Squeak squeak

I reckon recently I have gone on a lot about the grade 3 problem here, but it really is the only big deal at school. Today I went to join the class for music. This means sitting in a room filled with 8 year olds wielding recorders... and they are not shy of giving them a loud chirp. So I am sitting there among what sounds like the death throes of some as-yet unencountered alien being, trying Oh-so-very-hard to pretend that I can't hear what is going on around me and that I couldn't think of a more pleasant way to be spending the time I have left with my eardrums. Eventually a combo of three teachers manages to get the kids to place the recorders on their desk where, it is presumed, they will be unable to make any noise with it. The rest of the lesson consisted of the teacher trying to get Hiroki to apoligise for calling another kids a spaz (because of which she cried which really annoyed me, if you can't get called a spaz without crying, how did you even survive until grade 3 anyway?), Hiroki ignoring her completely or saying a lot of words that rhymed with "I'm sorry" but were actually more insults and meanwhile the other hooligan, Masashi is up the front bashing out his own version of a concerto on the electric organ. Finally the teacher just goes and unplugs the organ from the wall which and begins giving the class a lecture about what to do when Masashi goes mental; ignore him and concentrate on your lesson. Nice advice. While she is saying this Masashi is kicking her, pushing her, hitting her (he was really putting some effort in too) and she ended her speech while dragging him slowly out of the classroom to the hallway where he went completely bunta and used his recorder to bash the teacher and the TA and finally threw it down the hall where it broke into a few pieces.

As if it's not bad enough that there are even kids like this around, the rest of the kids have missed an entire lesson because the teacher cannot deal with Hiroki and Masashi without leaving the classroom. Out of a 40 minute lesson the kids had exactly 5 minutes of learning time and the rest was spent dealing with their unbalanced classmates. I feel really sorry for them, all they are learning is how the squeaky wheel gets the most oil, but that they should never squeak.