School and Teachers

School - the place most of us visit for most of the day around 5 days a week for the first part of our lives. The place most of us dread so much, and for what? "Your teacher can't be that bad, right?" Wrong. That is very, very wrong. Any recounts I include in this journal are events that occurred at my school (if I include any details at all, I think actually I will make my notes more vague to protect people's reputation - though some don't deserve that privacy, some do.) That's very important, because when we hear about stuff happening (under any topic, rape, theft, weird stuff, cool stuff, school), we never really realise that it could be happening to a friend, or right under your nose.

I want to talk about teachers specifically, because they are such an important part of our school life. Firstly, teachers set rules, expect you to follow them and the demand respect and the assumption is that you are supposed to trust them. Secondly, teachers have their own set of rules, they don't always follow them, they don't always respect you and they don't always respect each other. Most of the time they do, but all around us there are people we are supposed to trust betraying us without us even realising it. Then sometimes a whole bunch of these people manage to collect in the one place (maybe even on purpose for all we know). This happened to my school.

Events like this don't happen to every school, so don't assume that yours is like this, or any other, but I have a point. Teachers need to earn respect and trust (aside from the fact that you should never really trust anyone, especially people in positions of authority), although you need to always trust a little, because paranoia is unhealthy. If you connect with a teacher and respect them - trust them! Then, be aware that teachers, although they are there to teach you, have their own agenda and they know the same things that you know about your peers - they're not stupid, they will treat people with the level of respect they deserve most of the time. They have their own agenda, and sometimes they don't quite get along with other teachers.

Now, this isn't so much a thing that should concern you but is fact nonetheless - When people reach higher levels in the food chain, their behaviour changes and their agenda changes. When their new agenda complements the agenda of another person they know, agendas form plans. Now, if these people are respectable and they know what they are doing, the agendas can be positive and form plans with positive results.

Example (we know that that means, right? Ssh!):
Some heads of staff at a school wanted to replace a member of staff because the replacement they had in mind could potentially be controlled more easily. Of course, the existing teacher is of a strong resolve and does not bow down (but other less strong teachers might have been broken down by this is it was applied to them), and the perpetrators could then (being heads-of-staff) cancel the teacher's events planned for the students (meaning excursions or concerts or musicals or whatever). To stop problems, the main body of teachers (bless democracy) separates the individuals, with enough evidence.

Does your school have a subject placed in a weird faculty? Maybe the head teacher of dance at your school is Technology? Or even, oh I don’t know, music under HSIE? Oh, sorry did I say that out loud? *cough* Art Head Teacher *cough* Principal *cough* Deputy Principal. Hopefully (well inevitably) most of them get caught out and that rumour you heard about the principal retiring and the deputy getting fired may be true! That's all you may have heard, but there is more to every story. Be trusting, but careful of important people...

Of course, in the end, everything is just a rumour, and we can never really be sure of anything, can we? Who we listen to depends on who we trust. Believe what you like...

To finish, what strange rumours have you heard (especially about teachers) and were they true (as far as you know)? Also, what unusual/bad/freaky things have happened at your school? This is also my first piece of writing - what do you think of it?