She's the same height as me, her eyes are grey crystal and her stare penetrating. Puberty has arrived and is unpacking her bags, and in close proximity - which is where Kirsty always places herself when talking to me - every black head sits proud, black and bulging alongside rhubarb and custard acne. She is loud and oblivious to her own dominance; she is friendly and keen to please but also keen to finish as fast as possible with minimal effort. She has boyfriends who are much older and to be honest English is not top of her list of priorities.
Kirsty was nearly my undoing when I started teaching. When I have invested time and energy coaxing and enthusing a class to write - stoking ideas, setting the mood - the minimum I expect in return is that an equal amount of time will be spent thinking, planning, deliberating over word choice, checking punctuation, giving me time to ensure that everyone is settled and focussed and then have five minutes to myself. "FINISHED!" Kirsty announces, before my backside even reaches the comfort of my chair. Proudly thrusting her book into my face and without drawing breath she asks "What shall I do now?" It is clear by the look on her face that my suggestions of checking work through, improving words or making her sentences actually make sense are not going to appeal to Kirsty's sense of efficiency, as far as she is concerned she has done the job. Her regular glances up at the clock tell me that she has accounted for completing the task, packing her equipment away tidily, perhaps having a quick chat with her neighbour but definitely being ready to leave bang on time the second the bell rings for break time. To be fair to her she did get straight down to work while others fussed but now, her vociferous proclamation that her work is finished and cannot be improved and her plaintive pleas that she just doesn't understand what I want her to do are disturbing the peace and I sense a stirring in the belly of the beast that is 7EW. She needs more specific guidance but when I flick my eyes over the vast body of her work, pages and pages of sentences that don't make sense loosely scattered with the occasional full stop, I know that I am not going to be able to even begin to help especially as I am constantly distracted by the casual pushing, poking and general intent to irritate building in the queue that is gradually forming behind her.
In the very same classroom, a few years later - almost accidentally - I will crack the art of setting personalised targets with the new improved 7EW, a livelier much less tameable version of the prototype, and I will develop the skill of keeping everybody working at the same pace. But for the moment I have Michael who spends all lesson and most of lunch time struggling to finish anything meaningful and Kirsty churning out three pages in ten minutes and every variation of chatterer and easily-distracted pencil case-faffer and 'I-don't-know-what-to-write' whiners in between. There is no doubt that I am capable of inspiring my pupils into some sort of action but I need to learn the art of teaching writing.
