The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2358 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I spent a joyous afternoon marking first year papers—okay, so I lied. Some of them are so dumb, they can’t even spell ‘ecology’. There are only a limited number of variations before it visits the realms of surrealism. What I can’t really decide is if they are just stupid, poorly schooled or am I doing something wrong?

Some of the responses to my initial lecture, when I tend to play games with them, such as scattering bat-shit all over the place, or getting them to consider the ecology of student life, I often get some quite interesting essays back with sometimes offbeat observations or even weird conclusions. However, while they might criticise me, which is fair game, I feel at least I engaged them, getting some response. Occasionally, I get feedback which tells me they love my theatrical or challenging form of teaching—this usually comes from tutorial groups, but not always mine. We share information amongst the staff—usually anonymously. So a colleague will say, had a couple of students who loved your so and so lecture, and I tell them the same sort of stuff, occasionally—they didn’t like your lecture.

One guaranteed way of getting a positive response from sixty plus per cent of the students is to take my nut guzzling teaching aid with me. If Spike assists me, the female students seem to go all gooey and want to sign up for dormouse surveys. I try to point out only those with good marks in both project work and essays get asked. The sort of crème de la dormouse grade student. However, it gives motivation to one or two who fancy themselves as programme presenters on television or radio. I try to point out that many of those who do such things have good degrees and actually know what they’re talking about. I suggest if they wantto be rich and famous they’d have a better chance with a ‘reality TV show’ eating live woodlice or witchery grubs. The term reality, is I think, used ironically—least I hope it is.

I read twelve papers in two hours, only a hundred to go—I did begin to lose the will to live, then realised I needed to go and collect my daughters and my sanity somewhere in between. I locked the papers in the filing cabinet in my ‘office’ and went to get the girls.

Sister Maria was waiting for me as I arrived. “Could I have a word, Lady C?”

“Where are the girls?” I asked expecting them to be waiting for me by the door.”

“They’re helping Sister Conchita...did I say something amusing?” she looked at me in an irritated bewilderment.

“Um, sorry, but after that Austrian twit won the Eurovision Song Contest, I can’t take the name Conchita, seriously.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The winner of the contest won claiming to be a bearded transvestite who was trying to raise awareness of the intolerance to gay people in Russia, possibly with overtones re Ukraine and so on.”

“I still don’t see the connection with my staff member.”

“This Austrian character called him/herself, Conchita Würst, which I think means sausage or something similar in German.”

“I’m surprised at your apparent dislike of this person.”

“I don’t dislike them, it was a political act, doing what they did and I’m not sure it’s appropriate at the Euro song contest. Had they attempted to look like a female without the outrageous element of the beard, I might have felt more kindly towards them. An Israeli transsexual singer won it several years ago and she was very good.”

“Hmmm,” she said sounding unconvinced.

“Sorry, I don’t like drag acts even those who claim to have a message for the world at large.”

“Why not—I’d have thought...”

“Uh no. They don’t represent me at all, ordinary women do that, they parody women and while I don’t have a problem with humour poking fun at everything, and I mean everything, I don’t like to be in any shape or way associated with drag acts. I mean would you go to listen to Richard Dawkins talk about religion?”

“Probably not.” She shook her head.

“I presume you didn’t ask to speak to me about the Eurovision Song Contest?”

“Ah no.” She led me into her office. “Take a look at these.” She handed me two papers, which I could see were preliminary rounds for the schools’ quiz team. One was Livvie’s the other Trish’s, they’d both scored ninety out of a hundred. I glanced through some of the questions, they weren’t identical but quite close to it.”

“Do you suspect them of conferring?”

“No, they were in separate rooms.”

“I told you they were bright.”

“I knew that already.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Only two girls in the sixth form beat them on this test.”

“Well they are somewhat preoccupied with exams aren’t they?”

“I wanted to ask your permission if these results happen again could we recruit both your daughters for the quiz team?”

“I’m sure they’d be delighted to help,” they enjoy showing off their cleverness just like I did at their age and sometimes still do.

“Oh good. You know both these girls are very gifted.”

“I am aware, Sister.”

“Very gifted,” she repeated, “we are very fortunate to have them here.”

“Does that mean you’re going to reduce my school fees?” I teased.

“Certainly not, in fact I should increase them as they consume more of the teacher’s time than most of the other girls put together.”

“Why, because they challenge lazy thinking or poor teaching?”

“Occasionally that is probably and unfortunately true, but we all have lapses when we produce sub standard work, even though we shouldn’t.”

“I try not to because I have a hundred odd students who have to pay for their tuition who shout loudly if we’re wasting their time or not producing what they feel we should.”

“You don’t have that criticism very often, do you?”

“How could you know that?”

“I’ve seen you teach several times, you’re an inspirational teacher and brilliant communicator. I only ever met one like you before and I had the great good fortune to study under her for religious studies.”

“Oh,” I could have said loads of things but didn’t because it would have been unhelpful. I suppose if your method is good you can teach most things you have an understanding of, so could I teach religious instruction? Probably though I wouldn’t want to and I bet no one else would really want me to either. It would be like asking Comrade Lenin to teach the history of the Romanov family. I think I’ll stick to dormice.

“Is that it then?” I asked looking at my watch aware that my kids would have been ready to go home ten minutes before.

She blushed. That surprised me, what did I say to make a nun blush. I’m sure I didn’t swear. “There is one more thing, Lady Cameron.”

Here we go, what is it this time?

“You did such a wonderful job last time, would you present the prizes again this year?”

“I don’t have any more outtakes to show you.”

“I’m sure you’d be equally entertaining without them.”

A silly idea went through my equally silly mind based upon one of my crazy attempts to inform my students about the essentials of ecology. We did the ecology of Bugs Bunny for which I got Sammi to compile me some clips off the internet. I wondered if that would work...