“William could do better if he ever attended class. On the rare occasions he does turn up, he is unresponsive, taciturn and self-absorbed. I often wonder whether he’s expired!” Mr Brevity.“Gordon shows good intent at navigating the classroom door, but after that—well, it’s a race to the bottom. When I asked him who was the British Celtic Queen who rose up against the Roman invasion of ancient … ancient Briton he replied, “Janis Joplin” – I rest my case.” Mr Fructose
A humorous look at school reports of yesteryear when teachers could speak their mind without fear of retribution, litigation or trolling.
If you grew up in the 50’s 60’s 70’s or 80’s then you will laugh out loud as you recognise this school world and some of the cruel but fair teachers in it.
A companion short story to the full-length novel “Arc Of A Shooting Star”.
Approx 45 pages.
more
Very short; quite funny.
This publication (I don’t know what else to call it) is a collection of excerpts describing how teachers might write descriptions of student conduct and behavior if they could write what they really thought. This is not a novel, the excerpts segue into each other, but the connections are well concealed and impossible to appreciate unless the entire short collection is read. Connections will become apparent on reflection. There is no plot, the characters, the described students do not participate. There is no conclusion or climactic moral announcement. The collection is hilarious.
I wanted to post some observations on this because for the next few weeks I will be evaluating the performance of my students after one semester and preparing for the next semester. I encourage my students to read certain posts on this blog and I will direct some of them to this post. Maybe they will understand some of my comments. Or maybe not.
The title of the collection is The School Report. That makes sense. There is a subtitle: Before We Were Tsars. I have yet to understand that; I can’t connect it to anything I read. This is followed by a note (on the cover) that this is {A Companion Book To The Full Length Novel “Arc Of A Shooting Star”}. A further note indicates this is part of The Shooting Star Series. Because I was impressed by the humor of this selection, I downloaded the full-length novel. A table of contents indicates there are 32 named chapters but only five of them are written. At USD 0.99, I can’t be bothered to return the book. Also, the five written chapters are funny and will be covered in a separate review.
Here is a quote in which the author describes himself. It gives a reader some idea of the author’s writing style. “He currently lives somewhere with someone and does some things he should not do and some things he should do—but not as often as he’d like.” (Kindle locations 416-417). The author’s full description of himself is more complete with more humor.
Reports on four students make up this collection. Here are brief thoughts on three of the four students. Each teacher will report their observations on each student. I have selected partial quotes from Math teachers
ALLAN KINCAID: FORM 5C***** Of Allan his Math teacher observed “Allan started the first term slowly, quickly accelerated—backwards—in term two, and then, quite amazingly, or not, stopped attending maths completely! (Kindle locations 72-73).
WILLIAM HARDING: FORM 5B***** Another Math teacher commenting on William “He has set himself extremely low standards that he consistently fails to meet.” (Kindle locations 173-173).
GORDON ROBINSON: FORM 5F***** A Math teacher commenting on Gordon “Teaching algebra to Gordon is like trying to teach a cod how to rollerskate—it wastes my time and bamboozles the cod!” (Kindle location 253-254)
Humor is not confined only to the report texts. There is humor in names, nicknames, and illustrations. This is a good break from everyday stuff and a nostalgic look back at how bad you were in school. Your teachers may not have written such reports, but you know you were talked about in the break room. This is a five-star Amazon read for quirky humor.
This is such a great read as it will remind you of the things your old teachers would say about your school work and you while you were at school. You will love it
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.