The day the teachers left
The day the teachers left, the schools stood still.
They hadn’t gone on strike and they didn’t go home ill;
they just left – disappeared –
not a note and not a word,
and before the parents could call in and say it was absurd,
they all were gone,
by the blinking of their clocks and the rising of the sun,
every teacher, tutor, lecturer, professor – every one
had vanished – and left the world to manage
with eleven million children,
from Dorchester to Stanage,
needing somewhere to go and somebody to teach them.
The government officials stood looking each to each.
Then they packed them all in meeting halls and local parish spaces,
(the oldest fiddling on their phones,
the youngest with their laces).
They tried to find a video to occupy the time,
stalling just enough to work out what on earth had gone awry,
and what to do,
but whatever film they’d choose,
the kids would sing cacophony in gripes and groans and boos.
They didn’t want to watch another adaptation of Macbeth,
and that wildlife documentary would bore them half to death,
so even though it’s never acceptable to watch Frozen in June,
all pretence of education was lost by afternoon.
The children celebrated, rejoiced in whoops and cheers,
while headteachers delegated to remaining staff through tears,
and the parents rang demanding what the hell was going on
and who would provide their childcare if the teachers had all gone.
The media, of course, spun headlines through the day,
asking “how many weeks off do teachers get for holidays?”
Through all of this, the classrooms stood, stiller than the halls,
with carpets stained and chairs untucked, displays still on the walls -
a sorry sight - with projectors left on overnight,
and books abandoned on shelves, unread,
not even misunderstood,
dictionaries and Dickens, and all the other texts they should
have read if they weren’t
- as the children say -
completely dead.
Soon the kids grew restless;
they didn’t need to stay,
as the keepers of the classrooms no longer blocked their way,
so despite cries of ‘Don’t you dare!’
and an odd ‘Detention!’ in the air,
the children simply did not care,
and they left too that day.
Because children want to be children,
so it probably makes sense,
that if you force them to be adults, they’ll be animals instead;
and if you try to tell a child to not be childish -
it’s probably on you if you don’t get what you wish.
So the kids got rid of all that they were taught:
the criteria and the exam timings and the termly school reports.
They walked out bleary eyed beneath a sun that burned their skin,
not one of them prepared,
not one knowing a thing.
And for a while it seemed like that was how the world would end,
with children filling parks and playing football with their friends -
not a C grade between them,
but grinning ear to ear -
and every twenty-something longing to join them there.
But the world didn’t end,
and it wasn’t long until
the kids began to wander back,
and even stranger still,
they turned up at the galleries,
the gardens and museums;
they drifted into libraries,
and theatres; you could see them
haunting the old schoolgrounds,
peering through the gates,
lingering on campuses,
alone,
then with their mates,
to sheepishly inquire to any who could hear:
‘I have, like, a question - I don’t wanna, like, learn or nothing,
but it would be cool if someone here could, like,
explain maybe?
Like, I tried googling it, but, I dunno,
I still don’t quite get how to work it out,
like how to solve for x, I guess,
or what spreadsheets are about,
and, like, how do I start a business?
And where did the stars come from?
And I still don’t get why Boo Radley just doesn’t leave his home?
So, like, if anyone could help me - that would be pretty cool.’
But nobody could answer;
there was no one left at school.
It was years before they found out where the teachers really were,
while exam dates came and went, in a bleak, ungraded blur.
On a far out tropical island,
speckless in the sea:
a tiny teachtopia – where they lay along the beach,
with a book in one hand, and a drink in the other,
the full-timers and part-timers, the substitutes and covers.
They had built a university from palm trees and stone;
they held lectures for each other and debates beneath the sun.
The painters studied physics; the mathematicians wrote poetry,
and when the helicopter landed with the agent from the Ministry
of Teacher Retrieval,
they offered him a glass,
and invited him to join the talk on Medieval dance.
But he declined, fixed his tie,
demanded to speak to whomever was in charge.
An older woman approached with a reassuring smile,
and she asked if she could talk with him in private for a while.
‘Don’t worry, dear. You’re not in trouble,’ she said,
but he struggled still to meet her eyes and hung his thinning head.
‘I’m here to bring you all back,’ he began.
‘You’ve made your point and we think it’s time you fixed what you’ve done.
The children have run riot; they’re learning on their own;
and how are we supposed to measure it? The employers don’t know
who to employ. There’s no data to compare!
We need you to come home; there are thousands of papers there.
The education secretary, she understands your dissent,
so she’s willing to raise your salaries by a generous one percent.’
The older woman smiled;
she placed a wrinkled, sun-tanned hand
on his arm, and said,
‘It’s not you we’re disappointed in; it’s your behaviour, you understand.’
She poured him a martini,
and walked him down the beach.
‘Once you’ve learned your lesson,
we’ll come back to teach.’
