By MATILDA BOSELEY

Naughty children, annoying parents and the stifling grip of the Department of Education –  this was Ben Knight's former life as a teacher.

But at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Knight is taking that frustration and turning it into a seriously funny, hard-hitting musical stand-up show that pulls no punches about the Australian education system.

Parent/Teacher Interview shines a spotlight on those mums and dads who make being a teacher nearly impossible:

• the "hippies" who refuse to vaccinate and have a propensity to blame the alignment of the stars for their kid’s behaviour;
• the "bogans" who send their kids Skittles for lunch and won’t lend a helping hand;
• And, of course, the helicopter parents, with their constant criticising of the teacher and obsession with NAPLAN.

Knight laughs when asked if the show's material is based on real life.

“Oh yeah, all of it is based on life," he said. "I do change the names, because they are a combination of so many different people.”

The first thing you realise when you talk to Knight is that teaching isn’t just a handy source of jokes for him, he is passionate about education and even more so about how the system is failing Australian kids.

Knight is fed up with the “educational inflation” going on in Australia and the push towards standardised testing. “[NAPLAN] is a dick-measuring tool,” he chuckled, apologising for his choice of language.

“They say it's all about collecting data, but it’s who gets funding … there have been schools that I’ve been at that are like 'which kids stay home during NAPLAN so we get better results'. It’s bullshit.”

This feeling intensified during the two years Ben worked in the regional community of Lockhart River, about 800km north of Cairns.

He originally went there as a way to quickly fulfil his country service, which is mandatory in Queensland for teachers.

“You have to get a certain amount of points to get back to the school you want … so I went really, really remote, got all my points in two years.”

But the placement came to mean much more to Knight.

“I describe it as the hardest time in my life and the most beautiful time. I saw the most messed up shit you will ever see … and I saw the most beautiful people and communities.”

The Australian education system has had a long and complicated history with indigenous Australians, and Knight felt the effects of this while on his placement.

“Whitefellas got up there only 100 years ago, put them into communities and say 'all right you’ve learned like this for the past 60,000 years now we are going to put you in four walls …' and they told them to stop learning their languages.”

The frustration is readily apparent in Knight.

“They would say 'we’re dumb sir'… but you take them outside the classroom and when they take you on the land they can tell you everything," he said.

"Their knowledge of the land is so incredible, but that’s not smart, because it’s not in those four walls."

Knight has been a vocal critic of the system for some time. Last year he created a beat poem/animation called Little Jimmy, which explored the ways schools stop kids from being creative, which has been viewed over 54,000 times.

“It’s just English, maths, English, maths, English, maths, ah a bit of science, and oh the rest, we’ll fit that in when we can.”

Parent/teacher interview touches on this topic, but Knight says he wants to go further.

“I’d like to do a show that’s a lot more provocative, aimed at the education system. This one was kind of easy as it was just at the parents … the TV show I’m writing is very much a look at that, how the education system is failing our kids.”

Knight’s 10 shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival have almost sold out and he feels the audiences have really gotten on board. In fact, a large proportion of the audience are teachers themselves.  

It would be easy to assume that this level of passion and analysis would be best suited to a Ted Talk or Q&A panel, but Knight is able to transform this serious topic into a hilarious hour of singing, swearing and heckling.

Knight is performing Parent/Teacher Interview at the European Bier Café until April 23.