Parent power wins every time. A mother explained to her son who had just started school: “You will soon be able to read your own stories at bedtime. ” A few weeks later, as she was reading to him, he interrupted: “I still can’t read this, you know. I am going to give that woman another week and I think I’ll leave school and let you take over.”
Equally impatient were a class of infants who had listened in rapt attention to a well-known fable. When the teacher asked, “Now what do you think that means we have to do?”, there was no response. After a few more hints one piped up: “It doesn’t really matter what it means, Miss. Just get on with the other stories in the book.”
Another teacher was putting a spelling list on the board for homework, reading the words aloud as she wrote. Straining his eyes to copy it down, a fellow at the back of the class asked loudly: “Please, Miss, could you write that spelling a bit slower, I didn’t hear it?” John Muir, who provided these examples of pupil lore, is still on the lookout for further contributions to his next collection of Classroom Clangers. Offerings to Craig Dhu, Rowan Avenue, Dornoch, Sutherland IV25 3QW.
