Sunday Thought

From Einstein: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Good line, that.

Back to work tomorrow, after a seemingly endless holiday, which started in all honesty in 2000 when I decided to become a teacher, and has only improved since.

Last day worked? Dec 17th (2011).

I know. It's a scandal, you could train for and run a marathon in the time between then and now; or start a business, or have a third of a child.

Sometime they'll realise that teachers, paid all year round, should really be working for 48 weeks a year like everyone else. But until that day I say Cheers, and here we go again.
 

Exam Questions You Will Never See

It's getting close to exam season with my Poli3 students (oldest ones, A level types). Reading through a Past Paper, one young chispa brillante (bright spark?) asked why exam questions were so incredibly dull.

- No one ever asks anything interesting, Sir? Why is that? They're always set in these ridiculous made up situations that would never occur in real life. 

He was bang on. Anyone who has sat an exam in the UK in the last 20 years will remember the classic Maths GCSE:

Question: Abdul, Takul and Wee Billy are playing in the sand pit. Abdul has 3 sandcastles, Takul has 2, Billy has none. Why is this?
Answer: Coz Billy's da says he's no ti play wi Pakis. 

That may not be factually accurate, nor is ever Billy a hideous racist (some of my best mates are called Billy. I would have loved to be a Billy myself...) but I do remember that it brought up more issues of race than it did arithmetic.

We had just looked at a Past Paper for the English Language paper, which had the following question:

Your local politician is organising a fun run, and would like to hear from students in the area who have fundraising ideas for charity. Write a letter outlining your ideas for a fun, fundraising idea. 

- For a start, Sir, if this was in Argentina, they would just be trying to steal our money, so no would send ideas. Secondly, what politician has to ask for school students - who can't vote anyway - for suggestions on how to raise money. That's their job. And, shouldn't they have taxes to spend on local charities?

Inspired by this rebellious thinking, I set them a homework task. Based on the themes of Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, write an example exam question that you will never see. They had to state a form, an audience and a purpose. The themes are marriage, sexual orientation, gender roles, social expectations...

I don't think I have ever been so proud of a set of students based on some homework:

1. Discursive writing. Some people believe a woman's place is in the home. Others believe it is in the kitchen. Discuss.

2. You are a horrible racist. Write the transcipt of a 'listener phone in' conversation you have with your local radio station on the subject of immigration.

3. You are gay. Defend yourself.

4. Some people believe that homosexuals should be locked up. Others believe they should be shot! Write an essay arguing both sides of this argument.  

5. Write a magazine article exploring the following statement: An ugly (rich) man is more likely to get a beautiful woman than an ugly woman is a handsome man.

Mugs and BP

I am a bit nervous at the thought of walking in to work tomorrow.

I borrowed someone else's mug on Friday.

I say 'borrowed', but really I just used it without premission, and then got busted trying to sneak it back into the pack as the cleaning lady came along to take them away to the cleaning cupboard, and wash away, amongst other things,  my incriminating finger prints.

How bad can it be, you ask? How scary can a tired, caffeine deficient Home Economics teacher be? Let me tell you.

For starters, and you can have this for free, always fear a teacher: a teacher is a professional sponge, soaking up teenagers' insecurity at 30 projections an hour, a shining target for bullying, for around 20 classes a week.

So yes, you should fear that person. Never more than an eye blink away from doing a Peter Harvey. That's a whole lot of repressed anger.

The mug acts like the cap on the well. Once removed, it's not the simple act of replacing it, undetected. Remove that, and those years of sacrcastic comments ignored, graffiti scrawled insults, names shouted down a corridor, all those 'it wasn't me, Sir' and 'don't got a pen, do I?' and missing homeworks and worksheets dumped on the floor and feet on the desks and switch your phone off and why're you late again... out it all comes, spewing more vitrioil than a Tony Hayward press conference, spilling into the staff room.

OK, the difference is around $17 billion (ok, $1,600,999,996.50), but still, I've a right to be nervous. No one wants to be the cap the goes back on the well.

Tips For Teaching, Newport Style

On my first teaching placement, I was sent to Duffryn High School, a shining jewel in the Welsh crown of a town that is Newport.

I hadn't thought of Newport, or Duffryn, for quite a while, until Dylan forwarded me this absolute classic from youtube.

Truth be told I loved it. As a trainee teacher, you couldn't fail. As long as you got through the day without breaking down, you were considered a star. The staff were incredible, and the bell ringing for the start of classes was the modern day equivalent of the whistle signalling the troops to go over the top, except in place of German machine guns there were happy slapping slicked back hair gold hooped earring wannabe Goldie Looking Chain types staring you out down the corridor.

Actually, put Duffryn High into youtube a you get a fair idea of what the kids were like. I think Giant Conger Line says quite a lot. Let's all do the conger? Possibly kids I taught English to, come to think of it.

Anyway, here are 5 pieces of advice I was given while I was teaching there. I don't think you'll find these in the school handbook, nor in any other manual on teaching, I'm just passing on what I was told:

1. Day 1, during our introduction from our Professional Tutor who'd be looking after trainee teachers: "Well, the good news is that if you can teach here, you can teach anywhere. Then again, thinking of our staff, that can't be true, 'cause if you can teach anywhere, you wouldn't be teachin' here."

2. "Never be on time for a lesson. Let them get the fights and all that out the way first, and then go in." Head of English.

3. Professional Tutor on first day tour, as we were cutting across the car park between two buildings in the pouring rain. "Oh, we don't go down the covered passageway. It's a kids' zone, really. We call it the Bermuda Traingle. I think we had a supply teacher go down there once: never heard of him since..."

4. While I couldn't get any attention from my Year 11 class. Kid at the front, feet on desk, offered this: "Just shout at us, Sir. It's all we understand."
I shouted. No reaction.
"Never mind, Sir. When we're not in the mood, we're just not in the mood."

5. Year 10, while I was observing a lesson, without pasue for reply. "Sir, you got a job here? Do you want to teach here? Don't teach here."

Bless.

Consistancy: from Diego to Fabio to me.

They say that as a teacher you should be consistent. Send out any survey asking students what they value most in a teacher, what they like about a teacher, and 8/10 will have the word consistency somewhere.

This fills me with a mixture of guilt and dread. At least it does today. On another day it would fill me with vitriolic anger and rage. And maybe later that day, I would find it reassuring, whimsical, quaint even. 

Point being, I cannot image that a single student I have ever taught would describe me as consistent. Maybe, at best, as an adverb: consistently dull, consistently irritable, consistently late... But consistent, punto. I don't see it.

Maybe this explains my gravitation towards Latin America, where showing your moods and emotions is not perceived as an instability, it's seen as being safe. Safe in the sense that people can see that you are angry, see that you are upset, see that you are happy. 'Facially honest' makes people comfortable. Quiet professionalism is not a phrase or a concept I have come across, and just pisses people off.

You know this because they will say: Thank you for your email 'regarding that important matter'. It pissed me off. Look how red and angry I am. Chau.  

If you've been watching the Latin American managers on the touchline, you can see that keeping emotions in is not considered either necessary nor desirable nor impressive. Emotions are worn on the sleeve: if you're repressed. They should, as everyone knows, be worn on the blood of the sleeve, wiped clean by tear-soaked eyes of joy.

Maradona and Capello explore this contrast nicely. Maradona has spend a lot of time talking to the press about his love for his player. He calls his players by their nicknames, refers to Jonas Guiterrez's totally inability to defend as la problemita de Jonas, takes the mickey out of them alittle, joked with their famililes. He is so at home in the mental world of the media during a World Cup.

Capello stalked the training grounds with his 18mm ruler checking on the FIFA regulation grass length at the specially built training facililty, his players on a timetable divided into 15 minute slots, colour coded as to when they could go to the bathroom, when they could use their phones. Gimp. Shame he forgot to colour code when they should pass, track back, and score.   

 

Diego and Palermo were late for the game on Sunday, clearly visible on camera 3 minutes before kick off, desperately getting dressed, Diego sorting his ties and belt like a school kids racing to roll call, as they ran down the tunnnels Batman and Robin stylee for the anthems. Moment of the World Cup so far.  

And look at what's working? Ah, to be wise after the event. 

Right. Where was I? Oh yeah, off to shout at some kids. Or maybe hug them? Best to keep 'em guessing I reckon.  

Resources

It's exam leave time, which is a truly wonderful thing in the life of a teacher. It's like waking up in the morning, about to go to work, and you realise it's Saturday. You're so used to your timetable by this time of year that you completely forget you're not teaching. A thing of beauty...

And at this time of year your forgotten little ones - the little year 7s - finally get the attention they have been craving. Naturally, when preparing 18 year olds for important International Exams, a teacher can focus a little too heavily on the 'exam classes', leaving the enthusiastic ones slightly out of the limelight.

It's not like you don't teach them, you think, quietening your conscience, you just teach them quite well, rather than brilliantly.

Now, I didn't realise the true state of affairs until this morning. Having spend a good hour preparing resources for the lesson - something interesting and engaging, even writing an example answer myself - I bounced into the room, excited to deliver a brilliant lesson, rather than the only quite good ones they are used to.

My first clue was when I opened the folder to smugly and safely save as a joy foever this thing of beauty, and there was, worryingly, but one file in my entire Year 7 folder. Very worryingly, it was labelled almost exactly a year ago to the day. Truly, deeply worryingly, it was simply saved as: "A resource!"

Not to be deterred I bounded down the corridors to the eagerly awaiting recipients of my planning and erudition.

"Morning guys, how's it going?" I asked, with typical enthusiasm.

They looked up, in retrospect, kinda surprised. They had that look of bemused but pleasant surprise, now I think of it, like the look you give your Dad when he asks you a question that indicates he's actually been listening. That look. Multiplied by 24 (faces), or 48 (eyes).

"Morning... Sir?" they replied.

"OK," I said, with continued enthusiasm, and, trying to disguise my pride, announced, "here are your resources for the lesson. Take one each!"

Silence.

Eventually a hand born of the courage of the ignorant raised itself, and ventured, quizzically, shatteringly:

"Sir. What's a resource?"

Teaching Drama, and Being Hit Over The Head With A Chair

For Emma, who gets upset when I don't update the blog regularly

I used to teach Drama. I was dreadful at it. I would be OK now, I think, but I got stuck behind the 8 ball early on and never really recovered with that class, in my first year of teaching at Big School.

I was recently asked by a colleague to state the worst 5 things that happened at my previous school. Given that at No.4 I had written: "Child tried to hit me over the head with a chair", she was quite surprised that I had "Teaching Drama" in at 2.

But it was a bit like this, you see.

Teaching Drama

When I arrived at Big School, all keen and ready for battle, and received my first timetable with the excitement of a Primary child opening a new set of Staedtler felt tipped colouring pens, I couldn't workout what the acronym Dr meant.

Drama, a helpful colleague informed me, laughed, and walked away shaking his head.

I went to the office to sort out the mistake. No mistake. I had expressed interest at interview, I was informed. Assuming this was true, I lived with my lie. After all, during an interview if someone asks you about your kite flying experience, you tend to talk up one disasterous Sunday with dad 17 years ago as a childhood dream yet to be realised, when do I start? Don't you?

It was years later that I realised that it was they who were lying to me.

So there I was, with two lessons of Drama on my timetable. How bad could that be, I thought? I can learn a few things, work with different department. I could even lose the tie from time to time, dress in black, take a coffee to lessons, swear infront of the kids, let me call me 'Doog'...?

I used to throw up before lessons.

That makes me laugh to look back on it now, but it’s true. I had break duty before the second of the weekly 2. I would stand on duty in the playground, feeling the seconds tick down to the start of the lesson. There was a disabled/staff toilet (yes, I always liked that joke) with a code on the door, and like a bulimic teen I would nip in there and hurl. Then, ready for battle, I would emerge; reeking.

And then I would get my ass kicked. But I learnt a lot. (?)

The school was growing faster than its population, so, in my first year, when you taught a 'non-core' subject like Drama, you could find yourself teaching in places like the refectory. So, 30 kids, in the refec, directly after break.

And to add to my joys the refec after break is where that famous slippery slope you read about actually ends up, with every bad kid in the school sliding down on chip fat and coke to group and congeal, like a stagnant pool of second rate DNA, a walking Daily Mail headline of low life expectations for the less than 5 GCSEs.

Lessons would start with me turfing out all of that lot, and end a long long time later.

Not knowing anything about the subject, far less how to teach it, I fell back on the work the department used. This was suicide as the department were in a worse state than me. Term 1: Group work and Improvisation. Somehow even the stupidest kids can improvise something that can make a teacher look stupid in front of a class. They might have 'Will Spend Rest Of Life Serving And/Or Eating Chips' tattoed on foreheads, but they can be a God for a 60 seconds when I try to bring them down.

Whenever I told off a kid off for fighting, or bullying someone, they would hit me with we're trying to get into character.

When they I told them to put down something dangerous, I was told it was a prop.

When they swore, they said their last teacher, the Head of Department, allowed it. I checked, she confirmed that she did, indeed, let them saying things like m*therf*ck*r and whore, as long as it was in context.

I asked her what strategies she'd used to control the class. She gave me the single most ineffectual piece of advice I have ever heard: If they misbehave again, just tell them they're throwing away their chance to get an A*. That was the last time we spoke.

It never got better.

I went to my mentor, explaining all of this. She'd also arrived that term, but had come from a properly rough school, listened patiently to my story, and said, I'll support you 100%. I'll take the class, or get you retimetabled, whatever. (Pause. Brilliant, I thought) But do you know what I said to myself when they broke my fingers? You're going to get me that f*cking easily. (Pause. Shit, I thought.)

So...

After Thursday's lesson I would dread Friday's. Friday's I would survive and look forward to 9 working days till next Drama lesson. I was so badly in denial that I was teaching it that I never planned my lessons properly, so it just got worse and worse. It's the only singularly negative thing I've ever experienced in teaching.

And yes. Way worse than being hit over the head (well, nearly) by a chair.

Gripe: Update

As predicted, a further twist in the tale: my previously smug fellow teachers wandered happily into work, feeling refreshed after an impromptu two week mid term break - fresh from the golf course, shopping, mini breaks to Brazil - to be hit with the following, from the al powerful Ministry of Eduction via the management:

Two things, gente.

1. Your week long September half term is cancelled. Lessons will continue as normal.

2. The three week Winter break in now two weeks.

Thank you, that will be all.

The Management.

Reports

Report writing for a teacher has to one of the most frustrating times of the year. You're tired, irritated, and handcuffed by the educational-if-well-intentioned-double-speak-tautologically-euphemistically-worded-euphemisms that frankly no longer even make sense to me. 

The modern day report is much like writing a personal ad. You simply cannot write what you mean, because it doesn't mean what you write. She writes good sense of humour, you read unattractive; she writes adventurous, you're dating the whore of Babylon. Voluptuous: book the steakhouse.  Men seek people people their mental age and desperately infer they give a monkeys about personality. 

45 but looks eg acts younger good looking male seeks 18 yr old female with no personality for afternoon on couch playing Wii and maybe more?       

But enough personal ads from teachers, back to reports. Write an honest report and believe me, it'll be highlighted and back on your desk/inbox/pigeon hole with your wrist slapped worse than if you said 'brainstorm'.   

 

Read what is not there, that's the trick. So allow me, fellow teachers, browsing students and nervous parents to translate what's going on when you get your termlys reminders of who's who. Here's your glossary:

'chatty' = abusive

'energetic' = violent

'hard working' = I once received a piece of homework

'has potential' = does not have potential, but behaviour is dreadful

'able to improvise and think on his feet' = the school dealer, guaranteed

'unfocused' = multiple personalities, probably due to long term addiction to crack

'very focused' = psychopath

'he has some boundary issues' = physical assualt: matter of time  

'she has some boundary issues' = sexual harassment: matter of time 

And let's put a few together, shall we:

'If he focused his energy in more positive way, he might surprise himself = If he shut up for 10 seconds, we'd all be surprised.  

'He is a polite and likeable member of the tutor group = He does not swear, spit, nor attack me.

'She has worked quietly and conscientiously this term = Hand on heart? No clue who this is. 

'I feel he is working harder than his grades suggest = He is working exactly as hard as his grades suggest. (Note: What I feel is, frankly, tired. The reason I wrote that I feel... is because I am offering you enough hope to dissuade you from thinking anything can really be done about it. Like arranging a meeting, for example. It's nothing concrete, just a feeling, you know?

 

'He must demonstrate to his teachers that his attitude is positive towards the subject' = In terms of contributions to the lesson, you would do well to distinguish between the student and the desk

 

But it hasn't always been like this. The best two reports I've ever heard are as follows. Both from posh schools, and from a time when teacher's were guests in their own lessons. That is to say, better times:

2. Your son reminds me much of one of those new vacumm cleaners. He makes an awful lot of noise but picks up very little.

 

And this gem, from an old Headmaster from those better days when Simkins would receive a good half dozen of the cane for blubbering like a girl after finding out his mother had died. Feeble boy. Apathy drips from the quill. 

 

1. Simkins has been in my class for the entire Michaelmas term, and even now I cannot put a face to that name. This reflects well on neither of us, but the ball is in his court. 

 

Spare the rod... 

The Working Week

My working week. 

Monday: Exhausted from a weekend well spent, or well wasted, the aim of the day is survival. Put off anything beyond immediate importance till tomorrow. Walk into rooms, hope for the best. You swear, you swear, that you will never put yourself in this position again. 

Tuesday: Quite a lot to do and a long week ahead. Beside, you don't want to relive the disaster that was yesterday. It turned out that if you're going to 'walk into the classroom and dazzle them with your personality', as you promised yourself on Sunday night in the pub, you're going to need a lot more personality.  

Productive enough, at least compared to yesterday. Hey, maybe even plan a lesson for tomorrow? 

Wednesday: For some reason always the busiest teaching day of my week. At every school I've taught, this has been the case. Monday and Tuesday's excess is squeezed in between lessons and meetings. But it's Wednesday, turnover day, week more over than begun. You think about promotion, inspiration, motivation. Tomorrow I will be on fire!

Thursday: So so nearly Friday you can almost taste it. Then in around 1998 some genius declared that Thursday was the new Friday, and the transition was complete. My good mood distracts me from Wednesday's well laid plans and it's lessons outside, the beloved Shrek DVD, and 'what are you doing this weekend?' time.  

Friday: FRIDAY! How long have I waited for this day? Bin whatever you planned, sit on your desk, tell stories and eat biscuits. It's Friday, for God's sake. Put it all off till next week.    

The Lighting Boys

When Danielle isn't delivering Milk Tray and being a complete tool, he is part one of The Lighting Boys.

School assemblies at the school are ‘improved’ by a dazzling lights display from The Lighting Boys. Led brilliantly by Milk Tray Danielle, and ably supported by the matching black –shirted Facundo and Gonzalo, you’ll find them at the back of the Hall, day in day out, not working so much as creating. Whether it’s information regarding a trip to Palermo Zoo or a reading of some sport results, you want it lit, they’ll light it. And then some.

Now, I do not understand the complexity of exactly what it is that they are doing, who has asked them to do it: I don’t even understand why. I know I don’t understand it because when I asked Daniel he told me, looking into the mid distance, nonchalantly spinning his Limited Edition Jedi keyring, that it was muy complicado, with clear inference that it was beyond my layman’s comprehension.

I was actually glad, because otherwise I would have guessed that it was some of the most unnecessary, over the top, and ridiculous lighting every, er, created. But, as he said, it’s muy complicado.

Again, it’s good that it’s such a complex business, because otherwise you have three grown men doing something like the following during announcements:

Inter House Maths Competition results. Read by a Sports Jacketed teacher in an otherwise totally darkened Hall in the perfunctory and emotionless way, as frankly befits the occasion. But one band of brothers will not be dragged into the apathy of this event. For they are The Lighting Boys, and no event cannot be saved by... well... lighting.

- (Voice of Daniel) OK guys 15 seconds till show time. No need to remind you guys that it’s the Inter House Maths results this morning. That’s right. The. Big. One.
- 5 seconds. 4… Gonzalo, cue red spotligh. Nice.
- Right, Facundo, ready with the subtle green backdrop… And fade in… Beautiful.
- OK, here we go, the results. Hold your nerve boys. OK, First place. Spotlight prize-winning envelope in red… Nice. Now, follow prize-winner from middle of hall with brilliant white spotlight. Keep it steady… No, that’s the ceiling. Get the light
- OK, it’s ok, she’s up again. We’re back on track. Spotlight her to stage. Spotlight her. OK, she’s up there.
- Love it. Now, transfer white spotlight focus to Headmaster… Transferring.
- NO! You’re blinding him! He can’t see! … Cut spotlight. We’re dark out there people, get it together! Fade in and increase green backdrop! Yes, just do it!!
- OK, good save Facundo. Green is good. OK, they’re on to second place…
- Change of plan, we’re going with green. Yeah you heard me. Green is good. I’m feeling green for second today. Nice. Nice movement Gonzalo. Green is second.
- And yellow for third. Yes, I’m loving that. I am loving that. Follow to edge of stage and… cut!
- House lights and… we’re done here.
- That’s a rap boys. Nice work. Very nice work.
- What’s that?
- Thank you, Gonzalo. No, I dunno where it came from. Green just was second today, you know?

Wipes stress induced sweat from brow, another story for the pub on Friday. Chest stretching black jumper to the max, Daniel disappears, with magnificence. And you thought he was just the IT guy.