by Ian Douglas Robertson

It was Teddy Farrell’s first teaching post and his first term as a teacher at Ryfield Boys School, where he had been a pupil five years earlier. When the post of French teacher fell vacant, because of the untimely demise of Frog Parker, Teddy applied and, to his amazement, got the job.

After finishing his degree at TCD, he realized that he had no idea what he wanted to do in life, so he decided to become a teacher. A lower second in Modern Languages equipped one for very little, except possibly the diplomatic corps, interpreting or teaching. Teddy chose the easiest option of the three, and embarked upon a diploma course in education.

For the next year he steeped himself in educational philosophy, educational psychology and the history of education. Occasionally, he had to simulate a French lesson in front of a class of fellow students who, with some exceptions, were reasonably cooperative pupils. At the end of the year he emerged a fervent educationalist, spouting Piaget and Skinner, rolling terms like ‘positive reinforcement’, ‘a meaningful situation’ and ‘stimulus-response’ fluently off his tongue. On top of that, he was awarded a First Class Honours Diploma.

Teddy had found his vocation. He was going to revolutionize the educational system, debunk antiquated methods and cast aside obsolete concepts. The gifted teacher captivates his class with his wit and enthusiasm. “Besides,” he said to himself, “it is a well know fact” – reinforced by readings of O’Neill and Montessori – “that all children have an innate thirst for knowledge. You just hand it to them on a plate and they’ll lap it up like cats devour Devonshire cream.” He would engage his pupils in a meaningful relationship of mutual respect and in no time at all he would be the most popular teacher in the school.

However, the course in education had devoted no lecture or tutorial time to 2B and Wallaby Wilks. Teddy soon became known as Squelch among the boys, mainly because of his ‘squelchy’ appearance and a pair of desert boots which went squelch, squelch, as the thick rubber soles were crushed into the ground by Teddy’s great weight. Squelch was podgy, to put it mildly, with a glowing red face, pitted with acne scars. At the front of his head he had a balding patch, which he partially concealed with a Caesar haircut, stuck in place with quantities of Brylcreem.

Squelch was not the epitome of a schoolboy hero. He had neither the appearance of an intrepid revolutionary guerrilla nor a screaming rock artist, though he did do his best. He had a moth-eaten beard and wore a pair of scarlet corduroy drain-pipe trousers, two sizes too small for him which, if nothing else, pushed up his sagging belly so that, instead of looking fat, he merely looked bulky. Anyway, it was hidden most of the time by an ex-army surplus combat jacket.

During the first week of the autumn term Squelch bounced around school in his squelching desert boots with the excitement of an expectant kangaroo. He was setting out on a crusade not only to reform the educational system but to catapult it straight into the 21st Century. He called all the boys by their first names, forbade them from addressing him as ‘Sir’ and informed them that he wished to be called Teddy, which caused quite a bit of chuckling along the back row of 2B.

For the first week 2B treated Squelch with unprecedented indulgence. He was somewhat of a novelty. We laughed at his stale jokes, no doubt throwbacks to his own schooldays, and we managed to waste hours of lesson time discussing the ideal teacher; the one who never punishes the pupils, is always friendly and in good humour, and above all transforms dull knowledge into exciting information.

By the second week the novelty was beginning to wear off, and Wallaby and the back row had had time to thoroughly survey this new master and had come to the conclusion that there was a great deal of fun to be had out of his progressive ideas, which were rather like ripe apples in an unguarded orchard, just waiting to be plucked off the trees.

On the Monday of the second week of term Squelch came bubbling into class as usual. Wallaby, however, had decided that he was going to nip this fat little master in the bud, before he got any ideas about doing any serious work. So, not long after Squelch had launched himself into a passionate presentation of the Imperfect tense, Wallaby started to cough. It was a gentle cough at first, a regular hgh, hgh, hgh, just enough to distract our attention from Squelch’s fervent delivery.

After five minutes of non-stop coughing, Squelch began to show signs of unease. Wallaby was stealing the show. So, he asked for a volunteer to fetch a glass of water to quell Wallaby’s intrusive little cough. A forest of wildly shaking hands shot into the air accompanied by shrieks of ‘Me, Sir!’, ‘Me, Sir!’ Taken aback by the sudden outburst from this hitherto docile class, Squelch was at a loss to choose someone. Finally, he picked out Watson, but this caused another riot. So, for the sake of peace, he compromised and sent three boys to get the glass of water. This did not please 2B either, and we began chanting ‘Not fair!’, ‘Not fair!’ Squelch pretended to be amused and said, ‘Boys, please,’ with a nervous giggle, ‘I can’t send you all to get one glass of water.’

He had finally managed to pacify us when the three boys came back fighting over who should carry the glass of water and spilling most of it on the way. The remaining water was eagerly administered to Wallaby by the three water-borers, one holding his head, one his mouth and the other pouring it down his neck. But instead of making his cough better, it made it a great deal worse and Wallaby started choking and falling about all over the desk.

Squelch looked worried. His lesson plan was being seriously disrupted. So, despite the noise at the back of the class, he resumed his explanation of the imperfect tense. However, it soon became apparent that the racket was drowning out his words, and, besides, it was not easy to lecture to a class facing in the opposite direction. He decided to try the personal touch. He casually ambled over to where Wallaby was emptying his lungs out.

‘Come on, Wallaby,’ he said affecting control of the situation. ‘I’m sure all you need is a little tap on the back.’

Squelch patted Wallaby gently on the back. Wallaby fell forward as if a ton of bricks had fallen on his shoulders. Now the whole class wanted to try the back-patting cure.

‘You’re not hitting him in the right place, Sir. You should hit him here, Sir!’ Wham!

‘No, here, Sir!’ Wham! Another ton of bricks.

Within seconds, Wallaby was lying on the desk being pounded from all directions. Wham! Wham! Wham!

When the pounding stopped, everybody started putting forward their diagnosis of Wallaby’s ailment.

‘Sir, perhaps he’s got a chicken bone caught in his throat,’ said one.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said another. ‘He’s not a dog! It’s probably a fish bone.’

‘Come on, stupid!’ said a third. ‘He’s not a cat.’

‘Maybe he’s got galloping T.B.’ said a fourth.

‘He’s not a horse, mutthead!’ said a fifth.

‘Come on, thickheads!’ said a sixth. ‘We all know it’s because he smokes too many of those cheap cigarettes.’

Things were getting out of hand.

‘Boys! Boys! Please control yourselves!’ shouted Squelch trying in vain to top the din of spurious diagnoses. ‘I’m sure there is nothing seriously wrong with Wallaby, just a little tickle in the throat.’

‘A tickle, Sir. He’s about to shuffle off his mortal coil, Sir!”

Wallaby reinforced this theory by injecting a new lease of life into his coughing.

‘No, Penney. He is not. Don’t worry. Now back to your seats, Boys. All of you.’

Squelch’s face was beginning to glisten with beads of sweat.

‘Boys, your seats! We don’t want the Head coming in now, do we?’

The mention of the Head got us shuffling back in the direction of our seats.

Finally, most of us were seated, but Wallaby had not yet milked the situation dry. He started to wheeze and managed to squeeze out a few more anaemic coughs.

‘Sir, this cough is killing me.’ said Wallaby sounding as if he was in the throes of a premature death.

It was then that Squelch had his brainwave.

‘Here! Let me give you one of these.’

He fumbled in the pocket of his combat jacket and produced a packet of cough sweets.

Within seconds he had an epidemic on his hands, spreading like wildfire along the back row and then forward. Soon the place sounded like a home for chronic consumptives.

‘Boys! Boys! I have only six sweets left!’

Then, the coughing started in earnest. We were all determined to cough the loudest and prove that our need was the greatest. Poor Squelch had totally lost control.

‘Please! Please! Stop!’

Squelch waved his arms frantically in the air.

‘You must stop, Boys, please!’

But the more Squelch shouted and waved his arms, the more obstreperous we became, until it sounded like a clash between a university of students and a battalion of riot police.

Squelch looked haggard. We were now doing our frog act, leaping and croaking around the class like a horde of mating toads.

‘Boys! I know you’re only pretending. I’ll have to go to the Head.’

Nobody took much notice of this threat. We knew he did not approve of punishment. He had said it was anti-pedagogical, or something.

Finally, the coughing and croaking subsided, and gave way to a rapid flow of chattering. By this time Squelch was fretting around the class, his voice hoarse with shouting.

He did not attempt to pick up the thread of his lesson, which was in shreds by this time, anyway. Besides, he was too exhausted. His nerves were shattered, his confidence destroyed, his ideas disjointed and his bounce had lost its spring.

For the last three minutes of the lesson, he tried to find something to give us for homework, but as he had not taught us anything, there were no exercises we could do. He glanced nervously at his watch every five seconds, and fidgeted with his books and papers.

At last, the bell rang, and he made a feeble attempt to dismiss us, but we were already halfway out the door, stampeding down the corridor.

Some minutes later, a dejected, deflated Squelch entered the sanctuary of the staff room and with a shaky hand lit a cigarette, his first in two years. He had just had his first real lesson, and he found that it had nothing to do with Piaget or Skinner.

It took him another two months to finally become the kind of teacher he vowed he’d never be and replace his avant-garde pedagogical theories with one all-embracing principle ‘squash or be squashed, and may the best man win.’