Heading towards Kings Cross from Southwark on the number 63, I was thrown into conversation with the woman sitting next to me. The bus was packed and at the back were four girls who were being very loud and obnoxious. Their discussions centered around the drinking, their sex lives and which other girls they could bitch about.
Neither I nor the woman next to me turned around, but we were both shocked when the girls passed us to descend the stairs at Farringdon station. They were in school uniform and probably no more than 15.
Turns out, the woman sitting next to me was a music teacher at a school and our ensuing conversation centered around how many fantastic students we had each taught who would have been ashamed by the girls' behaviour on board that bus. It made me quite nostalgic for the classes of students that I have left behind.
I can name at least a handful of students from most of the classes I've taught, in all years. Sometimes it's the naughty ones I remember: the ones with a spark and signs of creativity. Square pegs in round holes, many of them. Several of them now doing much better out of school than they ever did within its walls.
Talking to that woman on the bus reminded me of why I went into teaching. It was absolutely for the right reasons and there were equally valid reasons why I left. That doesn't stop me remembering the students that I helped onto their learning journey in those six years.
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