March 17th

I quit one of my big teaching jobs today and it felt like most productive thing I have done in a long while. When I was working as an actor private tuition was a useful subsidiary income but when you've been out of theatre work for six months, it becomes clear quite quickly, that private tuition can never really provide a satisfying career. Apart from meeting new clients, the work remains pretty much the same. There is also the issue of age. When you are a fresh graduate in his early twenties, A Levels are part of your recent life. You are still able to emotionally connect with the students over the problems, challenges and anxieties of preparing for an exam. As a thirty-year-old, my attitude has changed. I am frustrated by the laziness and lack of initiative amongst many of the students. I am like a band-aid rather than a teacher; there to patch up a gaping wound of inertia inflicted by too much privilege.

I hope to finish tutoring completely by the end of this year, or take it down to a bare minimum of three or fours a week. There. I've said it. I've written it down on a blog on the internet, so now I have to stick to it. I have two students I like and will see through to their final exams. One of them is from a working class background. I would like to throw my energies into helping him more. He is polite and hard working but doesn't read enough. His parents' first language is Spanish and so they have not been able to help him with much of the reading.

Home school kids today were being difficult for the last half an hour. Their energy levels dropped and mine did too if I'm being honest. Not sure that teaching for three hours with a ten minute break isn't asking a bit much of a ten-year-old. Part of the issue is that the girl is much further ahead than the boy and while I set her extra work and more advanced she has a habit of misbehaving to entertain him. I may split them up a bit more. They kept asking if I had a girlfriend. Oh dear, if only they knew. Perhaps they do. 

Harrods and heartache

The Jehovah family was on good form today. They are off to Harrods for haircuts. Apparently the girl wants to have a shampoo with crushed diamond in it. 

Harrods really is a tacky theme park extravaganza. They have over a hundred Harrods points to spend which means they have spent several thousand pounds in store at the very least. 

I am really curious about the nature of their father's business. They seem to have a lot of funds going through foreign bank accounts. 

What is interesting is how quickly the family has let down their guard in terms of their behaviour. I suppose it gets to a point where you can't hide everything that happens from people like teachers, cleaners and nannies who come into your home. I see the mother terribly upset sometimes, although today I had the privilege to see their very sick child, who suffers from a genetic disorder, lift her own cup and drink by herself. This was the first time she had done this. It was very moving to see. 

It reminds me that I must not dismiss these families out of hand. For all their money, they are not protected from the heartache that life shovels out from time to time. 

Feb 24th

According to his mother Samuel is a stoner. Oh, and his father also found ecstasy in his coat pocket. He's not even clever enough to hide his drugs. Although his lassez-faire approach may have been encouraged by a speaker who came to his school (Westminster) and apparently said ecstasy was less dangerous than smoking. 

It seems Sam and his mother are at loggerheads. He doesn't listen and he has basically checked out as far as his education is concerned. Samuel is the youngest of five kids and, boy, he doesn't half live up to it. He can't make his own breakfast. Apparently he asked his mum: 'how do you make fried egg?' 

This is a kid who managed to get himself 8 A* grades at GCSE but now there is nothing that interests him. Although I know that there is something more going on. He has become infatuated with another boy at his school. A kid who regularly spends a couple of thousand pounds every weekend.

Samuel also explains to me how he wants to have power when he grows up. 'I'd be a good mafia boss,' he says, 'accept the mafia aren't as glamorous as they used to be.' To which I reply: 'you mean they don't kill people as elegantly as they used to?' 'Whatever brings in the...' And he rubs his fingers together in the universal gesture of money. 

I tell him about a woman I know who is not only suffering from cancer but is also waiting to hear about her asylum case. She is from Zimbabwe and has been terribly abused. I wonder if this will shake him up, awaken some kind of emotional response but he just shrugs his shoulders: 'nothing to do with me.' 

The trouble is that he knows how easy he's got it and so is making a decent attempt at destroying his future. At some level I think it's about a lack of identity. A vacuum of testosterone he looks to his rich friend as a role model. It makes me think, more than ever, that we need more diversity in our schools.