The Urge to Stomp

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I don’t do well with glasses!

There’s been a complaint.

Apparently a GIRL in my class asked if she could wear her glasses, and I apparently said, ‘No.’

As you do!

(sigh)

I had absolutely no recollection of her ever asking me such a question; and I began a mental recall of the previous day and the myriad of questions and conversations that occur naturally within a primary classroom. Had I misheard her? Had she really asked? Had she asked while I was busy replying to someone else’s question?

It’s a dreadful worry to discover that after just a few days there is already a parent baying for blood.

I’m told not to worry. Someone ‘consoles’ me with the comment that the same parent reported a teacher to the educational authorities for mis-conduct for not allowing her child to do PE wearing earrings!

Suitably ‘cheered’ I continued with that day’s lessons.

The GIRL siddles up to me in the afternoon, there is a mischievous calculating look on her face.

‘Can I get my glasses?’ she asks.

‘Sure,’ I reply.

I’m aware of the tension in this loaded question. I can sense the history behind it, but I act as if I know nothing about any complaint.

The GIRL glutinously flops away disappointed at my complete lack of interest, she was obviously armed for a show down.

The GIRL gets her glasses, puts them on her desk, and continues ‘to work’ without bothering to put them on.

I wonder about her.

I have an unfortunate history with glasses.

A large clumsy CHILD’s father once complained at my last school that his daughter’s glasses had been deliberately stomped on during the swimming lesson.

‘But nobody would do that.’ I explained. ‘The changing rooms open onto the side of the pool and the children sit on the side when they come out waiting for their lesson to being. Nobody would be able to do that. They would be seen.’

The father was not at all appeased. The CHILD had already got an accused in mind: a thin weedy looking boy that the girl despised. He was the culprit they’d already decided, despite there being no witnesses, and a complete lack of evidence.

‘Perhaps the glasses fell to the floor and were accidentally stepped upon by her changing room partner.’ I’d suggested, thinking of the elephantine girl that squeezed into the small cubicle with her.

The father wouldn’t hear of it. I could see he now had the beginning of a suspicion that perhaps I had stomped on his precious CHILD’s glasses too.

He complained to the Head teacher.

It was agreed that the CHILD would leave her glasses with me instead.

The next swimming lesson I was already teaching the top group when the CHILD remembered her glasses and brought them to me. I was unable to leave my swimmers, who were in the middle of the deep end and was thus unable to place them in the small office at the other end of the pool, so instead I slipped them into my pocket.

All would have been well had I not been crouching down and explaining some complicated aspect of the crawl to my group, with flailing arms.

The glasses case went flying out of my pocket as I stood up; the case opened on its first bounce on the floor sending the glasses flying through the air, together with their tiny cloth. The glasses smashed onto the hard tiled floor and the cloth landed in a puddle of chlorinated-urinated water that had just been splashed up onto the side.

I scooped them up; thankful that they weren’t broken, and replaced them back in the case. The wipe was wet, but I’d have a chance to explain later, or so I thought.

There was not an opportunity to do so. There was a mix-up with jumpers, a shoe to find, a costume to reunite with its owner, and a pair of ghastly undies that no one would admit to having worn down to the pool. I forgot all about the wet cloth in the glasses case. The CHILD took the case from my hand as I fumbled with a knot that needed to be untied on somebody else’s swim bag.

The next day a furious parent had once again been in to see the Head teacher. I was informed that the glasses now had to be left with the Head and not taken down to the pool at all.

I imagine that her father must have thought that I’d deliberately thrown the CHILD’s specs to the floor, stomped on them, and wet the cloth on purpose; and no doubt the Head had shared this opinion for I was never asked for my version of events. The Head’s cold looks said it all when we next walked down to the swimming pool and the glasses’ case was ceremoniously handed over with the CHILD giving both me and the weedy boy venomous looks.

I wondered if the GIRL in this new school was some distant relative of the CHILD.

Perhaps not, as GIRL smiled at me a few days later and presented me with a skilfully made paper card during a recent wet lunch break.

A peace offering?

Perhaps.

Though … will it work?

I must admit… the urge to stomp on glasses is now very strong!