The Return of Monitor Man (or IS IT?)

Tuesday 29th December 2009
Seems an odd day of the week to do a blog, doesn't it? Yeah I guess so. Why not do it tomorrow? Well, that is always my intention, but I always find that, because of the masses that go online from here on Wednesday evenings, the connection speed is always rubbish.

Anyway, today I FEEL LIKE doing it. Getting very conscious of the frequency of my blogs going down rapidly and I don't want to forget stuff that SHOULD go in.

As always I digress. Now to the main point of writing this entry which is, as the threatening title shows, the 'comeback' of someone I REALLY did NOT want to ever see again in any classroom situation. Or any OTHER situation come to think of it. Yes, sadly it IS a fact that the one known as Monitor Man HAS made a reappearance in my class list from last week.

How could this happen? Well, it is quite simply this. Remember some time ago I was blogging about the second of the new teachers who was causing chaos and bad feeling amongst everyone he met? The teacher who let his classes go when he wanted and who didn't turn up to classes when he felt like it. And the one who not many people ever saw much of and who made little effort to take part in anything.

Well, FINALLY the decision was made and he was shown his cards and WAS sacked. Because it was still inside the 90-day Probationary Period, they were able to do this with almost no notice at all. And good riddance to him! Actually I didn't think they'd do it, so for ONCE they have acted as they should.

That left a problem. What to do with his students – the ones my colleague and I had suffered with when they were still army boys. Well, the answer soon came on the Wednesday afternoon, and that was that they were to be “redistributed”.

When I heard THAT word, I immediately thought the worst. Could this mean that I would ONCE AGAIN be seeing old faces that I'd rather NOT?? The ones that I had successfully been able to ignore and walk on by and disassociate myself with because they were finally out of my hands??

Well, yes, the answer was of course that it COULD mean JUST THAT!

There you go! As always, just when I start to get settled into some kind of comfortable-ish way of doing things here, this place throws the spanner in the works and unsettles things again and slaps me in the face. Well, you know by now that you can NEVER be too comfortable here and there is always SOMETHING else that WILL come along to upset the apple-cart.

I had a mental list of ex-army boys who I definitely did NOT want to see the names of first thing Saturday. Well, I had two or three graded lists depending on the irritation value of the people concerned. On List #1 (the 'Red List' you could say) were ones like those I used to call 'Leg Man', 'Monitor Man' and one or two others. Any of THEM on my new class list and ….

Well, what WOULD I do exactly?? Scenarios played out in my head a-plenty. What I felt I HAD to do was, in the event of any of these BEING there, lay down the law EARLY on. Do it on that FIRST day! Read 'em the proverbial “Riot Act”! Nip any likely trouble in the bud!

This class I have now is a fairly settled one. What it DOES NOT NEED is any kind of idiots coming in and destroying the way that we work! I will NOT have any kind of return to army-boy-class days after a good and enjoyable of teaching.

Saturday morning came and in I went. I went in and one of them was sitting there. OK, a not-bad start – this one was not too bad who was sitting there. So the lesson got started and then in came the college registrar with a few more. They were OK too. He gave me the new class list. And my eyes POPPED OUT when I saw it!!

He was on there. His name was on that list. It was the Return Of Monitor Man to my class. My first reaction to it was that I had to say, “Sorry but I will not accept this man!”, and I started saying it but then stopped.

Well, be realistic! WHAT could I actually DO?? This college registrar wouldn't understand and I would not be able to explain to him WHY I did NOT want this asshole in my nice class! He was just doing his job and it would not change anything if I objected. And anyway, I wasn't going to waste class time on such a matter.

The only thing I could do, I decided, and the only action I could take was unilateral. Would have to decide for MYSELF what I was going to do with this moron.

Fortunately he was not there that day. Was my luck in??

Sadly not. They had a computing test on the Sunday – well when I say “they”, I mean the class-that-was-a-class boys. A reason for him to come in then on the Sunday. And so he did.

Time was going on well. We had got to 11 o'clock and only another fifteen minutes needed to pass that session of the day. I was at the back helping students with something, it was the desk nearest the door and I was facing the door. And there he came.

There was NO WAY I was going to let him in! Here he was attempting to stroll in with no books and no pens as far as I could see. This was not army boy days now and there was NO REASON I had to. He is a college student now and out of army uniform and so just like ANY OTHER student.

He opened the door. I stopped him in his tracks. “Go away!”, I said, “You have no books, no pens, nothing. And look at the time!”. He attempted to argue but I waved him away and didn't let him in even to sit down. I moved away from that desk. He was still trying to communicate. But I ignored him and gestured him more to go away. And in the end he DID!

HAH!! Victory #1 goes to ME!! YOU are not coming in, FUCKER, no matter WHAT happens!!

The next day, Monday, no appearance. Apparently he had not been seen for weeks anyway. I vainly hoped he might not turn up again, but on the Tuesday he did.

He appeared at the door after lesson start. “Can I come in?”, he asked, somewhat sheepishly. “Where are your books?”, I said, noting that he had none in his hand. “In my room”, was his reply. “So go and get them then!”, I said.

This time, I thought, let's actually give him just one chance. Maybe he has improved through being out of army uniform. So that day I DID let him in, and in he came and greeted the others as he did so.

For part of the lesson he attempted to do what the others were doing. But he only had a photocopy of his ONE book. HAH!The man who was boasting how much he had paid for his sunglasses and mocking the other students for their cars and such-like could NOT EVEN SHELL OUT FOR HIS OWN BOOKS!!!

However, it was not to last as you might expect. I kept my eye on him. He had his music on, headphones were in, the phone was out in his hands and he was turning around to disturb his 'classmates' who were sitting behind him. After the long break time he didn't even have the next book we were using and the page that was open remained the SAME PAGE the whole lesson.

In fact, that SAME PAGE remained open at the SAME PLACE even the next day. And yes, it was on the SAME PLACE on his desk as the day before when we came to the post lunchtime session which he was absent from.

So, as Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops once sang, with him it's the Same Old Song! Well, I gave him his chance to see if he was going to make an effort. Quite simply, HE BLEW IT!!

Now, for last week, I quite DELIBERATELY marked him as ABSENT for EVERY DAY of that week apart from those four lesson periods he WAS actually here. Yes …. he was and is absent today, tomorrow, next week, next month and as long as I am teacher of that class he will ALWAYS be so. I am quite simply NOT having someone like HIM in my class to cause the SAME problems as he did with that other class!! We do NOT need that kind of person in our class!

Interestingly enough, his ex-army-boy classmates attempted to defend him and say he was “a good student”. Did they really MEAN THAT?? Or maybe it was just the “trying to help out a fellow ex-army-boy classmate” - the kind of “good Moslem deed for the day” attitude?

The third time he has attempted to come in was really the WORST of the lot. It was yesterday, Monday – the first time I have seen him this week. On Mondays I start later than normal at 9.30am which is after the long break time and after the two periods of computing lesson that they have before me.

On this day, at the start of the lesson some of the students were fussing round at the front wanting to see my class register for this week and how many times they had been absent. They are actually pretty annoying in this, and we seem to battling continually with me explaining that If You Are Not Here Then You Are Absent and them failing to get this into their heads. Being LATE is also marked as being absent here, and if someone comes after the register has been marked, then they have one absent mark against their name. I've written about this before, and it IS intended to make sure they come on time though actually does not work and they STILL come to me at the end of the lesson to ask WHY I have marked them absent.

Honestly, I am SO TIRED of explaining what is REALLY a Very Simple Thing! It is not, as the saying goes, any kind of Rocket Science. Really ALL they have to do is NOT be late for class.

Anyway, they and I had had a long and senseless discussion the previous day about such things. Many had been absent on Sunday afternoon because of fasting due to it being the “Ashura” time of year in the Moslem calendar. This is actually a festival for Shia Moslems of which there are many in this, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. But, although it is a festival, it is NOT a holiday in the Saudi calendar since this is a Sunni Moslem country primarily. Because of this, of course if they chose not to come that afternoon, they were marked as absent. And they moaned and moaned about it!

Anyway, back to what happened with Monitor Man. He was one of those at the front having a look. I was tired of all this fussing around at the front so I shoo-ed them all away. I wanted to get started and yet they were, as always, fussing around over this thong again. So I was pretty wound up anyway.

Next, WHO should come in the room WTHOUT KNOCKING was, yes, you've guessed it, the one and only LEG MAN! I straight away told him to Get Out. He wanted his keys, he said, from his friend Monitor Man. So give him his keys, I said to MM. “No”, was the reply. “No!”, I relayed the message back to Leg Man. “I need my keys!”. He said again.

Ohh, NOW I had these TWO assholes acting together now, did I?? Leg Man wouldn't go out and Monitor Man wouldn't go back to his seat. ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH!!

“Right, you and YOU just BOTH GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM!”. No, they wouldn't – either of them. I was NOT going to be moved! I went to the back of the classroom and opened the door. “Right, YOU out and YOU ALSO – OUT!!”, I indicated to them both. “You are not even IN THIS CLASS, and YOU I have had enough of! GET OUT!!”. “No!”, said Monitor Man. “GET OUT!!”, I repeated. “No!”, he said again. Leg Man was still standing by the door as I was there holding it open for both of them.

OK, so they were refusing to leave. The next thing I was about to do was to go get the Student Affairs man to REMOVE THEM both. As I was thinking about this, another of the army men came into view in the area outside the classrooms. He is one of those MANY who comes in to relay messages to the students (rather too often!). Now, I have NO IDEA if this man speaks any English or not – it is quite possible that he doesn't in which case he didn't understand a WORD I was to say to him next.

He came over. I told him, “THIS student here refuses to leave my classroom, and THIS one here is not even IN this class!”. I said I had asked him to but he had refused to do so. The guy did not say anything (most probably he DIDN'T understand me!). All that happened next was that Monitor Man launched into this load of Arabic pointing and stabbing his finger at me and at the registers in my hand most likely telling this guy what an unreasonable bastard I was and that I was marking him absent a lot. Well, that's quite a complement (if that's what was said), and being an "unreasonable bastard" to someone like Monitor Man has to be satisfying. The army guy again didn't say anything, and to be frank there was nothing he COULD say really. In the end, after his Arabic rant, Monitor Man opened the drawer of his desk, took out his books that were there (so it seems he DID have them after all!) and stormed out followed by his buddy the Leg Man, who helped him on his way.

“Thank you”, I said to the army man who had stood there all this time not saying a thing and was probably complete the wrong guy to have called in. Away he went, I closed the door and the classroom was at peace again.

“You SEE what he is like!!”, I YELLED as I went back to the front, “He is in here for not even TEN MINUTES and we have PROBLEMS like this!”

However …. it was not QUITE over. AGAIN my class wanted to discuss the fucking SAME FUCKING ISSSUE of being absent of not with reference to Sunday afternoon!! Ohh, couldn't they JUST leave it alone now?? “How many TIMES do I have to EXPLAIN this to you??”, I yelled, “IF you are not here, YOU ARE ABSENT!! It is REALLY NOT DIFFICULT!!”. “But how do you know I was absent when you were off ill yesterday afternoon?”, one demanded to know. Yes, I had had to go home early Sunday afternoon because of ill-health (AGAIN!), and I had marked those here at 12.30 pm as Present and all others as Absent. But still they went on.

Somehow that issue came to a close and we DID manage to get on with some kind of lesson that day. I had felt rough coming IN that morning – but NOW it was REALLY not the start to a day that I wanted.

So …. that is the Monitor Man situation as up-to-date as I know it now. Is he gone for good? I hope so. I thought of going to the college registrar and trying some way to push him into some other class in exchange for another. Well, one of my current students has, for some reason, been put into “Class 1” without notifying me. Maybe, I thought, I can engineer a 'swap' back. But I abandoned that idea as I could not come up with enough good reason why I wanted the asshole out.

Being an asshole is not enough to kick him out my class, you see. Maybe a Disciplinary Report? Maybe not.

Look, I have just over six weeks to go. All I want is to get through that remaining time as peacefully and reasonably as I can without creating more disturbance than is necessary.

By the look of these last two weeks, I don't think I got a CAT IN HELL"S CHANCE!