The Year Eight kids are terrified of their music teacher.

And I'm not surprised; she scares me too.

The most heinous thing she did this afternoon - and there was quite a lot of obnoxiousness from her - was aimed at one of the little girls who I was helping.

The scenario: the children are practising two bars of music. They each have a keyboard with headphones. Although they each have their own keyboard, there are two sets of headphones per keyboard, so that two people can listen. When they're not in use, the headphones need to be hung on the music rack behind the keyboard.

So here's how it went :

Teacher : B! Your headphones. Put them away.

B looks around, sees her headphones are in place, so doesn't move.

Teacher : B! Your headphones. PUT THEM AWAY!

B starts to look a bit panicky at this poing.

Teacher : In the middle! There! Put them away!

B is looking. She's confused and anxious at this point.

Teacher : No, not there ... Just look! Look in the middle (gestures between two keyboards). THERE! JESUS CHRIST JUST LOOK IN THE MIDDLE!

At this stage I got up and walked over there (I'd been helping someone else). I look all around; there are no headphones out of place. I say that I can't see any, was it here that she meant?

She says "Oh, are there not any there? I must be seeing things". And continues on with what she'd been saying before.

No apology.

I'm amazed that the kids ever volunteer anything in her class, as she's quite liable to fly off the handle at any stage. I find it stressful, and I'm not in her power.

The sad thing is that I think that, in her mind, she's a "firm but fair" teacher; I think that she thinks that her behaviour is quite rational and within the bounds of normal.

To add an extra dimension of angst to the afternoon, my cell phone rang while she was ranting at the class just before the bell rang for the end of school. Soph was feeling a bit under the weather this morning, so I'd kept it on in case her school needed to contact me urgently. And I'd given the rest of the family strict instructions not to call it unless there was a dire emergency. So of course when the phone rang I thought that Soph must have appendicitis or meningitis or bird flu or some other dire disease. In fact, all that had happened was that Bobby had forgotten what time I finish work, and had phoned for a chat because he'd thought I'd be on my way home. Aaargh. Perfect timing; it would happen in the class with the psycho teacher who's probably already not feeling friendly towards me, since I've witnessed her bad behaviour. I hope there aren't repercussions for me from this - she may feel that the best defense is a good offense.