The last few weeks have been interesting for me. To counteract the smaller children’s egregious behaviour I have enforced an iron-fist regime, with a nol-tolerance attitude befit of my teachers in Nazi training camp my secondary school.

Any time one of the children does anything against the classroom rules s/he gets a mark; three marks means I stop the lesson, send the others back to their classroom, and ring the offending child’s parents. Breaking the rules involves anything from speaking without putting up a hand, speaking to a neighbour when a written task has been assigned, slouching or sitting in a position I deem unacceptable, getting up out of a seat without asking and other minor misdemeanours.

Whilst this seems to be rather extreme when considering my liberal views, it has been both necessary and extremely effective. I had been against the idea of imposing such a regime upon the better behaved pupils, thinking it unfair, but, since I need to be consistent with all the children, the less well behaved take advantage of it to the fullest, and a minor deviance by one child can cause a cascade of other unacceptable behaviour.

Luckily, the more respectful among the pupils rarely get more than one mark, meaning I never need to ring these pupils’ parents; the more boisterous pupils have, more or less, become manageable. There is still a lot of work, and probably a fair number of telephone conversations ahead of me, but I fell I have made headway into the problem.

The lessons with the younger pupils are more harmonious, meaning I can relax and have a lot more fun with them, which can only be good for their education. I seldom need to raise my voice, or become angry at their conduct, meaning I’m liking them more and more as individuals. This makes my job far more enjoyable, and I look forward to having lessons with them, a far cry from the Jon of a few months ago.

One of my work colleagues has just been through a rough time in school. Whilst she was cleaning her desk of papers and rubbish she threw away a small and dilapidated pamphlet of Arabic writing, assuming it to be some old photocopied homework or reading exercise: it turned out to be from The Koran.

Even though the teacher does not speak Arabic and even though the pages were immediately taken from the bin, rumours started to spread like the proverbial wildfire, and parents were informed by rumour-bloated children.

Some parents kept their children away from lessons as a protest, and Naged (the assistant headmaster) was apparently rung up at all times of the night by irate parents. The teacher has been feeling generally shite for about two weeks now, although the ripples from the recent event have subsided.

I have some more respect fro Naged after this. The slew of telephone conversations he has had to endure must have worn him down and disrupted family life, but he has stuck by the teacher and sorted things out. The kind of thing a real headmaster does.

My bosses at school are incompetent. This is a fact I’ve lived with for pretty much the five years I have been employed there, and for most of the time I am at peace with it, since it suits my purposes: I have the freedom to do what I like.

The main boss, the headmistress, is approaching old-age (hastened, no doubt, by alcohol), and tries to keep a tight reign on her baby. This would be admirable if it weren’t for the fact that she lies out of her arse, seldom fulfills her word, and seems to have no idea about the laws that govern the running of a school.

Along with her is the joke that is the headmaster. He is a dyslexic Arab whose grip of the Swedish language is slight, and, despite having an amiable demeanour on the surface, seems to have made some terrible accusations and comments to a few of the women employees. He is the right hand to Maria, and they are completely inapt at knowing what each other (and themselves, come to think of it) is doing.

I am not alone in this opinion, I guarantee, and it is only now, when I feel confident about my role as a teacher, that I can be bothered to put it writing. If The Office hadn’t have already been written, then my school would have surely given Ricky Gervais enough ideas for about 8 seasons.

I was called in to the headmaster’s office today, to “renew” my contract. It was, apparently, something that the school’s insurance company wanted, but it fulfilled another purpose.

My new contract is a temporary one (two years), which is now fully legal, since I am working without a teacher’s exam. This also means that they can, at any time, get rid of me. This is, I believe, an important point.

I think the school is having economic problems, and is trying to decrease the amount of employees to survive this crisis. They have already dismissed a few, and I feel that, when/if the time is right, I shall be one of the next to go. Not because I’m a bad teacher (that much even I know), but that I can be easily replaced by the class-teachers.

When I was presented with the contract I made an unusual choice: I signed, fully conscious of the situation. I had decided, in the short space of time I was given, not to take away the contract and ring my union. This I did because of a gut-feeling.

For a while now, I have wanted to get the education needed to be a fully-fledged teacher, but I have had problems getting the correct information from the university that deals with teachers’ education. Each time I have been in contact with them I have been given different advice, so i eventually stopped asking, knowing that I was safe in my current employment.

My choice to sign a potential death-warrant has now allowed me the opportunity to get off my arse and study, should the worst happen. Which actually may not be the worst at all. Also, if I am given the sack, I shall know that the school does not really appreciate the hard work I carry out, and it is just as well that i do not work for them.

All in all, I think this is a gift. Either way I win, with a temporary loss (economically).

I used the authority vested in me to take affirmative action today. I have had some behaviour problems with Class 2 (actually, with the 6 year-olds, Class 1 and Class 3 as well, but this was the first call to action), and little I do seems to help. As a last resort I can shout at them, and it helps for a while, though I need an approach that does not lead me to anger/sadness/despair. So, for the first time in my 5 years as a teacher, I rang a few parents after the lesson concerned, with the individual children present to explain to their parents how they had behaved.

I have avoided this course of action for so long, mostly because I really don’t like to speak in Swedish on the phone (although 99% of the recipients don’t have Swedish as a first language), or maybe it’s the potential of a confrontation I’ve been trying to shirk.

Anyway, today I spoke to three people, explaining the situation, and I seem to have got a good response from them. I sincerely hope this will resolve the situation, or at least be the beginning of it, because I do not intend to take too much more of the disrespect I experience on a daily basis.

This morning I was sitting waiting for my train to come when I experienced the “stone in the stomach” feeling I often have at this particular time. I cannot ever recall any job I’ve had where I have felt so worried about the day to come, and, whilst I have felt it many times this past half a decade, today was the day where I finally said stop. From now on there is to be a new “Jon the Teacher” that simply does not accept the shit I have had to endure. I do not desire to become a martinet, just someone who deserves the respect that is due for such a position, and a human-being.