67. Will you spell that please?

Some time in June, Caroline decided that life in the private sector was not for her and she really wanted to go back to teaching.  After ten years of advising teachers how to teach effectively and informing schools how to organise their affairs, she wanted to see if all the theories and techniques that she had been advocating actually worked. 

She would return to the role of main scale teacher that she last performed nearly twenty years ago.  I think it’s rather noble and admirable of her - but barmy.

“Look at this,” Caroline said to me one afternoon in August, just before she started her new job.  “How do you think I pronounce that?”

I looked at the piece of paper she was holding and the word she was pointing at: Gerewarifucha.  It was one name in a list of names. 

Caroline told me that this was the name of one of the Year 7 maths class she would be teaching.  I could see the potential difficulty.  A lot hinged on the way she pronounced the last five letters.  Should the ‘ch’ be as in “church”, or as in “chasm”?  There’s also a boy called Xavier Kuntis.  She has decided to pronounce Kuntis to rhyme with Spoontis.

I suggested that she should do what I did some thirty-five years ago when I had to call the register in a class I had never come across before.  As I was calling out the names, I looked ahead and saw that someone was called, “Kamaljit”.  I recognised that this was an impending problem.  How should I say it so that it sounded nothing at all like “Camel Shit”?  My solution to this looming disaster was to deliberately leave it out.

“Is that everyone?” I asked breezily, when I had finished.  “Did I miss anybody out?”

“Yes, me,” said a tiny girl.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.  “What’s your name?”

“Camelshit.”

Some Irish names are only there to confuse and make life difficult for the English.  The first sixth form class I ever met at Creighton School had in it a girl called Badb.  She let me try about six times to get it right and eventually told me that it was pronounced Bibe, rhyming with jibe.  In later years I taught Niamh, pronounced Neeve and Cian, pronounced Keen.

Hindu and Turkish names often caused me problems.  Pronouncing them as they are written is usually the right way but it always made me feel uneasy. 

Ufuk is a Turkish name and there is only one way to say it but the secret is to say it in a tone that does not make it sound like a statement or a question.

We had a Japanese girl at the school some twenty years ago called Fuku but she was never put in the same group as Ufuk.  I was worried that if they ever came too close to each other they might behave like magnets.  The outcome could have either been highly embarrassing or even, possibly, repelling!

Some parents are so far off the wall as to be possibly certifiable.  I told you in “Poetry in the Raw” of the school in Cayman that had twin brothers both called Jamal Whatmore after their father.  I never met those boys and nor did I ever meet the brothers Lord-Peter and Sir-Paul Rollinson that a friend of mine tried to teach.  Apparently, they both (egged on by their mad mother, I suspect) insisted on being called by their full names.  My friend always referred to either one of them as “Rollinson”.

I went to visit another school once for a discussion about something or other with the Headteacher.  When I arrived, he wasn’t ready to see me. 

“He’s having a tather difficult meeting,” his secretary told me.  “But he shouldn’t be much longer.”

Eventually the door opened and out came a huge woman with tattoos all over her shoulders and neck.  Behind her was a boy aged about 11, wearing a tracksuit and with a skinhead haircut.  As they walked away the Head called out to him.

“This is the last time, Spike.  If there’s a next time you’ll be excluded.”

Spike!!!  That poor kid never had a chance.  Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed.  Are some parents so insensitive that they don’t foresee the problems that they cause for their children? 

I was at school with Vincent Drury and his younger sister, Victoria.  I have to initial something at least once a month.  I bet Victoria was keen to get married.  I consoled my mate Paul Drummond by telling him that the reason Vicky would never go out with him was because of his surname and he told me that she wouldn’t go out with me in case she ended up as a car!

Caroline once taught A-level maths to a class that included an Indian boy called Hardeep.  How could that ever be a problem?  Easily! 

Every time she said his name when calling the register, the rest of the boys sang the next words of the Bee Gees song “… is your love, how deep is your love?” 

She tells me that they were perfectly in tune and even after a couple of years they never tired of it.

Caroline was a student at Birmingham University and students there obviously found little to do in their spare time as she and her friend Gabi collected the names of students doing name/appropriate courses.  They knew:

Sue, who was reading law,

Beryl, who read geology,

Carol and Melody in the music department,

Mark, who was studying to be a teacher in the education department,

Oscar reading drama,

Esther, who was studying chemistry (look it up) and best of all

Nick, who was reading applied criminology.

This ‘game’ started when Caroline found that in her maths group there was a Max and a Min - an English boy called Maxwell and an Indian student called Minesh.  The rest of the group insisted that they always sat together with Max on the left and Min on the right.

We never played that game at Durham but I did study geography with Clifford Hill.  By shortening his first name you have two geomorphological features.

Caroline met the class with Gerewarifucha in it today.  She did as I suggested and left her out as she read down the list.

“Is that everyone?” she asked when she had finished.  “Did I miss anybody out?”

“Yes, me,” said a girl.

“Sorry,” she said.  “What’s your name?”

“Gerry.”

“Is that your full name?” asked Caroline.

“No, but I’m always called Gerry.”

“So what's your full name?”

“I don’t really know.  It’s a long name and nobody ever uses it.  I don’t even know how to spell it.”

When I was five and in my infants’ class and had disappointed the teacher, she would refer to me as ‘Terence’.  I was ‘Terry’ only when I was good (which was most of the time, honestly).  

I have suggested to Caroline that if Gerry ever achieves less than she could or if she ever misbehaves in any way, she should convey her displeasure by calling her ‘Gerry-Wary-Fucker’.