Remember Little Jimmy and his comma?  Well, he’s back and this time it’s personal!

As it happens, teachers have fewer rights than I once thought.  It seems that Little Jimmy, not content with questioning the marking of his poorly punctuated piece of prose (and I use the term “prose” loosely) has taken it upon himself to wantonly accuse a respected teacher of physical abuse.   It is alleged that the teacher in question struck said student across the ear with a hand, in full view of two classrooms.

The accounts of students who were interviewed is conflicting apparently, which seems to suggest that that the lovely little terrors have taken it upon themselves to “re-invent” the incident, using all the powers of creative prowess available to them. 

Admittedly, it was the English department who trained them in the art of prose and narrative writing and thus should be blamed for their use of “creativity with the truth.”  It is the mark of a good English teacher to “inspire” students, and instil a love of language and the power of rhetoric which they can translate into their daily lives; ironically they have done so with great skill in this instance.  That’ll teach us to instruct them the power of well-crafted prose!  However, in our defence, if they actually physically wrote these creative lies that came out of their mouths in their English books, they wouldn’t be doing so badly in their English work.   J

Not only that, Little Jimmy and his parents quite thoughtfully sold their story to the local trashy tabloids, which had disastrous repercussions for the teacher in question.  Not only has he been suspended from work during the “investigation”, his two little girls are unable to go to school due to bullying in their primary school.  Obviously, Little Jimmy has been allowed to return to school as we wouldn’t want his education to suffer would we?  He’s so dedicated to learning and acquiring wisdom that depriving him of this would suck the joy from his life.  Besides, Little Jimmy still needs to learn how to negotiate the complex world of the comma…

Obviously this incident spread around the school like head lice in a primary school, jumping and flying from one head to the next, burrowing deeper, laying eggs, multiplying, all the while evolving (if I believed in evolution that is) into a greater beast.  Some whispered about court cases, midnight raids at the poor teacher’s house, sniffer dogs rooting the culprit out from the cellar while he cowered in the corner; others announced proudly that it was “one down, another eighty to go”, while the more supportive and infinitely more “human” students – yes, there IS such a thing – stood aloof, trying not to get involved, making brief comments about the law and teaching unions, clicking their tongues and shaking their heads , smiling sympathetically at the teaching soldiers passing them in the corridors. 

Where do we go from here?