Freedom!

Oh well, all right. No blue face, and no hair extensions either. But I do feel a sense of freedom right now, having discarded my only private student on the grounds that he kept giving me late notice that he wouldn't be coming (at breakfast this morning - he was on a trip that was arranged ages ago) or - even more annoying - simply not turning up. A bright kid, engaging and essentially well-mannered - but completely scatter-brained and disorganised.

I've commented on this before. His parents, middle-class and highly educated both, know fine how scatty he is. But do they take the trouble to nag him about his obligations? Or even ask him if he's checked in about a lesson if there's any doubt? Or even - shock, horror - tried contacting me themselves to see how he's getting on/apologise/offer an explanation?

No on all counts, I'm afraid. So, on behalf of teachers everywhere who are deemed to be beyond common courtesy - I walked away. And I wrote the letter. It's in the post. And I feel liberated.

"Free at last" ... if you prefer Larkin. Source, anyone?

Missing links?

How disgruntled I can still feel when a pupil lets me down. After all these years, you'd think I'd know to expect this, but when my student didn't turn up for the last private lesson of term today I was, to be honest, pissed off. Partly it was because I'd had to curtail my own afternoon to be back here for the right time - and had actually remarked how I could no longer be bothered having to do anything - although I had plenty to do in preparation for the meeting I'm chairing on Saturday. But partly it was because here is a really bright kid who needs what I have to give him - especially the push to put some real work into English - and parents who cared enough to set him up with the lessons and pay for them, and yet neither he nor the parents seem to have realised that he'd messed up.

So tell me, anyone reading this: how much responsibility do you take for your 14 year old child? Do you let him take care of his own arrangements, even if his tendency to absent-mindedness messes up someone else's? Or do you step in to check if you feel he's got it wrong, to liaise with the teacher just in case? When my family were at school, I seemed to be incredibly bound up in the minutiae of band practices, forgotten trumpets, late sessions on the magazine ... but then I was part of all that, and at times we felt we were living in a boarding school.

Rant over. Holiday approaching. But I'll maybe update if I ever find out what happened - maybe there was an earthquake. Just a little one.