Bank holiday Monday: the summer definitely seems to have disappeared from this part of the world, my internet connection is playing up, I’ve had my fill of reading and watching TV for now, and I’m certainly not going to do anything resembling work, so what do I do? Sit at my computer and rant about GCSEs. Well it was inevitable, I guess. I can’t even forget work in my holidays: the media is quick to remind me. You can read the rant that wouldn’t stop at just one paragraph at Worth celebrating?.
Holidays – a great opportunity to watch really crap telly. And then read about it on the web so you don’t
feel like you’re alone in your appreciation of the laughable rubbish that passes for late night entertainment.
I’d felt compelled to live the sick-day fantasy of lounging around watching “This Morning”, something we only
dream of during term time, holding this idea aloft as the ultimate indication that this really was holiday
time. I’d lasted a good few weeks of the summer break without resorting to daytime TV: there seemed to be
so much cleaning to do, followed by a dose of internet browsing, and of course a few days of book reading
on a beach in the sun. But finally it was time: after a groggy lie-in, I settled down with a cup of tea
and the remote control and headed straight for ITV.
Looking back on the experience, I thought I did well. It can’t be every day that you are confronted, first thing, with the dreadful combination of Timmy Mallet and the Cheeky Girls in one screen shot. Add in a few minutes of banal conversation and some clips of pop videos of holiday songs like the “Macarana” and you realise that the pain in your hand is actually your nails starting to draw blood from your palms as you watch the excruciating scene unfold in front of you. I lasted about four minutes with “This Morning”, before finding solace in something like “Top Cat” on another channel.
But I’ve come to realise that the joy of TV watching in the holidays is not the thrill of daytime telly at
all, but the pleasure that comes from staying up late to watch some of the entertaining dross that languishes
in the late night schedules. This is where I get my kicks. Several of the satellite channels, it seems, have
bought in the ultimate in post-pub entertainment, and it’s a programme called something like “World’s Wildest
Police Chases”. Now don’t get me wrong: I don’t usually get pleasure from watching car chases at all. If
you’ve ever caught this programme you’ll know that it’s not about the cars whatsoever. No sirree, the star
of this show is a perma-tanned cop named Sheriff John Bunnell. I can’t explain it better than the people at
this website when they say:
We’re talking about a man who can’t call a cow a cow, but rather has to call it a FOUR-LEGGED FARM FUGITIVE. A man who, not content with the drama of two TOUGH-AS-LEATHER DESPERADOES being loose on a major road, decides to crank up the tension to a whole new level by calmly informing us that these ONE-THOUSAND-POUND SUSPECTS are ONLY DAYS AWAY from giving birth, and so the police face a RACE AGAINST TIME. The man’s a genius. How do you describe genius?
That’s right, Sheriff Bunnell can’t speak with any pretence of normality, he has to emphasise ODD WORDS
and throw in a PLETHORA of puns, and most of his monologues end with the phrase STRAIGHT TO JAIL.
Do visit that website, it really made me laugh especially as it has a video clip so you can see the man in
ACTION. Here in the UK our police would drone on about what they did to stop a boy racer in the monotone
they would usually save for court. Sheriff Bunnell takes pretty much the same events (kid steals car, drives
it at high speeds to evade chasing cop car, eventually crashes) and makes a complete drama out of the events.
Without the replays and recaps every five seconds for those with impaired memories and attention spans, this
show would last about ten minutes each time, but it’s pure entertainment to listen to the excited commentary
once more. So now I shall know what to dream of when we’re back at school: not the false hope of watching
dire daytime TV, but the sheer joy of having a couple of beers and then settling down to watch one man and
his bouffant hair.
You can get in touch here.
So there I was, a few weeks ago, knowing that for the first time I was prepared to go into school on GCSE
results day. I’d told myself this at the end of term when I left piles of paperwork wobbling out of the
cleaner’s reach: I’d deal with that on 25th August, when I’d come in to see my Year 11 group and share their
nerves, their joy or their disappointment. I’ve even written it in my new academic year diary, along with a
list of chores I had to do before term started. Even at the beginning of this week my thoughts turned to
seeing that bleak old building in the late August sun, dust mites gliding serenely in corridors and the
smell of wet trainers and chalk dust still lingering… or rather, being pelted by the torrential downpours
as it turns out.
However, it was last night that the doubts began to creep in. I was staying up late again, watching telly
again, slobbing around in holiday fashion, and I felt my lip curl with distaste when I thought of getting up,
dressed and out of the house by 9 or so. This morning when I awoke at a not unreasonable hour, and heard the
rain beating down outside, and huddled the duvet around me in the morning chill, I knew that my prospects
were not good. I half-heartedly shoved some folders together that I needed to take in, ran a bath… and three
hours later the bath water is getting cold, the rain is still hammering down, and I’ve resigned myself to the
fact that I’m suffering from school phobia.
I’m trying to tell myself there’s no harm done: I can find out the results at the start of term in just over a week; photocopying can be crammed into a lunch hour; wobbling piles of paper are out of sight and almost out of mind. My main worry is my unmarked exercise books which need to be returned ASAP but I shall have to perform some soul-destroying magic with those in the first couple of days back. Ah well.
Meanwhile I’ve been just as apathetic when it’s come to this website: I still haven’t sorted out the mystery of the missing images on a few of the pages, I haven’t quite yet got round to replying to people who have been in touch, and like a weary pupil who can’t be bothered to redo their coursework I’m quite willing for my unedited recent pages to languish in hyperspace – although thank you to the correspondent who pointed out the irony of me bemoaning eBay users’ poor grasp of English when the article I wrote is a grammatical minefield (veering towards nonsense now I look at it again!). I apologise to those of you wanting to read something of a certain standard and I will try harder once the short sharp shock of a new term kicks in!
You can get in touch here.
As there’s not much in the way of kids, colleagues, crises or general crap to rant about, it being
the summer holiday and all, I’ve decided to let you in on what else I’ve found to rant about. This week
I have mostly been ranting about Dry Cleaning and Cyber Whatever.
I’m sure there will be plenty more to occupy me during the long break, so do pop back!
I’ve also managed to change my website host, and I know there are a few glitches in this changeover
that I’ll be working my way through over the next week(s) or so. However, if you spot anything wrong
with the way you view this site besides a few missing images, please
get in touch and let me know. Thanks!
Schooooooool's out for summer! We hiccuped towards the end of term in the usual anti-climax of less and less kids bothering to show up, whinges about having to do anything in lessons and pleas to watch a video, subsequent whining when the special treat of a video happens to be the third they'd seen that day, and my resolutions to tidy my room ending with papers being crammed into a cupboard haphazardly and the door slammed shut.
Year 10 were off stacking shelves and bothering customers in the name of work
experience, Year 11 drifted in and out with dyed hair and multiple piercings as they
returned battered books, and Year 7 realised they weren't the babies of the school any
more when they spotted nervous groups of Year 6s peering into classrooms on visits, and
took this as their cue to become total arses.
Ah well, sod it. There's exactly six weeks of whatever I want in front of me, mixed in with a few chores, and I'm off now to make the most of it. Have a good summer!
You can get in touch by clicking here.
Right now, I have one thing to say about one of my fellow staff members at school: grrrrrrrrrr. Not that I can really go into details, suffice to say that his selfish actions have really peed me off and I don’t see why he should be able to get away with doing as he wishes when it interrupts others (like me!) who are just trying to get on with our jobs. So grrrrrrrrrr to you, you selfish git.
As for more shocking news: we have a phantom pornographer. It started when I spotted
some imaginative scrawling on a desk, for which I gave several children my best attempts
at the Spanish Inquisition, although mine is more Monty Python than anything to do
with burning pokers. After a couple of wasted breaks trying to track down the culprits
I had to give it up as one of those pieces of petty vandalism that I’d never solve.
You see, I always have the kids sitting in the same seats in each lesson, so it’s
theoretically easy to catch who is responsible. But I’m not the only person who teaches
in that room, and some days (especially at this time of year) I may only be in there
for one or two hours a day. So it becomes an impossible task trying to keep track of
who the culprit might be.
But then the artist became more prolific. Copycat artists started thinking it was
the done thing to draw a cock inside text books. The original pornographer surpassed
himself (for I believe it is a he) with several graphic representations adorning
walls and other surfaces, denting the innocence of all the youngsters that spotted it
before it was dealt with. At the time of typing I still haven’t tracked the little
bleeder down, and despite having alerted senior management to the epidemic it seems
the onus is on me. Is it a case of “Why bark yourself when you keep a dog?”? Let’s
just say that this artist has been exposed to some hard core stuff, far worse than
your normal top shelf stuff or porn-lite that fills up men’s mags everywhere. I’ve
been imagining the amount of shouting I would do if I found out who it was and have
been dreaming of closed circuit TVs and DNA testing.
Apart from now being called “Mary Whitehouse” by some of my more lager loutish
acquaintances, after revealing my one-teacher crusade against the errant artist, I’ve
been melting in our sweat-infested school. Everyone is wilting in the tenacious heat
and everything seems to require a massive effort. By last lesson we are all slumped at
our desks, watching the clock and sipping from warm bottles of water, our arms sticking
to the tacky, greasy furniture. The heat has shrivelled all our brains, but
unfortunately not their mouths, as at the beginning of each lesson the crescendo
starts over with kids pleading to have a lesson outside. I can think of nothing more
mellow than sitting under the broad canopy of a shady tree and leafing through books
as we pretend to work, but it’s not the done thing in our school, more’s the pity.
It’s in this atmosphere that the pace marches on relentlessly: reports to finalise, books to be taken in and marked, class lists for next year to sort, resources to be hunted down ready for September, visits from new pupils and new staff, a good few months’ worth of filing and sorting, cupboards to be tidied, procedures to be reviewed. During this chaos, I’ve found time to reflect on a problematic issue: homework, and you can read more about this at Homework horrors.
Meanwhile, get in touch by clicking here.
What a week it’s been: emotionally draining to say the least. It’s also highlighted for me how insular classroom teaching can be, spending hours at a time with kids in a relatively small space but with no idea what’s going on in the rest of the school or the world. I’m referring of course to the explosions in London on Thursday (7/7 – at least the date won’t confuse the Americans with their peculiar dating system). I spent the morning oblivious to the horrors going on in London, and it was only at lunchtime when I switched on my mobile and had a text message telling me the news that I was made aware of that morning’s events. Everyone must know somebody who either lives or works in London, and I am no different. Not knowing any more than a few words of a text message, I immediately felt anxious. Seeing is believing, and I wanted to see a news report, but the closest I could get was accessing the news online. I text messaged people I knew in London, but later found out that mobile networks were overloaded or given over to the emergency services.
It seemed so incredible, although not unexpected, but we all seemed to have slipped into complacency recently. My instinct was to seek out people to discuss this with, and when I arrived at the staffroom I learnt that people had known about this for some hours, and there were several tales relayed to me which sounded like a sick game of “trumps”. Everyone had to outdo everyone else with how many people they knew in London, how that person had been about to step onto that very tube train or bus, or the lucky escape that person had had because they had overslept or taken the day off. It may well have been true, but I wanted to know the facts about the bombs.
I went off to find a TV, but to no avail. The keeper of the only TV with reception didn’t know where it had gone, but told me that it didn’t matter to him because that day’s cricket wasn’t being shown on terrestrial channels anyway. I could have punched him. I felt very lonely and out of the loop. The internet may mean we now have constant access to news stories from a variety of different sources and from around the world, but at times like this I feel the need for a TV report, preferably from a non-flustered and non-blustering news source like the BBC.
When the 2001 New York bombs went off (9/11, or 11/9 if you’re this side of the Atlantic), I wasn’t actually in school that day. I watched the events unfold with incredulity and at times thought I must be watching a disaster movie rather than a news report, and kept waiting for the screen to cut to some Bruce Willis type hero who would confound the enemy with steely-eyed determination and a dirty vest. Instead, I was one of the millions who witnessed the indiscriminate murder of ordinary people going about their morning’s business. Would it have seemed so horrific if I’d only caught the condensed version of events in a later news bulletin? Part of the horror was watching the events as they happened, not knowing when the bombs would stop or what the bombers’ next move would be. Perhaps it was better that I only heard about the London attack once events had become clearer and once emergency services had started the gruesome tasks they had to endure. On Thursday I wondered how schools in London were coping with the events as they happened around them.
Knowing about the London attack would certainly have affected my teaching. I don’t even know what the guidelines are, or if there are any beyond common sense, but I wouldn’t have told the children. They were panicked and scared when Bush was about to attack Iraq so I kept them informed when they asked, and it was only months later that I read about the union’s guidelines for discussing the Iraq war with pupils. I’d overstepped just about every guideline because I believed that not knowing was one of the most frightening things, and I was fed up that everyone seemed to be pussy-footing around the issues when the kids were genuinely concerned and generally ill-informed, with many of them worried that we were about to be invaded by Iraqis with big beards and guns. I took my cue from the BBC, whose children's news show "Newsround" had a website that explained the Iraq situation in clear terms that neither patronised nor panicked its readers.
On Thursday morning I had been discussing London with one class as the topics of racism and multi-culturalism had come up, along with a reference to Enoch Powell that I had to explain. I’d even tried to explain to the kids that London had always been a place for immigrants to settle: after all, the Romans had started Londinium as a named town rather than the series of settlements it had previously been, so there’s at least two thousand years of immigration that we know of. Much of this is quite unimaginable for the children at my predominantly mono-cultural school. But as I watched the news that evening my words of praise about the city came back to me, and the scenes I saw and words I heard re-iterated to me what a great place London can be: courageous, determined, caring, resourceful, and hopefully sticking up a great big middle finger at those who organised Thursday’s killings. Recently I wrote about the solidarity that city living can bring (Summer in the city) and I think an event like Thursday's will only serve to unite people against the low-lifes who kill, maim, injure and disrupt.
Thank you very much to Geoff Barton, who reviewed my book for the TES, for providing me with the link to see the review online. So if you want to know more about the book Everything you need to know to survive teaching then you can see the review for yourself.
I was hunting around for the TV and video the other day. It’s on a trolley and gets
wheeled from room to room depending on who needs to use it. There should be a booking
system but by default it ends up with the geography teachers: geography, it seems, no
longer just involves colouring in, but also showing lots of videos. If you have the
Discovery channel at home you could probably come and teach geography right now. (I’m
kidding. Some of my best friends are geography teachers…) However, even the volcanoes
videos were gathering dust in empty classrooms. I wondered if I had missed a vital
clue to its whereabouts. Maybe I was just going mad. I imagined the video / TV trolley
starting to hover, like the new even scarier daleks on Dr Who recently, who can now get
round the obstacle of stairs.
But just when I was about to give up I had an idea. It dawned on me that the
science department were keen sports spectators, and when I peeked round the door of the
labs’ prep room the mystery was solved. Three science teachers and the lab technician
were sat there with strawberries, I kid you not, watching a poor picture of a fuzzy
tennis ball being grunted back and forth. Of course: Wimbledon has started. I just
hope they hadn’t been storing the strawberries in the dissection fridge. Wimbledon on
the telly: it must be summer. You can read my musings (yes, musings, not a rant! – a
bit self-indulgent really) at Summer in the city.
Something else that’s been dominating far too much of our TVs has been the Michael
Jackson trial. I’m not sure how much of it I’d want a child of mine to know, but it’s
been quite unavoidable. However, maybe there should be some advice about how we can
cope with the issues it raises in the classroom. For example, the other day when I
asked the class how they would feel if something completely unrelated and nothing to
do with popular culture happened, one keen boy shot up his hand. “I’d feel as sweaty
as a paedo in a nursery,” he replied. This of course invites much laughter from the
rest of the class, retelling the line to fellow pupils who were half asleep the first
time round, and many eyes turning to me to see how I’d react. What would you do?
Praise the use of a simile? Condemn the use of language? Draw attention to it and
make it more of a taboo? Ask for clarification and destroy any remaining innocence
in the room? Is there a right answer? You can get in touch with
me if you have any
other ideas.
Wimbledon, Michael Jackson: I may as well jump aboard the Current Affairs Express and mention eBay too. eBay is often in the news of late, most recently for selling the free tickets for July’s Live8 concert in Hyde Park. I didn’t go there for that reason – you can find out more about my eBay visit here.
Until next time. Keep slopping on the sunblock!
Most of the nation seems to be wilting in the stuffy heat and hayfever sufferers are
sneezing and snuffling their weekend away, which is a sure-fire indicator that it's the middle
of exam time. Never fear, they're over soon and the storm clouds will gather just in time
to greet all those looking forward to a few days of relaxing in the garden once exams are
over.
Of course, for us teachers this time of year generally means internal school exams too, which all need marking just when there's infinitely more interesting things to do (let's face it, when aren't there more interesting things to do than mark the general bilge that exam time seems to generate). But it isn't over the moment we slap graded papers back on disappointed children's desks, because we then have to write reports. And as it's the season, I believe it's time for a rant on Reports.
My other news is that my book (which I may have mentioned before...) Everything you need to know to survive teaching was favourably reviewed (thank goodness) in the TES on 10th June. There's no online version of the review, and I'm contemplating tapping it all out word for word to put up here somewhere, because if I scan it then the file will need to be huge to be readable. It's meant that this very website has had a lot more visitors recently (hello to you all) and I've enjoyed reading the messages people have sent me. If you want to get in touch you can do so by clicking here.
Some queries include asking where you can get hold of the book. If your local book shop shockingly doesn't have any copies then you can ask them to order a copy in for you, but the bargain hunters amongst you may prefer to shop online. If so, then this page will point you in the right direction.
Until next time, keep cool!
Here we go again. It’s just been half term, and Wednesday was my mid week slump.
It all boils down to gaining that elusive work-life/ home-life balance. But is that
even possible? Read my internal thoughts on the infernal debate at
Timetabling Life.
Back to school on Monday though and it will be mainly Years 7 to 9 left with lessons. Year 10 have internal exams, Years 11 and 13 are on study leave now that their exams have started, and Year 12 will be off soon. Key stage 3 teaching is great, but the groups are full of pests. Find out why this is at Pester Power.
Meanwhile, get in touch by clicking here.
It's here! I have my very own copy of my very own book, with its patriotic red, white
and blue cover, and I must say it looks like it would make a spendid present for that
hard-to-buy-for teacher in your life! I'd offer signed copies, but I don't have much
time to get to the Post Office. Oh yes, and there's the secret double life thing too.
Meanwhile, do rummage around this site, where the content is freely available, but not full of the handy tips that the book contains on how to make bog-standard better!
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
Things that are really grating on my nerves at the moment, despite the fact that spring is in the air and the flowers all look pretty.
1. The graffiti and ink splots that are appearing on my desks with ever increasing frequency.
2. The printer in my room that buggers up every day because little brats keep fiddling with the switches.
3. Conscientious little kiss-ass that I sometimes am, I produced a detailed report on a trial of a resource that I carried out for a senior member of staff. But now this person is asking me for more, more, more and keeps stopping me in the corridor to ask vague questions. I wish I’d never started.
4. Every time I fix a display in my room, it gets ripped even more and I never catch the buggers doing it. It is deliberate, and I have my suspicions, and I know I shouldn’t let little things like this get to me, but maybe I’m just a vengeful seeker of justice. Maybe I’m just fed up with having such a lack of control over my tatty environment.
5. The marking that never bloody stops. Never. Ever. I’d be quite happy to subcontract it out. I’ll give you my services for three hours’ worth of lessons with classes from hell for the equivalent time spent marking shite. Good deal? Let me know.
6. And the one that will make me sound like the biggest grumpy old git of them all… Teachers on maternity leave who insist on popping in and bringing their bawling bundle of “joy” in with them, which produces eardrum-piercing screams in the only refuge of the whole school, the staffroom. We’re a school. We already have hundreds of children rampaging around making noise. We don’t need any more under 21s, particularly when they seem to have skipped Years 1 to 6 to be here, and the only GCSE they would pass is in filling their own nappy.
You can tell spring is in the air. I didn’t even get to 10 points. Yet.
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
Now here's something to get excited about! As I mentioned before
this month sees the publication of the book of the website. Well, it's more like the book
inspired by the website, as the book version is not just full of rants; these are balanced
out by lots of advice on how to make the most of the bad situations that teachers often
find themselves in. Like an episode of "Survival" perhaps, with the teacher being the
vulnerable antelope who escapes the jaws of the roaring lion, but who may not be so lucky
next time. If you never get to see the inside of a book shop in term time you can buy a
copy
online. And here's a picture of what you're looking for online...
Back to mundanity now. The general election wasn't exciting, but I still felt like staying up
to watch the first few results come in, and I vaguely remember shouting something at the
TV screen when an anxious looking Ruth Kelly was shown awaiting her result. Consequently,
yesterday I was just as tired as usual, if not more so, and really struggled through the
day. At one point a feeling of dread gripped me as I received my diary for the next
academic year, and saw the familiar round of parents' evenings and meetings scheduled
already. If I'd been in a film at that moment, the camera would have panned away from my
fallen face and you'd see one of those calendars on screen with the pages being ripped off
by the wind, revealing the passing of time month by month.
A week into May and four news entries already! Must be the spring of my discontent. Don't
forget that I have two new pages so far this month: Does not compute and
Dog-tired.
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
Okay, just a quick update to show you how quickly moods can change. Today was MANIC.
There was a real end of term feeling in the air, even though we must be just about exactly
half way through this half term. Mundane is wasn't. Hectic it was. There are GCSE practicals
going on, SATs, room changes, teachers off doing this and that and consequently lots of
cover teachers, Year 11 getting demob happy, kids off with all kinds of grotty illnesses,
crazy weather, and a great big headache for me. I knew I shouldn't have complained about
mundanity...
I don’t know what’s happened, but today I feel fed up. It’s like I can finally see
why two year olds have toddler temper tantrums, because that’s exactly how I feel.
It’s not been a bad day: no overtly naughty kids, no terrible lessons, but just
blandness. Like when I ate my lunch and thought “oh not that again”. Or the journey
to and from school which seemed to drive me crazy today and just really irritated me,
and the thought of having to drive this route for the next umpteen years made me even
more fed-up. Deciding what to have for dinner, same old choices, hello fed-up feeling.
It shouldn’t be a fed-up kind of day – after all we’ve just had a Bank Holiday weekend
so that’s one less day of routine, but sometimes it just feels like it’s one thing
after another of things designed to induce fed-upness. You can see what I mean
at Does not compute.
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
I thought I'd get into the spirit of Labour Day for this post. Workers'
protests and all that. Maybe May Day should be my official birthday?
Besides, I've just spotted a certain compulsory deduction on my payslip.
So here goes. Recently, I’ve been
alarmed to read about teachers who have been hauled before the General Teaching Council
to face the charges brought against them, which often results in the teacher being
suspended from their duties or told they can’t teach for two or so years. Some of the
cases are admittedly quite serious, but others are reported in such a way that it seems
they are errors or short-cuts that any teacher could make, especially when under
pressure. Reading a second-hand account of the case through the education press may
not reveal all the details or severity of what happened, but a number of teachers
seem to have had their careers effectively ruined because of so-called crimes that
I’ve witnessed in a number of schools.
For example, there was a case recently of a man who used swear words in his lessons
and who told the pupils about his life experiences which was deemed unsuitable for the
classroom. I don’t know the specifics of the case, but I do know that I’ve heard
through pupils in my previous places of employment that they have been party to
similar swearing. Was the man who was reported just unlucky? His career is ruined
while others commit similar offences time and time again. I’m not saying that this
man should have been allowed to get away with swearing and the like, but it seems
completely random to haul one teacher up before the GTC when you can scratch beneath
the surface of any school and you may well find a teacher who talks to his or her
pupils inappropriately.
In another case, a teacher, cruising along towards retirement, taught a number of
abysmal lessons and refused to modify her methods after a series of warnings. It’s
great, in my opinion, that this was picked up and that she was dismissed, but how
many other teachers are there that also continue to teach abysmally? Plenty, I reckon.
I’ve even written about a similar teacher who has now retired. Surely these are the
teachers who need to be weeded out, rather than those whose lapse of judgement means
they let a swear word slip, or misjudge the appropriateness of the content of class
discussions. Mistakes are often made when you’re tired, and I’m sure I’ve made a few;
does this mean that we should all live in fear that we’re going to be dragged in front
of the GTR and publicly humiliated?
Talking of tiredness, you can read what I’ve written about the topic at Dog-tired, which I managed to tap out before slumping on my keyboard with fatigue, only to be awoken by the beeping of a computer in distress. Key marks on your cheek are so unattractive.
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
After all I said last time about being out of school for a few days and leaving other teachers to the mercy of your classes and complicated planning, why don’t you just call me Mystic Meg for my ability to predict the utter mess that confronted me when I arrived back in my classroom. However, it does have its benefits, which you can read about at Ego.
It’s almost time for study leave for exam classes, and I have one group I will
actually be sad to see go. They’re only a small group, and so I’ve got to know the
kids really well, and at times I feel so proud of how much they’ve achieved since
we’ve been working together. We had a little party on the day they finished all their
coursework, a veritable feast of E numbers; well, it was the last lesson of the day
and I knew they wouldn’t want to do anything much. They had never behaved so well
in all the time I’ve taken them! I think that I’ve discovered the cure for
hyperactivity caused by a bad diet of additives and sugar: more additives and sugar
just as the post-lunch slump is kicking in. Yah boo sucks to Jamie Oliver and his
campaigns!
Talking of the whole “ban the turkey twizzler” controversy, now we too have
allegedly turned over to a regime of healthy eating in the school canteen. Whilst
this is something that I whole-heartedly support, so far there are two problems.
The first is that many of the kids are refusing to eat the “crap” they’re now serving
up, claiming they only like chips, and resisting the opportuntiy to try anything in
healthy hues like green. Secondly, the black market in sweet selling has gone through
the roof, with budding entrepreneurs fleecing kids of their dinner money in exchange
for chewy sticky sweets bought wholesale. They have started to resemble Bash Street
Kids, those cheeky chaps from the Dandy or the Beano or some other comic, with their
booty bulging from their pockets, and this means an increase in sweet wrapper
rubbish across the whole school. I think if it’s a choice between the kids eating
chips at lunchtime, or just skipping lunch in favour of two pockets-worth of sweets,
I know which one a dentist would recommend!
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
Now you’d think that I’d welcome a few days out of the classroom, knowing how irritating I find some of the pupils to be sometimes. But, hah! – let me confound you by sharing a little secret: I’d rather be in the classroom, in the midst of the chaos, than on the outside, only imagining what the terrors are up to. You can read why at Better the devil you know.
The only time of certainty would seem to be the holidays, and the long summer
stretch is certainly something to look forward to. However, I’m all for staggering
school holidays around the country, like I think they do in France, because it means
you have a better chance of avoiding other holidaying teachers. Of course, I don't mean to tar all
teachers with the same brush, but I'm sure you know the ones I mean...
You can find out why
I think that’s a good thing by clicking on Carry on abroad.
Meanwhile, feel free to get in touch by clicking here.
Happy birthday to my website! Happy birthday to my website! Happy biiiirthday to my
website! Happy birthday to my website! Okay, I think you get the picture! 12th April two
years ago was when I posted my first couple of pages online, and see how the rants have
grown since then. I'm not hanging around much today: it's no longer the holidays like it
was this time two years ago, so stuff to do and all that. Just to say that I have added a
new page, where my exciting news can be found, so do take a look at
Making the best of it, and meanwhile I'll be scoffing cake and
swigging bubbly, or something like that... cheers!
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
Not much news since yesterday, except to say there's a new page added today, now that I've
had a chance to watch something of interest on Teachers' TV. Read about it at
Teachers' TV III: Humble Pie. Mmmmm, pie... that reminds me that there's a chocolate-laden
Easter Bunny to accost somewhere...
But before I go, I've been counting how many articles there are available on this website, as it's now been online for almost two years. I could pretend this is for the purposes of numeracy across the curriculum, but really I was just curious to see how much my baby had grown. In 2003, I posted 24 pages, not including the News pages, and last year I added another 35. So far this year there are now 12 pages, all accessible from the homepage via the menu on the left of the screen, or from the table of contents which you can scroll down to see in its entirety. There will be more added soon, so remember to come back again in the near future!
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
It’s been a long, hard winter, or so it seems – although really we possibly haven’t
had it so good. Only the last few weeks have seen an increase in the profits of de-icer
manufacturers, and Easter is so early this year that the holidays are really only a
hop and a step away from the last lot. So why the long faces? For some reason,
everyone I’ve spoken to is feeling stressed out and gloomy, with some on the verge
of packing it all in for something else, whether that be fancy notions of The Good
Life, or wistful fantasies of La Vida Loca. I reviewed one of my own working weeks to
see what all the fuss was about, and I still can't draw any conclusions. You can read
about it at A Working Week.
It’s not just school and its inevitable soul-draining demands. Every time I go to
rest my weary bones and short-circuiting brain, something comes along screaming, “Deal
with me! Deal with me right now!”. This week it has mostly been electrical appliances
going on strike with messy consequences, unexpected demands for money, bureaucratic
and banking cock-ups that require phone calls in office hours – when I’m teaching! –
and a small culinary incident involving oven gloves, the wrong ring on the cooker, little flames
and choking smoke. Perhaps I’ve been cursed. Maybe one of the children has mastered
some pagan ritual, and I was too busy looking for scratch marks down the side of my
car and deflated tyres to notice the covert snatching of a lock of my hair to use in
strange ceremonies.
Still, what can you do? Well, if your preferred method of coping is to concoct
lists, then this is what you resort to. Usually, list making for me goes hand in
hand with making plans great and small of Things To Do. But this time I couldn’t
stop at listing groceries: I’ve also created an entirely pointless list of
Things
you lose when you are a teacher. Hey, I know what you’re thinking. As long as it’s
not the one about me being supposedly so busy, yet still having time to write lists.
But some people get paid for compiling completely pointless lists; I’m just a mere
amateur at the miscellany game. I like to think I'm more accomplished at TV watching,
but I'm even failing at that these days, as you can see at Teachers' TV II .
Anyway, it's Easter time! Already! Time to strike outside and breathe in some of that fresh air I keep seeing from my car window. In the meantime, you can get in touch here. And do pop back in April for this website's second birthday when I have some very exciting news to share with you!
Gah, what a week! What a fortnight! What a term! I’ve had neither the time nor the
energy to update my poor neglected website for a while now, but as its second birthday
is just over the horizon I thought it about time I did it some justice. Besides, many
other teachers seem to manage it: teachers’ weblogs are all over the internet now, such
as Tales from the
chalkface which I promised I’d mention: the author’s a braver soul than me to
admit where he lives and works, but at least now I can imagine the accents! You’ll
find many more blogs linked from his page, so if you have a spare afternoon you can
lose yourself in the web. Now what a fine thing a spare afternoon would be…
If I start to talk about the emotional demands of teaching I’ll just sound like a
flaky Oscar winning actor, but let’s just say that anger, frustration, defeat, elation,
joy and serenity all pop up frequently to batter me to the edge of exhaustion. And they
just result from the five or so hours each day that I’m standing there in the classroom
trying to keep a lid on behaviour, entertain and educate and interact. On top of that
is the other stuff that has to be crammed into the working day: the dreaded paperwork.
I’ve been so disorganised, with papers flying everywhere, work tottering off the
edge of my desk, photocopying duplicated because I lost the first set, coursework
turning up in nooks and crannies, Very Important Papers being buried by cascades of
Even More Important Papers, appointments forgotten as I dash from pillar to post, and
deadlines for form-filling missed. The more disorganised I’ve become, the more
frustrating it’s been, because I just don’t know what’s happened to my usually
ordered existence. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. My existence is usually slightly
askew, but if I can shove it in the filing cabinet and slam it shut, it’s a case of
out of sight and out of mind. But stress levels are definitely bubbling over. You
can read more about it at Stress, snow and strops.
Maybe it’s the double life I lead – the grimace that looks like a smile is one of my finest achievements: the face that says, “Yes, I’d be glad to sit on your pointless committee and write the report” just serves to mask the screaming inside of expletives and yelling of “noooooooooooo!”. And then I can race back home and vomit up my woes on this site. Well, sometimes. Read my disclaimer for more information about that!
This year we’ve had a jolly bunch of people join the school who seem more on my
wavelength, so I’ve stopped being such a miserable git and tried to salvage at least
ten minutes of my break for a natter. It’s a strange kind of relationship though,
snatching ten minutes of somebody’s home life and lesson progression in ten minute
segments, before being halted by the bell for the day. I imagine that’s what therapy’s
like. Except therapy costs more than the occasional packet of digestives.
That kind of thing makes me draw comparisons between office work and teacher work.
In an office, I’d be able to keep on top of paperwork by taking my phone off the hook
and setting aside a morning to catch up, dealing only with essential interruptions. I’d
be able to have a sneaky shop online without large warning messages coming up telling me
that the firewall has blocked the site and that my attempts to access it have been
recorded, the subtext being of course that I’m a filthy pervert who’s about to be
hauled in front of the Head. The stock cupboard would actually have useful stuff in
it. I wouldn’t have to gamble with my chances of future bladder problems because I’d
be able to go to the toilet when I needed, not when a bell releases me for the hundred
yard dash against a stream of holdalls and rucksacks, wielded by determined and hungry
six foot youths.
Still, there’s one thing that makes it a relief, and that’s not having to answer the phone. I seem to have an aversion to ringing of any sort – I don’t like phones, especially those that bring irate customers or demanding managers up close and personal to my ear. But neither do I like the bells that dring all day long at school: except the last one of the day, of course. Maybe I'm just not a grown-up "people person"? You can decide once you've read my latest musings on parents' evenings.
If you want to get in touch you can do so here.
It’s about half way through a very short half term, which suits me fine. Easter’s early this year, apparently, although I never really understood how Jesus’ birth is always marked on the same date and yet his crucifixion gets shoved from pillar to post, depending on the whims of the moon, or something. Crucifixion is an awful word, isn’t it? Especially since I only ever hear it in my inner mind in the simpering tone of that Monty Python bloke in “The Life of Brian” who now travels the world for TV shows, nodding his head non-judgementally at men who explain why they lock their women up for a few days once a month. Michael Palin, that’s the one. Anyway, it's his fault that I'm prone to giggles in RE lessons.
Oh no, I’m rambling now. Must be the brain fever.
For that is what I’m currently convinced I have. There is no other explanation. Okay,
the doctor claims it’s probably a viral infection, but that just makes me feel
like my body’s a bit of a wimp for being unable to defeat a lousy virus that some
snotty child has coughed all over me. So I’m settling for brain fever. Not that I
am a stranger to the term “positive mental attitude” – in fact, I remember it very
well from a washing powder commercial some years ago – but as the great stalwarts
of the staffroom seem to stumble in even when they’re coughing up half a lung, I
have to convince myself that a day off through illness is justified.
However, talking of positive mental attitude, I wish you could buy it in the same
aisle as washing powder at the shops. Despite, or maybe because of, my current
malady, I’ve actually had a week where the kids haven’t seemed that bad after all.
For instance, I had one extremely sulky year 10 girl raise her head off the desk at
one point during one lesson as if she was actually listening, which is a
breakthrough. Another year 10 pupil managed to string together a half-decent
argument as to why a particular word wasn’t a swear word, even if this debate
meant he got to keep repeating the word until I told him we’d finish the discussion
at lunchtime. It’s these little moments, where you spot the wonderful progress all
around you, that make teaching all worthwhile, I’m sure. It’s just that the job
always seems much worse on Sunday evenings and at the end of the holidays. Perhaps
this is why I felt compelled to scribble
Back to school blues at the beginning of
term. I’m much more upbeat now, of course. Even if it’s only a temporary side effect
of having a bonus sick day.
Anyway, feel free to share everything but your germs by contacting me here.
Currently these webpages have been getting quite a few visitors, probably because
of my shame-filled self-promotion wherever I can on the internet. It’s odd when I
think about it, because I’m writing this for an imaginary audience, and it doesn’t
make any difference if it’s actually read or not, but I suppose we all want to be
acknowledged in some way, don’t we? But popularity comes with a price. My website
is hosted on BT, who aren’t doing themselves any favours by providing a service of
variable quality, because not only is my own internet connection pretty darn poor,
but they also keep allowing this website to fall over. So here’s my appeal to you,
readership who can actually access this site: do you know of any reliable hosting
services that you can recommend to me, preferably free or with nominal one-off
charge? Please let me know by getting in touch. Thanks.
Now I’m no stranger to the jobs pages in the newspapers, and one of my mottos would be about grass being greener on the other side of the fence, so recently I’ve been dreaming of what it would be like to work in a private school. These fantasies are only encouraged by TV’s seasonal offerings, in particular Goodbye, Mr Chips which was shown over Christmas. You can read what I thought about it here.
Another tale I encountered for the first time was Tom Brown’s Schooldays, an adaptation starring Stephen Fry which was shown after the watershed. For all those people who claim standards have slipped, I recommend viewing this drama if it’s repeated to see what it was like in the “good old days”. You can read more about it here. It certainly makes the thought of going back to school at a bog-standard comprehensive slightly more palatable.
I can’t help but feel smugly hangover free today, despite it being somewhat of a
tradition to start the new year with a headache and nausea. However, I managed to
peak too early by meeting up with some old friends a few days ago and consequently
earning myself a hangover that I’m sure would have forced even George Best to rethink
his liver abuse, for a few days at least. It was only the day after, as my head
pounded and reeled, that I realised there are now on the spot fines for the kinds
of misdemeanours I was gleefully told I had indulged in, and so I am thankful that
first of all I don’t owe £80 to a boy (or girl) in blue, and secondly that this
all occurred a long long way from my catchment area. That’s it, I’m back on the
straight and narrow now, even if it meant spending New Year’s Eve in the less
than joyous pastime of watching the sobering bulletins on the devastation in
South East Asia.
It certainly makes you count your blessings though, especially at this reflective
time of year. Like lots of people in education, I tend to think of my new year as
starting in September, and that’s an altogether more optimistic time of year to make
resolutions. I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to shift a few excess pounds that
crept on my waistline over Christmas, but it seems unnatural to resolve to give up
stodgy and sugary food on 1st January: after all, doesn’t biology dictate that we
need to have a few layers of blubber to protect us against the winter chills that
will continue to freeze us for the next couple of months? Okay, I know that’s an
excuse to finish off the mince pies, selection box and reduced price Christmas
pudding that fell into my basket at the supermarket the other day, but I’m going
to postpone the healthy eating thing until the start of term. Even if that’s when
I particularly need cheering up with chocolate.
For me, the Christmas holidays can mean a lot of driving around to visit family and friends, which in turn means listening to a lot of local radio stations for traffic reports, and too much time to think. You can read about the results of such a muddle of ingredients at Brick in the wall.
The other things on my mind at the moment are: how can the sleet outside my window appear to be coming from two directions at once, and also how can my bank account look so unhealthy when I’ve only just been paid? I don’t really have answers to either, but I did have some ideas about how to help along my basic salary, which you can read about at Get rich (quite) quickly.
And so all that’s left for me to say is: have a happy and healthy New Year 2005. And if it’s not that happy, you can always get in touch with me to let off some steam.
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