I was teaching today. I am what they call in the States a “supply teacher” or a “substitute teacher” here, in Northern Ireland. I get phone calls in the evening or even early in the morning, mainly from primary schools and go in when a teacher is sick or on a training course. Today it was a secondary school, for a change. A couple of years ago I had the privilege to work with some great kids there, from Thailand, Malaysia, India and China, who needed a bit of practice and encouragement with their English.  Today I wasn’t so privileged and had a battle on my hands with every new class who walked through the door. It wasn’t me they were fighting but the institution I represented, the authority they wanted to usurp from their lives because it doesn’t stand for anything meaningful to them.  They don’t see the point in studying and considering their backgrounds, I don’t blame them, really. For many of them, the sense of twisted peer  recognition coming from mocking everything …