As a casual teacher, the staggering variety of duties I'm called upon to undertake is extraordinary. I've "taught", among others things, Yr 11 Physics (yep, right up my alley, that one), Library, Yr 9 metalwork (the accident form is still out there somewhere), Yr 12 English, and, the latest challenge, Dance. And, all this whilst being a fully qualified primary-trained teacher. They're really heart starting days, but I've grown to love the buzz.
That is, apart from my excruciatingly embarrassing latest stint as a fill-in for the dance teacher for sport. Normally, gigs like this will be a piece of cake, with the casual simply keeping an eye on the kids while the person with actual expertise in that area will provide some useful instruction. Not so in this case, as on this particular day the proper dance instructor had not seen fit to bestow her services, and the dance lesson was to be delivered by........(horror of horrors)......moi. This only became apparent to me as I walked into the room with around 20 teenage girls hoping to see a lycra clad cutie with cd player in tow ready to deliver the goods, only to find an empty room, no music player and tables and chairs neatly laid out for a meeting. My sinking feeling intensified when we all sat down, the girls looked at me expectantly, and I realised I had nothin'.
Let me just lay it on the line for you, my dancing experience is limited to childhood ballet lessons in Holmesville community hall, numerous bops to a blues band with my drink spilling onto the floor, and on the odd occasion I subject Dan to my version of "interpretative dance", usually after a work-do or a party when the fun ended too soon and we've found ourselves at home but still unsober (haha, yes, that is a word) and full of beans. Apart from those times, I'm whatever the opposite of "exhibitionist" is. But wait, then I had a lightbulb moment. In the words of Cher...."If I could turn back tiiiime".
In desparation, I offered to teach the girls a Zumba dance, and judging by their faces, the offer came across as more of a threat than a promise. So, I offered the alternative, that they could get together in groups and make up their own dance - but of course, they'd need to find a decent song on Youtube as inspiration (sucker = me). This, of course, gave them the green light to devour funny clips/music videos/babies snorting grapes for half an hour and protest to me when questionned that what they were doing was searching for creative stimulus. And, while I would be happy to do some similar mucking about on my own phone for a couple of hours, my sense of responsibility kicked in...how annoying.
And that's how it came about that I hit the carpeted boardroom "stage" in my knee length teacher-issue cargoes and joggers and performed "Moves Like Jagger" to the tinny sounds of the song faintly radiating from someone's ipod. At first, a few joined in, but they backed off when given the "that's sooooooooooooooooooo not cool" looks from the older girls, so it was all me. And hey, I'll give myself some credit - I saw it through. Mainly because I was getting paid to do it, but hey!
(From now on, though, I'm keeping a hip flask in my bag, just in case).
