“If we were at school you’d be in soooo much trouble”

After a big week, Bill, Ben (the other teacher at Morven) and I headed down to the local on Friday evening for a meal and a bit of social action with the other Morvenites.

Of course, we quickly recognised half the people in the pub as school staff, parents, or kids at the school. A year seven girl who is in my class was working there, clearing tables, washing dishes, and general waitering stuff. It was pretty weird actually… this girl who I was teaching equivalent fractions to 5 hours earlier is now taking my plate and asking if I’d like a tea or coffee with dessert!

Her brother, who is in year two and in Ben’s class, was also roaming the pub and pissing as many people off as he possibly could. He’s an absolute football nut (rugby league of course… ‘cause “AFL is for sissies”). He knows just about every person who ever played the game, how many tries they scored and the colour and size of their underwear. He gave an in-depth analysis on why Queensland lost the first State of Origin, and boldly declared that “field goals aren’t part of real football”! While he aspires to one day be part of the Broncos 2nd row, he said he’d probably die if he ever had to play for the South Sydney Rabbitohs! I’d love to just fast-forward 20 years to see where these two country kids really end up!

It is a weird dynamic seeing students from your class socially outside of school. While you will always be “Mr Perkins” to them, when they see you drinking, socialising and having a good time you have to be careful not to break down too many of those ‘pillars of authority’ that teachers rely on. While we were all happy to relax and talk socially with these kids it was obvious that they were both quick to try to ‘push the boundaries’ of what different social interactions we would allow them to get away with. At one point, the year two boy casually pushed Ben on the shoulder. At school, that would have been really inappropriate, however, on a Friday evening at the pub, it would have been hard to reprimand him. Just to make things worse, these kids are son and daughter of a teacher aide at the school. There’s a complex for you!

Anyhoo, will be interesting to see if now these kids interact differently in the weeks ahead after seeing their teachers drinking at the local…!!