Facing the music
“Suggest termination of lessons as a complete waste of my time.”
That’s all it said.
It was validated by two, hurriedly, scribbled and barely legible initials.
Eleven words that really knocked me. One for each of my tender years at the time. They still hurt a little, nearly half a century later.
It was, without doubt, the worst written report I’d received throughout my entire time at school, sixth form and college.
It was far worse than any of my maths’ reports. They were never good, but they offered a degree or two of optimism and suggested I was, at the very least, trying.
Admittedly, I was not good with numbers. I was more adept with words. I knew what termination meant. Such an insensitive and irrevocable term within a cold, dispassionate sentence without further context.
Brutal and uncaring
I kept reading it over and over again. It felt brutal, uncaring. And it was going to take a lot of explaining. It also meant I was in trouble.
Having discarded the idea of removing the offending narrative altogether through a painstaking disassembly of the report, I decided to face the music.
