Sometimes there are so many things to do that the best bit, the actual teaching, seems to take a back seat. Take the other day, for example. I’d been asked to complete some forms for the pupils I teach who have special needs, and as these forms had been passed around different subject teachers they took their time to get to me. By the time I received them, it was the last lesson on Friday, and they had to be returned by the end of the school day.
Now last lesson on a Friday is a challenge for any group and teacher, as the classes are normally boisterous in behaviour yet claim (truthfully) that they are too tired to work, and can’t they do something “fun”? Sure, you can have “fun” with the class, but as they are looking forward to the weekend already, the “fun” has to be closely monitored and controlled: games and activities with structured ten minute time slots to keep the pace and momentum going and stop the easily distracted kids getting bored and messing around.
I had such a lesson ready to teach when a pupil turned up with the sheaf of papers in a tatty brown envelope which had a scrawled note of the front demanding they be returned by the end of school. So guess what takes priority: the room full of children who are there to learn and have their behaviour “managed” by me, or the pile of papers that could have been filled in as I ate my lunch if I had had them soon enough? You’ve guessed it: one class full of hyperactive children and my priority is to sit there and fill in forms.
And this is where the surprise test trick comes in useful: not what I wanted to do, and not what they
wanted to do, but something that had to be done out of necessity. I found some old exam papers as they piled
in the door and sat them down to instil in them a sense of seriousness. Whatever I’d bluffed to them must
have worked, as they sat there in silence scrawling furiously away as I’d made these tests sound so
important. However, here comes another problem: it was so close to the holidays that we only had one weekend
left before we broke up. And I’d set them their homework for Easter already, for which they would need their
books. Now to keep up the charade of the importance of these tests (the prime motivation for them sitting
quietly for the duration of the lesson so that I could fill in crappy forms) I would have to mark them all
over the weekend, when I’d actually already filled up most of my available marking time already. Bugger:
making more work for myself.
Meanwhile, as the class wrote diligently, I surveyed the paperwork in front of me and decided I needed a file from on top of my filing cabinet to look up recent grades and results on these children I had to comment on. I reached up and sat back down to start filling in forms. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. And that something was on my front. I lowered my head to look and saw the most enormous spider crawling up my shirt towards my chin. How I surpressed an involuntary scream I don’t know. Now that I have any beef with spiders, but it was just a shock to see its face loom so large and its spidery legs pirouetting their way towards my face at speed.
What I didn’t want was for the girls sitting right by my desk to spot the spider, as there would have been screams then, and much disruption to the magic silence that prevailed. Anxiously, I looked around for some way to remove the mini-beast from my front, and snatched up the tatty envelope that had enclosed the forms. The spider was enticed onto the envelope, and I wanted a quick disposal before the monster started to crawl up my arm, but there’s always the problem with spiders that they leave invisible threads of web attached to everything, so there ensued a farcical sight of me trying to unleash this spider that was determined to cling onto everything it had touched by means of its magic thread, with me trying not to yell in squeamishness and frustration at the tenacious arachnid, nor draw attention to my own ridiculous looking behaviour and therefore break the magic spell that was keeping the class working quietly.
I just finished the forms on time. They were dispatched to the appropriate place, I collected in the
tests and added the books to the pile I already had to struggle home with, and the kids breathed a sigh of
relief when the bell rang. I looked sadly down at the lesson I had planned for them, left by the wayside
now as there would be no time to teach it before the holidays, and after the holidays we would be moving
on to another topic. Does it matter in the whole scheme of things? Not really, I suppose, but as I'm employed
as a "teacher" then I'd much rather be doing the job I'm being paid to do, than spend my weekend marking tests
that were never meant to be.
added 12/4/06
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