Yes and no, mainly yes I guess, we get good marks, but there's a LOT of 'throwing into the deep end with no lifejackets' kind of thing in the way we 'approach' techniques, theories, ideologies etc... I tend to loose track of what's going on most of the time...
Oh, I just asked a friend of mine, and she specifically wanted to say "confusing" and "doesn't bore you to death but gets pretty close sometimes". Others add "Scary", "really, really, really eccentric" and "ugh, weird" (he has this incredibly unapproachable big scary head english teacher aura) but he is a good teacher, if you ignore his cries of "Baboon" and "Oh no, I've got the ugly class today!" (he promised us in Yr 11 that when we got to Yr 12, we'd be the 'pretty class')...
actually here are some quotes, since I'm in the mood...
Mr Eldridge: "Oh no! It's the ugly class!"
Our class: "WHAT?!?!?!"
Mr Eldridge: "Oh no it's a good thing, now you have prettiness to aspire to"
"And then you have people like me, I have an IQ of 190" (after explaining how most of us would have had to have IQ's of 165-175 to get into HGHS)
"_____! You're late! BABOON!!!!"
Mr Eldridge: "And after Post-Colonialism you should look at this reading, which I have made up, and I call it the Narratological Reading..."
My Class: "You made up your own reading? You can't just make up your own reading! What are we supposed to do, say like, "And David Eldridge says..."
Mr Eldridge: "But other schools do it, all the time, when I go out on my little seminars..."
My Class: "But you're like, OUR TEACHER.."
Mr Eldridge: "I know! and in time, my reading will be known as the 'David Eldridge reading' and everyone will be using it!
My Class: "Yeah, whatever...."
"And then you can get onto your horse, and prance around,"(this was actually his reference to me as some kind of circus girl- I had been away for a dance audition, and the day I came back, I got this...very confusing...)
"A-I-E-P-O-T-A-M-O-N-O! And that, my girls, is how you spell onomatopeia backwards! Oh look! Here's the principal! Show him how you can spell onomatopeia backwards!" (the incredibly intelligent things we learn here at HGHS)
Mr Eldridge: "I will be away for a few days, I am off to have surgery on my nose... and I will be marking your essays whilst I'm in hospital, when I'm on Morphine!"
Class: "YES! that means we'll all get high marks whilst you're high on morphine!"
And there is this beautiful, beautiful spiel about chain smoking that had my entire class laughing their heads off for a whole hour but due to not wishing the rest of the state to loose their faith and respect for Mr Eldridge, I will refrain from publishing it here... but it did happen, and it was REALLY funny!