I was on a lesson last week and a pupil asked me when I get time off. I explained that I tend to consider cancellations as “time off”, or I might keep a day free now and again. I then added that when you do a job you enjoy, it isn’t actually like work – so it isn’t particularly stressful and you get relaxation, job satisfaction, and you get paid.
He said that that was a great way to look at things.
Mind you, work isn’t all play and job satisfaction no matter how enjoyable it is overall. Some pupils really make you work for your money.
I’ve got one at the moment whose first language isn’t English. In fact, English might not feature in the top ten list of languages she’s even heard of! She’d had 10 lessons previously, but her last instructor had “gone away” and she’d wanted to carry on learning. Getting much more detail wasn’t easy.
To start with, she isn’t a natural driver, and as we progressed – after yet another failed attempt to mount a pavement and cull some pedestrians – a thought suddenly occurred to me. I pulled her over and, with much wording and rewording, discovered that she didn’t know what was meant by the following words and phrases (and I mean in the literal sense):
- kerb
- mind the kerb
- pavement
- pedestrian
- roundabout
- prepare
- plan
- plan ahead
- coasting
- clutch
- gas
- accelerator
The list goes on and on, and I am absolutely convinced that whenever I say anything to her – be it a question, a statement, or an instruction – all she hears is “mwah-mwah-mwah-MWAH-mwah” (watch The Simpsons, Episode 216 to understand that). It would certainly explain why I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with her.
On lessons, I have to stop and rack my brain finding ways of conveying even the simplest of instruction. Her mind just can’t take it in on the move. I’ll perhaps say “ease off the gas”, and I end up with whiplash from the resulting emergency stop. Or I’ll say “off the brake, off the brake” (frequently in a higher pitch than usual as I grab the wheel and seek to avoid a pedestrian or cyclist) as we steer sharply and unnecessarily away from a lorry or bus she has reacted to three lanes away travelling in the opposite direction. Almost every time I say “check your mirrors” it will immediately result in a randomly chosen indicator – in fact, even when she really should indicate the actual direction appears to be a random choice. If we approach any junction, her hand will go down for the handbrake, then the gears, then the handbrake again, then she’ll slam on the footbrake, declutch, then bring the clutch up while the footbrake is still on and we’re nearly stopped, resulting in a stall.
The whole situation is made all the more frustrating by the fact that she wants to pass quickly, and so is trying to book lessons just about every day. I don’t have too much of a problem with that, except that she recently filled up all my prime daytime slots, then got ill and cancelled them for five days – all at short notice. Last week, she didn’t tell me that she was taking her theory test at the same time as a lesson (she swears she did, but I have absolutely no recollection of any conversation that amounted to a cancellation), so I turned up and she didn’t show. When I tried to explain that it causes me to lose money and to think about that next time – which took the characteristic age to get across – she didn’t appear to have a clue (or concern) what I was talking about.
Ironically, she turned up for that first theory test without her licence counterpart, so she couldn’t take it.
Then, on her last lesson – that would be the one where she emerged from a side road and “forgot” that she needed to straighten the wheels after a sharp turn and not hit the gas, so we ended up partially on the pavement and narrowly missing (I used the duals) hitting one of those YOUR SPEED IS signs – she asked (and this is the translation I arrived at after careful questioning) “if I pass my theory test next week can I book my practical?”
I just said “No. You’re nowhere near ready.”