Teacher finally concludes whose time was wasted

Brendan Leach, a school maths teacher for twenty-three years has finally worked out that, actually, it was his own time he'd been wasting.

'Teacher training consisted of three years learning when it was appropriate to touch a student - never - and to learn parrot-fashion how to conclude "it's your time you're wasting". There was a bit about Pythagoras, decimal multiplication and fractions, but nothing about the real tools for teaching, such as the "spoon of learning",' he said today.

'The "spoon of learning" is the only way to achieve grade A* results that allow the school to keep its funding and teachers their sanity,' he added. He demonstrated by pulling a spoon out of his tweed jacket's top pocket and inserting it in your reporter's mouth. 'That traditionally is how you get a C,' he said. Holding the spoon away from the reporter he added, 'and if you wanted to get a B, in the old days, students would have to walk towards the spoon, do some of the work'. Popping the spoon in his top pocket he declared that in a 'fair and just society, those who wanted an A grade would bring their own spoon'.

'But today they don't need their own spoon, don't need to walk towards yours and if the teacher doesn't ram it down their little gullets he or she gets the sack,' he said. 'So, they can waste all the time they like, and still end up with qualifications that would have been unbelievable twenty years ago and could get any high-flying job they fancied as long as they had the gift of the gab and friends in the right places' he added.

Eton School was unavailable for comment.

photo: https://pixabay.com/users/steveriot1-6715269/

How I survived my miserable comprehensive school education, by Liz Truss

My education at one of the worst comprehensive schools the world has ever seen is well-known, but how did I survive to become the credible prime-ministerial candidate that you see before you today? Here I share with you my own personal strategies for flourishing in a school located within the mean streets of Roundhay in the 1980s.

1. Stay off the streets! Walking home from school in Roundhay in the 1980s was akin to the Bronx - hazards and dangers everywhere. Wet leaves in the park in Autumn provided a constant slipping hazard, and you couldn't walk more than 200 yards without being approached by a liberal peddling a petition about nuclear disarmament or selling some home made jam with proceeds going to Ethiopia. Keep your head down and as those kids from Grange Hill would sing: 'Just Say No'!

2. Make the limited option choices work for you - I have to admit that the absence of a Latin course to pick for O-Level ruined my 1985, but 'Que Sera Sera'. Just three modern languages to choose from doesn't necessarily have to be a death knell for your aspirations to go to Oxbridge. Remember, you can always use your private tutor to pick up Mandarin and the classics on the side.

3. Know how to pronounce tricky middle-class words! I was the subject of much ridicule when I foolishly asked for a bowl of 'Quin-noah' with my goats cheese salad in the canteen during my first week at school. I was picking out the starchy seed from my schoolbag for weeks afterwards. Kids can be so cruel.

4. Throw yourself into extra-curricular activities. Whilst the limited opportunities available to me at my own school were frustrating, I still got involved in the crumbs that were on offer - an immersive production of Ibsen's The Doll's House in year 9, a School Symphony Orchestra trip round the lakes of Switzerland in 6th Form (remember how the school had to book an extra plane seat for my harp!). There was always the Real Tennis court and dilapidated lacrosse pitches we could use too when we were really desperate.

5. Go early to avoid school drop off embarrassments - Our Mercedes Benz 560 Sedan was the source of much mockery at the school gates. 'Have you seen how slow the acceleration is with the 8-cylinder single-overhead camshaft naturally aspirated engine on that hunk of junk ', I heard one pupil laugh. We turned up at 730am every day after that until we thankfully upgraded to a Porsche in 1988. Phew!

Hat-tips Sir Lupus and Lockjaw

Image: Pixabay/dep377

Man finds a use for SOHCAHTOA at aged 33

Brian Belter, 33, struggled to understand Pythagoras' Theorem, let alone SOHCAHTOA in school, along with quadratic and simultaneous equations. 'I couldn't see where I'd use them,' he admitted today. 'They seemed thought out, fair enough, but pretty useless to a guy like me bent on a career working in Wetherspoons,' said the bartender, now in his sixteenth year working for the pub chain.

'I'm a manager now, hiring and firing, sorting out orders, checking the till receipts, fudging the bouncer paperwork, but I didn't need anything other than the arithmetic I learned in junior school,' he added. 'The rest,' he added, 'is bollocks, frankly.'

Then he had a customer ask for a pitcher of Harvey Wallbanger with the straw being covered for 23cm exactly when delivered. 'It was a City crowd, pin striped suits, clearly on a dare from his well-heeled friends. I wasn't going to pander to them so I measured the height of the cocktail, the distance of the straw from the base and applied the equations Mr Grimshaw hammered into me to work out the hypotenuse. A few re-calcs sorted out the errors and I got the angle dead right. What a waste of time,' he added.

'Just after they ordered that silly round one of my bartenders came to me with another problem, from some drinkers suffering from the financial issues. He said, 'if they have two pints and five halves for £15.23 or four pints and three halves at £18.33, how much is a pint of beer?

'I told them to f*ck off, obviously.'