They looked at me with such visceral hatred. Their faces were contorted into scowls like I’d never seen on them before.
It was a regular Tuesday tutor time. We were looking at the daily notices on a PowerPoint slide. The current one was about their GCSE options for the next year. Some of them wanted to discuss their options with the Head of Year. The Head of Year would usually do his rounds every morning and one of the students noticed he had not been to see us yet.
I told them that they could only find the Head of Year at the end of the day today because he wasn’t going to be around before lunch time.
They asked where he was. I said he has gone to reconnaissance a museum for a day of culture that the whole year group would be having soon.
Reconnaissance?
I was usually more careful than to use words like reconnaissance.
They immediately asked what that meant and I unsuccessfully tried to describe it.
A bunch of kids in my tutor group are gamers so I asked one of them, Matthew, if he could explain it. Matthew described it really well using the context of a mission in the army.
One particularly contrary tutee Kira asked. “Why are we talking about army stuff? What’s sir not being here got to do with army stuff? That’s got nothing to do with us”. A couple of others pitched in with their confusion about the uses of the words reconnaissance, mission and army. I tried in vain to address each question over the clamour of voices.
They were asked them to be silent, but they ignored me. I wanted to explain it again – this time in more simplistic terms.
I then firmly and loudly stated, “You do need to know what reconnaissance is because you will all be doing it as a part of your national service in a couple of years”.
They will hate you
They became silent immediately. Their faces full of rage filled venom. I’d never seen them all so collectively angry with me.
They were clearly all aware of one of the campaign promises of the Conservative Party to reinstate mandatory National Service in the UK from 2025 if they got elected in the upcoming general election.
Some of them looked like steam was coming out of their ears.
I smiled and told them that they would all look so good in an army uniform, so they didn’t need to worry. Their expressions remained stern.
Matthew spoke up. He was excited about the prospect of joining the army. The rest remained silent staring daggers at me.
Had I gone too far? I tried to recover by telling them to encourage their parents to vote if they didn’t want to do national service.
I moved on to the next slide on the PowerPoint. It was about the Debate Club and the discussion was democracy. I asked them to discuss in their pairs what else their parents had been saying about the election.
I may not have been forgiven for my joke but they were now focused on something else.
Keep it light when making fun
I think I got away with it that time. It was low stakes, and no individuals were being singled out.
It’s always better when you make fun of children to keep it you against all of them. Never them against them. Allow them to disagree with you and even be annoyed with you.
I made it clear I was joshing with them as I was smiling the whole time.
Allow them to see that you can have fun with them but never against them. That is the best way to make fun of children.
