Right hook

Michael's dad was just out of prison, and Michael was excited. What's more, parents' evening was coming up, and his dad was going to be there. This was the first time, and Michael was pleased.

It was the tradition then that parents' evenings were a three-way conversation between parents, teacher, and child. It made for some lively conversations and honesty was self-policing. Getting the facts right mattered, as someone would quickly correct them if they weren't.

It was my second parents' evening as a new teacher, and I was still getting the hang of getting the timing right, finding the balance that gave people enough time to talk without having impatient queues eyeing their watches half way round the building.

When Michael's parents arrived, Michael bounced in first, almost dragging them in with the same pride that a cat has when presenting you with a mouse on the kitchen lino.

Scarcely in the room, he called over to me. 

"Mr Hepworth, look at me dad's hook ! Look at me dad's hook !" He tugged his dad forward by the arm.

Now it isn't easy to find the right response to this, and indeed, this was a sentence that I had not really ever considered meeting. What to say ? "Ooh, yes, it's a smashing hook." Or maybe, "Good evening, Mr Johnson. I do admire a shiny hook."

(Picture of hook prosthesis)

And it was shiny. No cutting edge prosthesis, this. A hook straight from a pirate ship, but newer.

Eventually we settled down to chat, and were in the middle of discussing Michael's writing when mum and dad began to disagree. At first it was minor disagreement, but voices were raised and before you could say Tony Blair a war was breaking out before my eyes. 

Mr Johnson leapt to his feet, and grabbed Mrs Johnson's coat.He began to drag her from her seat. She was protesting, and her protest got louder as he yanked her toward the door. He had her coat awkwardly and she was slightly bent, clearly unused to being escorted in quite this way. At least while Mr J had been inside.

Both he and she were heedless of my requests to come back and discuss this, and they hustled out of the school foyer, still locked together like flies. The library stretched across the front of the school overlooking the car park, and Michael and I watched while Mr J got his wife in the car and drove off. Michael did not say anything.

As the car accelerated up the road, a small cloud of blue smoke behind it, the passenger door opened and banged shut again. Twice.

Michael was dejected but not apparently disturbed. "They didn't see me maths," he said, sadly. "Or me pictures."

A colleague got on the phone and looked after Michael, plying him with biscuits and juice, until his mum turned up again later that evening to collect him. She was apologetic, though it was she who needed apologies most. To our shame, she and we seemed intent on pretending that nothing had happened.

Much later

Michael was angry when he came to school one morning. He was rude and late and restless. He just could not be still. I gave him a piece of my mind and he quietened down.

Only later did I discover that Michael had been having breakfast at home when police had come to arrest his dad. There had been a violent scene in the kitchen, and Michael had been in the midst of it. His dad had been dragged away this time, and did not reappear for a couple of years.

Michael's family taught me two of the most powerful lessons I ever had in teaching, and which stayed with me through my career: firstly, that if you do not challenge the unacceptable, you condone it and help to perpetuate it. 

Secondly, when things are seldom as straightforward as they seem at first, if you cannot be part of the solution, at least make sure you don't add to the problem.

By the time I was able to say sorry to Michael, the damage had been done.

The last time I heard from Michael he was about 20, and I had not seen him for 10 years. He wrote, and enclosed a picture of himself kneeling by a large black dog. Both looked happy. Michael was beaming. 

I think he wanted me to know that he was alright.