An hour on the inside

Defiance.

It’s a word that comes pre-loaded, heavy with meaning. It’s a challenging of authority, a refusal to follow orders, and an unwillingness to be dictated to.

It’s also what I feared most at the very moment I’m about to recount.

Picture this; a teacher from New Zealand moves to the UK in their late twenties, landing a job at a co-ed school in London, right in the heart of the city. The immediate area surrounding the school is lush: beautiful old buildings, a lovely High Street filled with designer stores, and a nearby Embassy.

The school itself? Not quite so lush. It’s cramped; the hallways too narrow to accommodate the students, so that they jostle and jockey past each other. The playground feels more like a prison yard, with grey concrete standing in for absent green fields. And post-Covid, the general vibe is strange; kids unused to interacting with each other after so much time cooped up in their bedrooms and on their screens.

So there’s me, sticking out like a sore thumb with my Kiwi accent, getting looks from everyone during the first few weeks like, “Who’s that guy? Is he new? What does he teach?”

I was teaching both History and Religious Education, which meant I quickly got to know my students. And for the most part, they were great. Were they a bit louder than the students I was used to teaching back home? You bet. Did they banter with each other all the time, taking any opportunity to fill a silence? Uh-huh. Was it tricky to get everyone looking at me and listening for a sustained period of time? Yup. But they were funny, quick-witted, and for the most part, respectful.

In short, I liked them. One thing travel teaches you is that no matter the culture, kids are kids.

However, that goes both ways.

At the end of every school day there was always a room in the upper corridor of Math block, teeming with students in detention.

The Excel spreadsheet wouldn’t even begin the morning blank, with names carried over from the previous day. Gradually, period by period, it would fill up. And if you were the poor sod on detention, you would try to avoid watching the tally steadily rise.

For me, my turn came quite early in the first term: Friday in Week Five, to be precise. This was not the day you wanted to draw, as behaviour tended to drop as the week went on.

If I said I wasn’t dreading it, I'd be lying. All week I had this pit gnawing in my stomach, and all I could do was pretend I wasn’t nervous. When the appointed day arrived, I couldn’t help but hope it was a quiet week.

No such luck. Due to the previous day being online learning, all detentions had carried over, leaving me with 37 names by 3.15pm.

Okay. So that wasn’t a great start- more students than desks.

As the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, I felt sick as I headed over to the classroom, bracing for the war to come. Managing to get myself in the door first, I set the ground rules.

Separate your desk. There’s a piece of paper up here for you. Take out your Diary and open to the page with the School Rules. Begin copying each one out. If you finish all the rules, go back to the start. If you finish your piece of paper, here’s another one. If you don’t have a pen, I have a few here. Don’t talk.

Students sullenly filed into the classroom, eyes on me. They threw curious glances as they found their way to a seat.

“Sir, are you running detention?”

"Oh we've got Sir!"

"Ay Sir, is it just you?"

I said yes, and pretty soon, we had students seated at the computer desks along the wall, just to squeeze them in. Deputy principals dropped in with one or two participants who needed a bit more persuading to join. And by persuading, I mean they escorted them so that they wouldn’t run away.

I had the sympathetic glances of other teachers walking past, and the sick satisfaction of watching them take in the stacked classroom of kids, then turn to me with eyebrows raised as if to say “yikes…good luck with that”.

Almost immediately, it began.

There would be a minute of blessed silence, where students were either actually writing, or at least having the grace to pretend. Inevitably, someone would cough loudly, drop their pen, look at someone too long, and things would kick off. After settling them down, it would begin again. An endless cycle, a Ferris wheel of mischief that I desperately wanted to stop spinning.

In fairness, I don't think the kids were doing it to be mean or malicious; I knew quite a few of them reasonably well by then, and even taught some of the little juniors who were sitting quietly at the back, wide-eyed and keeping themselves small. To be honest, I think the seniors were just so used to it that they couldn't help themselves- they had to bite the bait.

As the minutes eked by, I found myself barely in my seat: handing out pens (or picking them up off the floor), confiscating phones, getting students to turn around, and generally trying to keep some semblance of control.

I'm not a naturally domineering teacher, and had opted for the "firmly, gently, consistently" approach. In hindsight, maybe I should have come out all guns blazing, just like the feared faces of senior leadership.

I don't like raising my voice at students, and I refused to read them the riot act. To me, yelling at the students for misbehaving in detention would only be a loss. A large chunk of those in front of me were regular attendees, and they were immune to the disapproval and disappointment rained down on them by their teachers.

What good would come from adding one more angry voice?

They knew they had broken the rules: swearing, eating in class, bullying, phone use, bunking lessons, incomplete homework, disrupting classmates, disrespecting the teacher, missing uniform etc. Most of them didn't really care either- they had been here before, and likely would be back again.

Would my threats or pleas work where countless others before me hadn't? As a new, foreign, quietly-spoken teacher? Unlikely.

So I stuck to my guns, despite my lack of any serious ammo. I knew this was a game within a game, and I was determined not to break.

Unknown to me at the time, staff were supposed to share half of an after-school detention slot, so one of the Art teachers came in halfway through to relieve me. Determined not to be seen by the kids as giving up, I offered to stay with her for the second half, and said I'd be happy to do it. She was astounded, and thanked me profusely for the generous offer.

She then turned and left, and I didn't see her again.

It turns out she thought I had offered to take the rest of detention in her place. Ah. That was obviously far from my intention, but it couldn't be helped. I was halfway through and now completely on my own, with no relief in sight.

When any of the deputy principals came in to check how things were going or remove the odd student, the room would fall silent. So quiet, you really could have heard a pen drop. That is, assuming they weren't chewing, throwing, or doodling with it.

But of course, as soon as they left, they weren't scared any more. Certainly not of me. So I returned to putting out small fires as they kindled, the smoke of rebellion billowing as we got closer and closer to the end.

Internally, I was sweating bullets. My worst nightmare looked something like complete anarchy, with the worst-behaved kids in the school simply ignoring my instructions. What would happen if a kid just looked at me and said "no"? What if they started fighting? Some of the Year Elevens were bigger than me.

What if they just walked out?

In the end, none of that happened. Detention continued as it had, with a noticeable lack of silence the longer it went on. Some of the students did their bit- writing their lines quietly, in no real rush, but refusing to get drawn into anything else. Some just sat there, pretending to put pen to paper while happily taking in the escalating chaos. And others decided that they would see what they could get away with.

A phone came out, and was quickly confiscated despite severe protestations that they were "just checking a message from my Mum". One of the girls needed to see Sir, and they promised they would be quick. They were not. One of the Year Nines decided to get lippy with a boy much bigger than him, and suddenly there were a bunch of kids all mouthing off, daring each other to fight outside in the yard. Did they have that fight? No, of course not. Did I know that? No, of course not.

Coming from a small country where "staying humble" is a common saying, we don't banter in the same way that inner-city London kids do. Underneath all that smack-talk and aggression, did I sense a quiet discontent, a want for genuine care? Did I realise that it was all a front, a mask, a way of saving face? Not then no. I was convinced that they were going to beat the crap out of each other.

I played peacemaker, trying to be reasonable and talk to each student individually. I didn't plead, but I quietly and calmly encouraged them to ignore whatever comments came their way, and to focus on their own task. Did it work? Somewhat.

In the rare times I was able to sit down, I coolly drank from my water bottle, pretended to mark papers, and attempted to remain as outwardly unruffled as one could be. On the inside? Nervous wreck.

The closer we got to 4.15pm, the more we all checked the clock, willing the minutes to jump forward.

Finally, I was able to collect their papers and watch them collectively race for the door, gleefully free. A few students thanked me for my patience, and then it was over. The papers were immediately thrown into the bin - a futile, meaningless bit of writing that ultimately amounted to nothing. And the worst part? That's exactly what it was meant to be, and the students knew it too.

Right at the end, I was next to two Year Ten boys sitting in the front row. The type of kids who really shouldn't have been there, but had done something silly like lost their tie or missed a homework deadline.

One of them asked me amidst the ongoing disorder, "Sir, how do you remain so calm?"

And I said, "I guess there's no point in getting angry about it right?"

We had a little laugh about that, and it's stuck in my mind ever since. Maybe because it showed that in a small way, I had defied the expectation to shout and scream. They'd expected me to break, and I hadn't. I left that Friday afternoon without compromising who I was as a teacher.

Did I save their futures? Did I fix the punitive system they employed? Did I do anything more than sit with a bunch of loud teenagers for an hour in a room while they pretended to be mad at each other?

I went home that day and felt unburdened, full of blessed relief. I felt emotionally drained and physically exhausted. I also felt a bit sad.

But on Monday morning, I came back refreshed and ready.

There were lessons to be had.