When I was 9, I opened my bedroom door at 11pm and found myself face-to-face with my class teacher. I was wearing my favourite Snoopy pyjamas. Miss O’Grady was sporting a bottle-green dress with huge shoulder pads and was standing calmly on the landing beneath the photo of my grandparents’ wedding and a wall-mounted ashtray depicting Pope John Paul II. The encounter surprised us both, but me most of all. I emitted a sort of gasp before beating a hasty retreat to the bunkbeds where I urgently told my sister.
When you’re at primary school, running into teachers out of context is disconcerting. When you have a parent who teaches at your school who has agreed to host the staff Christmas party, it can be an even greater shock.
You see, primary teachers are not supposed to do normal everyday activities like shopping, eating out or getting petrol. They’re not really supposed to exist outside of school. I’ve had children fall motionless in supermarkets, open-mouthed to see the person who teaches them phonics perusing the cereal aisle. I’ve had a boy bring his entire family, one by one, from the far end of a packed café to marvel at the sight of a teacher in the wild.
Embarrassing encounters
For the teacher, your reaction will depend very much on where you are. Aisle 6 in Tesco (before you’re reached the wine and spirits section) is fine; stepping out on to your Mediterranean hotel room balcony to discover that the adjacent balcony is occupied by the largest, loudest family in the school is really not (this happened to a friend of mine who subsequently made a point of getting every child in the class to write about their holiday plans before she booked anything).
It can’t be easy teaching quadratic equations to people who have seen you in nothing but stilettos, a feather boa and a lacy thong
Another of my teacher friends was in the throes of a difficult labour when the chief midwife was brought in to assist. She reckons the shock of recognition helped speed up the birth. “All I could think was, ‘How am I going to manage parents’ evening after Helena’s mum has yelled at me to “push”?’” she told us later.
Mr Brighouse and his teenage pals ran into their maths teacher at a performance of The Rocky Horror Show. It can’t be easy teaching quadratic equations to people who have seen you in nothing but stilettos, a feather boa and a lacy thong.
But, however memorable the encounter is for the teacher, it is nearly always more so for the child. I once bumped into a six-year-old in a Sainsbury’s café who was delighted to discover that we had both ordered chocolate cake. Months later, in the middle of a maths lesson on data, we had to put our favourite cakes into the table. My hand was hovering over the cherry bakewell when I heard a small voice say confidently to his neighbour, “Miss will pick the chocolate cake. It’s both our favourites. We always eat it when we go to Sainsbury’s.”
Jo Brighouse is a primary school teacher in the Midlands
