Did you survive school unscarred?

From an old fax sent to home from Rhodes, Greece.  Apologies to any mistakes in my grammar – how I ended up teaching English with my spelling I never really understood.


Only lost my temper once today, while teaching.  One boy could not understand the difference between gradable and ungradable adjectives.  I explained quite clearly, I thought, “If I say you are a very stupid boy, or not very handsome, or a little foolish, these are all gradable.  But, if I call your English incomprehensible, unspeakable, ghastly there is no need to grade these words so they are ungradable.”  It was a lovely opportunity to insult him.  What a dastardly teacher I am.  Speaking of teachers, Daniel had a run in with his teacher in primary school here in Greece.  She called me in to see her as Daniel had snatched his book back from her last week.  In punishment she had decided to ignore him completely in the class for three days, even when he put his hand up.  Now, she wanted to talk to me because Daniel did not seem at all bothered about being ignored.  He hadn’t even told me!  Anyway, she said she’d been very upset all weekend and wanted Daniel to apologise.  I spoke to him and he was devastated he’d hurt her feelings and cried in his bedroom.  He apologised and she kissed him.  Imagine a teacher not speaking, sulking for three days.  It is almost as bad as using the English language to insult annoying students.   My question is how do any of us survive school unscarred?