The One Powerful Perk of Being a Teacher

Our voice is our superpower

It was a Thursday, and I was on the 15:39 East Croydon to London Victoria. For those of you who aren’t familiar with English geography, Croydon is a large town in south London. A down-at-heel place, Croydon and its citizens are frequently the butt of jokes. But I’m proud of Croydon. It’s got edge and grit; its shadow side is there for all to see, not hidden away behind closed doors.

The train carriage was almost empty, just a few people dotted around. The sun was sending warm rays through the windows, and I settled against my seat for a nice bit of daydreaming.

I’m a modest sort of person; more at home watching and observing; more the audience than the actor. But in my dreams there’s no limit to my feats, my triumphs, my masterstrokes. The good thing about daydreams is you get to control them; you get to know in advance what will happen.

I was about to collect the Booker Prize. We had finished the dessert of strawberries and cream and the announcement was about to be made. I was about to win.

The train stopped at West Norwood and two young men got on, about fifteen years of age, low-slung jeans, baseball caps, a bit of bling, the usual stuff in the environs of Croydon. They sat behind me. The train pulled away, and I settled back into my reverie.

My name was just about to be read out, I was just about to go on stage, collect my cheque for £50,000, thank my agent, my publisher, my friends on Medium whose encouragement enabled me to become the writer I was today when…

… the unmistakable thump and pound of rap music pierced the tranquil, prize-laden air. Coming from a phone, the noise was thin and reedy as well as intrusive. Impossible to conjure dreams of literary success with such a racket.

There wasn’t a fellow sufferer in the seat opposite to whom I could throw a look of mutual dismay and suffering. Where’s your friendly local SAS when you need one?

And then two strange things happened.

You know how sometimes you do something and as you are doing it you are telling yourself not to do it, that it’s not a good idea, that it is foolhardy and possibly life-threatening, but you do it all the same? In some macabre and warped way, you are a fascination to yourself as you watch yourself ignore yourself. You have, in effect, cleaved and become two people.

I suddenly heard my voice ring loud and clear over the tinny drone. It was definitely my voice. I am familiar with my voice and I do not mistake it.

‘Turn that down!’ I shouted.

I didn’t just shout; I heard my finest, my most authoritative, my most irrepressible, most impossible to ignore, teacher’s voice. I didn’t even stand up and threaten them with my five foot four, one hundred and twenty pound physique; I remained seated.

The other half of me was quaking. Who was I to command anyone? Let alone two strapping teenage boys. Was I on a death wish? They almost certainly would have a knife.

Then the second strange thing happened.

Time, of course, doesn’t stand still. But it sure can slow down.

A second of time split in two.

During the first half of the second, I braced myself for the cold incision of steel into my jugular. I remembered the last thing I had said to my husband was to instruct him to take out the rubbish. I thought of my neck, my lovely, moisturised neck, soon to be sullied.

I saw my blood spurt like a fire extinguisher onto the ceiling; I saw the cleaner charged with wiping my blood from the walls and seats. Probably he would have to use bleach, or did he have amongst his cleaning accoutrements some special solvent or implement?

I saw my name and photograph on the front of Mail on Line and I hoped my husband would give them a good photo of me.

During the second half of the split second, I pondered that possibly my soon-to-be assailants were having difficulty extracting the knife from the jean pocket, possibly they were sharpening the knife on a special flint they carried with the knife. Possibly, they couldn’t decide which of them was going to wield the coup de grâce. I envisioned the blade glinting with wafer-thin sharpness like in that film Bodyguard when Kevin Costner throws Whitney Houston’s silk scarf into the air and it descends onto a knife so sharp that the scarf effortlessly splits in two. Any moment now, my neck would be that scarf.

The second of time passed, and still the music blared. Enough! Before I died, I wished to look my assailants in the eye, see the flash of steel that was about to puncture my life’s blood.

I turned, and through a gap in the seats, I looked. One boy stood. He was bent over the other boy and his face was creased and desperate, as if he was about to cry. He implored his friend:

‘Turn it off, turn it off!’

The other boy’s hands shook so much that he fumbled and scrambled to press the mute button on his phone.

I turned back. The music stopped. Blissful silence ensued.

I smiled. I basked. What had cowed my fellow travellers was the complete and utter authority of my teacher’s voice.

There aren’t many perks to being a teacher — besides the opportunity to brainwash young impressionable minds. Teachers certainly don’t teach for the money. But here was the greatest, biggest perk of all: my voice. My utter commanding, brooking-no-opposition voice.

Gone was the Booker. Now I was Moses, my voice parting the Red Sea. Now I was Neptune, my voice quelling the waves…

All too soon, we were at Victoria. I stood, and I floated to the door.

Every now and then, you have to seize the stage.

In doing so, you just may discover your superpower.