Monday, 18 April 2016

O is for Old?


Welcome to my posts for the A to Z Challenge 2016.
This year, I am posting 
Special School Stories
 tales from either my time as a teacher or teaching assistant within classrooms in the U.K. or from my own school days growing up around the country.


To young children, everyone over the age of 16 looks old to them.  Sometimes there might be a distinction between Mum old and Grandma old but on the whole teachers can all be 21 for as many years as they like – they are still seen as old by little ones.
 
At one school, a young teacher joined us (Miss C) who was absolutely lovely and called me “School Mum” and I called her “School Daughter” as we both had long dark hair and the same type of slight zany-ness about us.  However, she came to me one day slightly mortified that some of the children in her class had started calling her by my name and she was beginning to think they couldn’t tell us apart!!  

I have to own up and say I was absolutely delighted to think I could be interchangeable with her as not only was she young enough to be my daughter (just) but she was also stick thin and a couple of inches taller than me!!  I think in all honesty having been the only teacher at the school for a number of years with long dark hair I think the children noticed that feature the most.  Although, after Miss C had been ill for a week I went in to her classroom to be greeted with “Are you better now?” so who knows?

Now it’s time to share your funny stories about age at school – did all teachers seem the same age to you?  Did you ever get mistaken for a younger or older pupil?  Do you look different to your actual age and has this benefitted you or been a problem? Come on you know I’d love to know :)

7 comments:

  1. it's funny how as a kid you have no idea about age...I used to look younger than my age. Now I'm probably not getting away with anything. I try to think my hair is "blondish" but there's way more gray. Uh oh

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  2. I do remember being mortified by accidently calling one teacher "Mum" but I think that's quite common for younger kids!

    Mars xx
    @TrollbeadBlog from
    Curling Stones for Lego People

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  3. I remember talking about my first grade teacher many years later. I thought she was old at that time. My mom told me she had just gotten out of college when she was my teacher. We had a good laugh!

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  4. Great post! I really didn't get on at school and I was glad to escape! However I have since fine back to studying and did/doing fantastic! What a difference it made being treated nicer by teachers/tutors has made lol looking forward to more posts 😀 I am now a follower too!

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  5. I agree -- kids have no concept of age. When my teen daughter volunteered they thought she was 30.

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  6. My students are often surprised to learn how old I am. I've aged pretty well in that I don't have wrinkles! When I was a young teacher in a very large school, I was often mistaken for a students--even when I was pregnant!

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  7. When I worked in a kinder garden the children all treated me as an adult and some of the parents treated me as a child and asked if I was on work placement (as teenagers year olds do) and I had been employed there the whole year and was 25... But I guess I look young but adult most of the time for kids and some adults....

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