teaching

Tuesday Tiny Tale -The Sponge

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The other kids called him The Sponge because of the effortless way he soaked up information. His parents had thought he might meet his match at the large senior school, no longer top dog as he was at  primary school, but he was soon a legend. Far from being an awkward genius his quick wit and sense of humour attracted friends and the fact he did their homework for them ensured a loyal following.

Mr and Mrs Nardo had followed family tradition of naming first born sons Leo. By the time he was four they had realised he was far cleverer than them and his younger siblings just took it for granted that Leo knew everything. They were not quite as clever as Leo, but their parents continued producing babies, considering it was their duty to contribute to the gene pool.

At school the teachers played down his abilities. As he appeared to have no syndromes, nor be on any spectrum they were not eligible for extra funding to get university professors in to keep Leo challenged. Instead, an afterschool club was started, for children with ‘extra interests’, it was not to be suggested that the little group were clever or cleverer than all the other pupils.

Leo was soon running the group and showing off his party tricks such as writing normally with his left hand and writing back to front on the other side of the paper with his right hand at the same time. He said it was easy, but nobody else in the group could do it. Parents were persuaded to contribute so the group could buy Lego and chemistry sets and all sorts of items that inventors would need. A teacher was present merely for health and safety reasons.

Dinner time at home was always lively and Mr and Mrs Nardo tried to make sure all the children got a chance to talk about their day, but somehow by the time they were eating pudding Leo had an intellectual conversation underway.

‘I was thinking it would be impossible to work out who the cleverest person in the world is, because nobody else would be clever or knowledgeable enough to understand how much that person knew or understood.’

‘Or she’ butted in his sister’ why can’t the cleverest person be a woman?’

‘They could be’ said Leo ‘but I was thinking it would be me, but how would I know?’

His parents sighed.

‘I don’t think it matters,’ said his father ‘all you have to do is use your talents for good, not for power or money.’

‘Yes I’ve already considered that. I will need a good deal of money for all my inventions, but I could get investors for that. I thought I could save the whole planet.’

‘Rather ambitious, but an excellent idea’ said his mother. ‘Will that be after university?’

‘No, soon, I’ve already written a book about how to do it. I just need to publish it. You can read it if you like.’

After dinner his parents sat at the state of the art computer they had given Leo for Christmas and started reading the word document of 300, 000 words. There were only about thirty words they understood.

‘The first few chapters are about metaphysics’ said Leo airily ‘I want readers to keep an open mind about the universe.’

His father hoped they would not be expected to proof read it and suggested as a joke he self published on Amazon first. Leo thought that a good idea and persuaded his father to open an account, then leave him to get on with it.

By Sunday evening he had borrowed his mother’s Kindle and showed the family his new book. By Wednesday a box arrived from Amazon with his weighty tome in paperback. He took a few copies to school.

The head of the science department was surprised and impressed with the cover design and happy and not a little amused to accept a signed copy as a gift, promising to start reading it in his lunch break.

In the afternoon science lesson Leo asked him what he thought of it so far. He responded by asking Leo what his parents thought of it.

‘Well to be honest, I don’t think they understood a word.’

The teacher was relieved as he grappled with the right words of encouragement.

‘Ah, I am managing to understand it so far, well the introduction at least…’

Friday Flash Fiction – Home Schooling

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‘Mummy, Mummy, Jason’s got his elbow on my side of the table.’
Julia gritted her teeth. Ten minutes, they had only been working for ten minutes and it had taken half an hour before that to get them settled. The twins were perfectly suited to social distancing, each intensely aware of their personal space.
‘No I didn’t, Jacintha touched my pencil and I don’t want to catch Covid.’
‘You won’t catch anything in this house Jason.’
Having a husband who was a chief administrator at a large hospital, now full of Covid 19 patients, was a mixed blessing, especially as pandemics tended to bring on his OCD. Julia may have thought his job less important and less dramatic than being a real doctor, but Jack didn’t. He had become insufferably self important after appearing on the BBC news. His administrative skills had been extended to the family and their home.
In the unlikely event of the twin’s primary school actually opening properly in June or July, Jason and Jacintha would not be attending. Her husband had done an extensive risk assessment and sent back the parent survey with some caustic comments and after all, Julia was at home to take care of home schooling.
Being made redundant from her job as head of fashion at Billings Department Store had been a bitter blow, though not unexpected. Sir Geoffrey Billings must be turning in his grave. The elegant Art Deco building was a neglected shadow of its former self. The business had been in slow decline since the beginning of the Twenty First Century. Customers who never set foot in the place gathered like vultures for the closing down sales, their grubby hands rifling through racks of garments they could never have afforded before. The empty building then stood as a foretaste of things to come. Now no one was going shopping.
Julia had just started enjoying the rest from work and pleasant days at the spa when the whole country went into lockdown. Of course her disappointments were nothing compared to other people’s problems and tragedies, her family were all safe, she didn’t have to go to a food bank and she didn’t have to worry about her mother now her brother was living there.
She sneaked a look at the Perfect Parents Facebook group on her phone.
Even if he has to wear a space suit he’s going to school on 1st June.
1st June 2021 more like. 
Anyone in Mrs. Griffiths’ class managed to do the worksheet?
Zoom and Wine tonight?

Julia jumped as the ring tone sounded.
‘Mum, everything alright, you don’t usually call this early. We’re a bit busy, the children are just finishing their work sheets, then we have six BBC Bite lessons to catch up with. Yes it is half term next week that’s why we’re trying to get everything done today.’
Julia looked up as the blank worksheets slid to the floor and Jason stabbed Jacintha’s scalp with his pencil.
‘I just rang to say we saw Jack on the news last night.’
‘I’ve seen him on the news ten times, same clip… I’ve heard it on the radio six times.’
‘He must be very important… what is it he does exactly? Only Penny just Whatsapped to say she’d seen him and she was asking…’

Jack was late home again so Julia was grateful to join in Zoom and Wine.
Half Term, thank goodness, but Scarlet has really earned it, bless her. We’ve done every single BBC Bite and she’s written her own book.
Alfie has done one BBC Bite and two lines of writing this week, do you think we could swap?
Jack thinks I’ve got the twins in such a good routine that we should just carry on working over half term…

Friday Flash Fiction – 660 – Dexterity

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‘Now children, let’s count on our fingers, one, two, three…’

‘Ten’ chorused the little group of nursery children on the mat.

‘Twelve’ called a small voice a moment later.

Ivy, or was it Holly? Three days into the new intake I was still trying to grasp all the names; traditional, unspellable, unpronounceable, invented and reclaimed names from the nearly departed generation.

A boy at the front was still gazing in puzzlement at his hands. I knelt beside him and showed him how to bunch his fists.

‘Shall we count again?’

I uncurled one finger at a time and he got the idea, though his lips still did not move.

‘Nine, ten!’ The other children raised their open hands in the air.

‘Eleven, twelve’ came Ivy’s voice from the back.

I walked round the mat to where she was seated. She was gazing at her spread fingers, then glancing at the other hands held aloft. I felt my stomach lurch. Ivy was a sturdy child, just losing that toddler plumpness in her face and hands, she had settled in easily and not attracted any attention so far.

Ivy could count well, she could count to twelve because she had six fingers on each hand or to be precise, one thumb and five fingers on each perfectly formed hand.

We were always having seminars on celebrating difference; our nursery had children of every colour. I had a wheelchair and a cerebral palsy in my group, Gill had two skin conditions and a missing leg in her group next door. But I hadn’t been prepared for extra fingers, why hadn’t the parents told us? Ivy seemed as surprised as I was to discover she was different, perhaps it had never been mentioned at home.

When we went outside to play I watched Ivy. She adroitly did all her coat buttons up while other children were being helped, then she put on a pair of red gloves, not mittens, hand knitted gloves with six fingers. My mother is a manic knitter and we always get gloves for Christmas, but never have I heard her mention patterns for extra fingers.

At home time I was button holed by the usual anxious parents while the assistants made sure every one was collected by the right adults. I did not see Ivy leave. At home that evening I Googled hands and saw a rolling gallery of every possible variation of Polydactyly. I rang my mother who was intrigued and couldn’t wait to tell her Knit and Knatter group.

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The next day I surreptitiously observed Ivy as she drew, played and washed her hands for her turn at the baking table. Her deft hands rubbed the butter into the flour with ease, a dozen fairy cakes, how appropriate. There was no doubt that all the fingers were real functioning digits with bones and joints, not mere protuberances that would have been snipped off at birth. The other children had noticed nothing different about Ivy, but Davinder pulled his floury hands out of the bowl and looked at them with concern.

‘Ivy said my finger felled off in the cake.’

I decided I must speak to her parents when they came to collect her. No nanny, granny or au pair was registered as a responsible adult, so I was sure to meet one of them. A good looking young couple aprroached me enthusiastically.

‘Ivy loves nursery, thank you for helping her settle in so well.’

The mother held out her cool, elegant, manicured hand to shake mine, I forced myself to look at her face. Ivy’s father then grasped my hand firmly with his large hand.

‘How is she getting on?’ he asked.

I was distracted by the ornate cygnet ring on his sixth finger, I averted my eyes from the twelve glossy red nails of his wife and smiled.

‘She is a delight to have, very bright, her speech is good and… she has excellent dexterity.’

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Friday Flash Fiction – 800 – Dream Machine

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Seth tried to hang on to the memories before he opened his eyes; a whole film in technicolour. He had dreamed a whole movie, a brilliant idea for a novel if he could recall it; write a best seller with film makers flocking to his door… that would be a dream. If only he could connect his brain to his computer, time would not be wasted sleeping, unless it was the fact that he was sleeping that produced the ideas. He jumped as his phone vibrated under his pillow and played that irritating tune. Every morning he vowed to change the tune and every evening he forgot. Whatever the melody, it didn’t alter the fact that he had to get up for work.

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The school Seth taught at bore no resemblance to the one in his dream, where young minds were nurtured and different talents exposed to produce a team of world changing teenagers with Seth sharing a little of the glory, or quite a lot as he was made Prime Minister. Who would play him in the film? He snapped out of his reverie and looked at the surly faces staring at him… and that was just the staff room. Seth put his empty coffee cup down and stood ready to face the afternoon.

‘Hey Seth, you’ve got a new kid in your English class, he’s in my form, Dad’s a scientist and polymath, seen him on television, goodness knows why he sent his son to this school, something about discovering real life.’

‘He was thrown out of his private school,’ said the head of science ‘too clever for his own good.’

Seth felt his hackles rise; they should be encouraging the clever kids, not putting them down. He strode down the corridor with an idea for the warm up pen and paper creative exercise.

The class was unusually quiet, gathered round the new boy who was talking enthusiastically, his long fingers gesticulating elegantly to illustrate his subject.

‘Without any discussion class, write for fifteen minutes imagining you could plug your brain into a computer while you slept.’

Unusually they settled down quickly. Seth sauntered casually between the desks, the new boy was scribbling furiously, words and hieroglyphics.

‘Isaac isn’t it?’

‘Yes Sir.’

At least the private school had taught him manners.

‘Named after Newton or Asimov?’

‘Both Sir.’

‘Do you enjoy writing?’

‘When it’s my favourite topic, good choice Sir, my father and I have just invented such a device. It didn’t go down too well at my last school, getting the pupils to volunteer; perhaps you would like to have a go?’

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So on Friday evening Seth found himself relaxing on a comfortable bed in a very pleasant room with electrodes attached to his head; he didn’t expect it to work, but he did have an idea for a new short story about a writer who finds himself  in the hands of mad father and son scientists. It was rather creepy being in the company of the two most intelligent people he had ever met.

‘Our initial aim is to discover if brain waves will translate into images or words or perhaps both’ said Isaac’s father.

Seth drifted off quickly. He was on board the International Space Station with  Isaac and his father and the attractive married science teacher he fancied; also bizarrely his mother and the middle aged lady who worked on the till at the Co Op. They had a fantastic plan for saving the Earth from climate change, if only he could remember what the plan was… he woke up with a start.

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‘Great, we’ve got some images already.’

Seth looked at the screen as he sipped a welcome cup of tea. A beautiful view of the earth, a view inside the space station, well anybody could get those images off the internet… but not pictures of his mother and everyone in his dream, the lady still in her Co Op uniform, the science teacher in a very short skirt and low cut blouse, floating around showing her figure to full effect. Isaac chuckled.

‘Hey Sir, you fancy Mrs Greening.’

Seth ignored the remark. ‘But we’re not talking, I’m not sure if we spoke in the dream, but we had a plan…’ he rubbed his temples ‘to save the earth.’

‘Let’s try the word document then’ said Isaac’s father.

Seth thrilled when he saw words come up on the screen, he’d written a book in his sleep, he peered closer, something was wrong…

I Captain odf the mosat brillainteam o severs sent up my mother fopr got to,mask me to get milkat the shops mrs greening saya her husband is dead so its okayforhet come up herthees the moonnt asbigasithoughtihave togobalc toearth itstime forscgool wonder if the shuttle is working todayknoitdoesb’tworkanymore ohohmyspacesuitdoesn;t fit ishallppbably implode otrisitsexplode ionspace………….

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