Pray for us sinners

'It's Communities Week at the school', says Gabriella, 'and we're getting different artists in to help them understand what communities are in a creative way.' I didn't know it yet, as we were conversing by email, but that was the bit right there where she cocked one of her well plucked eyebrows and narrowed her eyes in a 'and we want RESULTS' kind of way.

Understand communities....well, hell, if I can get a class of Year 6 kids to understand and engage with the concept of communities in less than half a day, then I reckon I've got something saleable to at least two government departments, a clutch of quangos and the Housing Corporation.

I said yes. Sure. I will take up your challenge.

That was the last time we spoke - weeks ago - and on the good faith of an email promise, there I was this morning at a primary school at 9am, dressed like a grownup, full of caffeine and chirpyness, packing a big ass loan from the energy bank (to be repaid in installments for the rest of this week).

It's been a while since I've done any work in schools.

I forgot how incredibly tiring it is to give your energy and attention to 29 eleven year olds for 2 hours, running around playing Inspirational Weird Person with all your heart, trying to zoom in gentle butterfly style on the quietest ones while keeping a spare eye on the rest of the class while the trio of anxious grown-up pleasers cling to your elbow, seeking approval for each thought. (Yes I like your poem. Do you like it?)

Any building that's purpose-built for little people feels surreal and disorienting, with eggbox tiny chairs that make me feel like Alice post-drink me/eat me. I guess I'm not used to them - so I was just adjusting to the bodily dysphoria when I got hit up by the adults. An older guy with a tight tucked in shirt and tie rushed over to pump my hand up and down and welcome me while we stood in the tiny big hall waiting for Gabriella to finish discussing gingerbread men and the sale of, with one of the Misses.

Me and older guy stood like good kids at her elbow (at her request) until finally she spun around on one heel - a blur of laquered hair and tasteful tailoring and the aforementioned eyebrows - and told me all in one inpenetrable breath - 'HelloTomatowespokeonthephoneweeksagoand,' (eyebrow) 'ItoldyouI'dcallyoubacktotellyouwhattheotherartistdidbutIdidn't, okay?' (both eyebrows, with stern mummy smile).

She then marched off, instructing me and older tie guy to follow while she conducted a stream of consciousness briefing with everyone within earshot, throwing in a 'Follow ME Tomato' when I hesitated at a corner for just long enough to take in where I was going.

Whisked into the classroom - products of previous session with other artist held up for me to see - informed that teacher is away so heavily pregnant Year 1 teacher will be 'supervising' - then left to it. Okay. Message received loud and clear - you are the boss, we are not colleagues, me your creative shoeshine girl. Got it. Gabriella.

Then the kids came in (is it bad to call them kids? is that ageist? discriminatory? Gabriella pointedly referred to them as 'pupils' right after I'd said 'kids' on the phone....so maybe I should check into that. Pupils. Or students. Or maybe it's customers now. If anyone's the wiser, let me know.)

They all sat down, the Year 1 sing song teacher took role call, and then I remembered.

'Ok class, put your hands together for prayers.'

RC.

That means Roman Catholic, right?

Before getting on to investigating the creative potential of the imagination and words, all the children, the teacher, and the teaching assistant asked for forgiveness for various sins and trespasses, all together in a monotone with hand signals and everything. I stood still and non-devout waiting for them all to finish being saved and had a very stern talk with myself about the use of blasphemous words (goddam it's hard to filter them out when you need to).

The rest of the session was so. Fucking. Weird.

The kids (they are kids) were on the most part interested and responsive, and surly defiant girl got into it once I praised her description of her 'crap holiday' and encouraged her to detail in as much imagination just how crap it really was. (Was it crap enough that you'd rather set your hair on fire?) When we talked about layout and visual stuff, the kids who felt timid with the writing got excited and started coming up with layouts to impress e e cummings. When the one girl who wouldn't write anything more than a few words showed me her manga drawings (fucking amazing actually...I hope she starts making zines) we got to talk about graphic novels and comics and different kinds of storytelling and instead of feeling stupid she glowed a little bit, knowing how good an artist she really is.

This stuff happened not because I am some kind of classroom wonder, transforming lives with inspirational moments and good hollywood lighting, but because I am an outsider to that system and so am less obliged to fit into its confines and conventions. They can see the messy tattoo on my arm and tell me about the one their dad has. They can call me by my first name (tentatively at first, but no problem once they realise I don't actually respond to 'Miss'). And they can be slightly diverted by the presence of someone different in the classroom, talking fluffy in a strange accent.

The weirdness was in how controlled they were. How obedient. I am used to being in classrooms with at least two 'high needs' kids who wander off at every opportunity and will not will not will not stop talking, along with at least one other group of diligent chatterers who drill away at the hearing and patience. And that is hard. I won't romanticise trying to do stuff in a loud and chaotic classroom. But somehow the stillness, the rockstiff compliance, is way more unsettling - enforced with layer upon layer of reminders, from the arch of Gabriella's eyebrow and waiting games, to the telling kids off for drawing a picture next to their piece of CREATIVE writing (thanks for that helpful intervention, Teaching Assistant).

A little way through the session I went to sit near the one boy who was totally disengaged. The others busy writing, I crouched down near him and tried to ask him about what we were talking about and writing about. He wouldn't speak. Nervous shoulder shrugs and 'I dunno' noises at evey question. Scardey eyes flicking up to meet mine then down again. I tried a little more. Nope. OK. Won't push it. So when I asked the teaching assistant - the one who he knows better, who he might feel more confident with - to come and help him so I could check in with the other 28 kids in the room, she death-glared me over her glasses and reluctantly moved in.

I get it in an instant. He was one of the four boys brought in 1 minute late to class by the swaggering male teacher who announced loudly that we should 'send them straight to me if there's any - I mean ANY - problems'. He was one of the four boys who sat still and silent and completely in another place. He is one of the 'bad boys', and as long as he sits still and shuts up, no one's actually bothered what he does or doesn't do.

Towards the end of the period he looked up at me and told me in a confident voice 'My uncle bit the head off a hamster.' No cheeky look of goading in his eyes at all. Not a hint of a smirk. Just seeing what I'd think of that, I guess. And I didn't know where to start.

Year 1 Teacher spent the class catching up on her emails, looking up only when I used the words 'passionate red' to see who was listening, and at the end where she interrupted someone reading their piece of writing to announce that we should have clapped for the best poem. Swaggering Male Teacher came in again near the end, while quiet boy read his friend's (even quieter boy) poem for him, and proceeded to have a full volume conversation with Year 1 Teacher - completely oblivious to what was going on and how much fucking harder he made it for brave quiet boy. And Teaching Assistant called me 'Miss' as loudly, as pointedly, and as repeatedly as possible throughout the whole frikkin morning - - perhaps thinking that if I heard it enough times, me and the kids/pupils/stepford students would desist from defaming the institutional heirarchy by using my actual name.

...

Last year, right before she left Manchester, one of the most amazing artists I've ever been lucky enough to work with - Dancing Y - told me that she'd quit her job in a primary school because she was just so worn down by the power games, negativity, and tedium that she was expected to impart. 'It's all about mind control', she told me, right after passing her teacher training with a glowing report. 'I now know The Evil Stare, and at least three ways to humiliate and subordinate a class without speaking. This wasn't why I started working with kids. I guess it's back to freelance and fuck it to not being a normal enough teacher.'

I know that inside that system there are brilliant people who push at the cracks enough to let sunlight in. I've met some of them. I've had a few for teachers myself.

But as for me, I've gotta agree with Y.

Fuck it. Indeed.