I'm standing in front of a class of 14-year-old girls who appraise me with insolent eyes and critical voices. "Cor, look at Miss," one calls out, while another shouts, "Reckon those eyelashes are real?" The rest are yelling insults at each other, throwing pencils and paper across the room, or shrieking with laughter.
Nothing had prepared me for the chaos in that classroom. I kept trying to control the class but didn't have a hope. After the longest hour of my life, the bell finally rang for recess.I rushed to the staff room seething with outrage, but my complaints didn't evoke any surprise from my fellow teachers. "You've got 4B," one of them said, shrugging. "They're the worst class in the school.
Sometimes I got them to write about themselves. Through their stories, I discovered many of them led underprivileged lives in dysfunctional families where they often took care of younger siblings. They became engrossed in describing their families, pets and boyfriends, and as time went on their writing formed a bridge between us. Occasionally, a girl would come to class with a black eye or bruised arms, and in a matter-of-fact tone explain that Dad had drunk too much the night before.
Term was drawing to an end, and I was in the staff room when there was a knock on the door. The two most recalcitrant girls in 4B were standing there, and they handed me a magnificent bouquet of flowers. Their note read: "To Mrs Armstrong, with appreciation from 4B."