Back to that slave auction idea... Post II

So the slave auction, 800 teens crammed into a room without ventilation, expressing their ongoing frustrations in a grotesque parody, by selling human labour. What could go wrong? Yup, the teacher-slave auction. Sick. Anyone with any sense would have seen that our form was more or less baying for the teacher's blood, even the mean girls dropped the act for a few nano-seconds to express small emotions like glee, delight and joy. There she was, this teacher, quivering on the stage, the beady eyes bulging, a revealing sheen on the forehead, shining in the overhead lights. She was nervous during the auction and a wreak by the time the gavel fell and 'U4R' were declared the winners. This small victory now was the highlight of a 6-month smear campaign: strict non-compliance, answering only in English, tipping back on our chairs, hiding behind the obligatoy mane of hair, spraying nasty body sprays everywhere. You know, the usual teenage rebellion in an unimaginative girl's school in England. Now, casually discarding the past three years of carefully-constructed animosity between all class members, we united in our common goal of humiliating this teacher who would be ours for one day. The suggestions were ludicrous and overly elaborate, much like the death scenes of a James Bond villain. As a group we quickly warmed to our theme and to list just one rather telling suggestion, we opted to make said teacher crawl on her hands and knees along the corridor and pick up rubbish. With her mouth. Now remember, this was allowed to go on.. As the time passed we whittled out the more obviously demeaning options but something funny started to take place: the old bitchy hierarchies crept back in and the actual task or organising the afternoon from hell for the teacher became rather dull. Why unbalance an adult's carefully-constructed notions of balance when we could all just bitch about each other to each other? why deliberate when you can dive straight in and ruin someone's afternoon? why flirt when you can, ahem... you get my point.

So, with most things at that school, it was over before it began. In the end, the luckless woman was made to run around the school for the lunchbreak before retreating to the staff room for a double and a breakdown. I am not sure anyone really paid attention in the end, which makes the spectacle all the more pathetic, being humiliated is one thing, but to be humiliated and not even have the expected audience? Needless to say, she left at the end of the year. I think I speak for most of the friends with whom I am still in contact when I say that there is some lingering guilt, that woman must have dreaded our lessons and given that we had French 3 (or 4) times a week that was at least 20% of her life.

Yet still, "tiens tiens" is un-effing-believable. I'd rather knit my way to freedom using oatmeal and spoons.