school premises so she could do whatever she wanted, surely?
Oh no she couldn’t! She was wearing the uniform and so representing the school, even worse to let the school and herself down in public like that, she deserves everything she gets, the naughty girl
But if the school is so mean to her, it’s kinda unreasonable of them to expect her to go and represent them positively, isn’t it?
It’s character-building *g*
Yeah, you’re not the school’s responsibility until you’ve registered. I take great pleasure in smoking outside my school. (But never in school uniform.. Obviously.) And Abel, I’m sure they’d have you as a teacher. You should totally come work at my school!
The basis of many a Janus story is schoolgirls getting caught doing things like smoking or shoplifting in their school uniforms, and getting duly punished for sullying the school’s good name … so I assume there is some basis in fact for that.
I didn’t go to a school that required uniforms (more’s the pity) so I don’t know from experience.
We weren’t supposed to smoke on school grounds, but I got away with that! I also skipped quite a few classes! I was so bad!
Having re-read the post… Theses girls had already started revision? But the exams arn’t for like, two weeks- making the rest of us look bad!
Hmmm… not sure you really need anyone else to make you look bad Evie, I rather think you enjoy doing that for yourself, and you do it so well too!
It’s a talent, some can dance, others can sing, I can make myself look bad!
I’m surprised no one picked up on the “new masters need to establish their authority” line.
I heard a new teacher to the school earlier in the year explaining to a parent (not me, before you ask!) why his primary school child had been told to write 250 lines a couple of times in the first weeks. He said you have to start there so later you can back off a bit.
I do hope that all new Masters are paying attention.
Just to give a real-life example of this…
My friend R was once made to stand up in front of the whole school at assembly… Her crime? Two days earlier, she had had the temerity, on the way home carrying games kit, school bag and *cello*, to stay wedged in her seat (the last one on the back row) instead of standing up for an older lady.
Said older lady then checked out the school uniform, called the school, and with a bit of sleuthing between bus routes, the cello, the games kit (which narrowed it down our year), and of course the red hair (bit of a giveaway), came up with the culprit - R. Who was ritually embarrassed, made an example of, and, if I recall correctly, put into detention (the worst punishment at our otherwise fairly strict and severe establishment).
So - when you’re in your uniform, watch out!
While I’m all for giving a seat to someone who needs it more, wasn’t there anyone else on the bus the older lady could pick on than the heavily-laden student who was clearly working on being a credit to her school in academics, athletics, and art? And while the older lady had time on her hands to track down the student, why did the school officials? Your school staff seem a bit scary, littlenic.
sclurker - well, it was a long time ago (20 years, gasp!!), but even at the time we were struck by the unfairness of it all.
In fairness to the school - it was fee-paying, had only been founded 8 years previously, was trying to build a reputation, and was also built on a foundation of Christianity, formality, rules, and discipline. So I can see why they felt they needed to make an example of my chum - even if they were wrong in this particular case.
I get cross when I see kids sitting on the tube or buses when adults are standing, and it’s not just because the kids are travelling for free, but because that’s the way I was brought up, that grown-ups got to sit before kids did if there wasn’t enough room. Would I feel the same about a kid with two bags and a cello? No. I’d probably stand up for her myself!!