The Fraudulent Teacher

Stranded in Saigon

2012-01-23T18:10:00.003+11:00

Our travel misadventures in Vietnam continue. Update at Fraudster's Musings. Link in sidebar.

Cheers, sort of, again. Fraudster.

First world problem in the third world.

2012-01-23T17:26:00.002+11:00

So teachers get all these holidays they don't deserve?Well, I'm paying for it now. Lost credit cards, passports and cash in Vietnam about ten days ago. Read about it at Fraudster's Musings. Link in side bar.But hey. It's not life threatening.Cheers. Sort of.

Last gasp pre Christmas

2011-12-24T12:19:00.000+11:00

Interested in what tired teachers get up to at their end of year break up? At a lawn bowls club for pity's sake?

At least it was different from the usual contrived knees-up with bad karaoke singing that almost drove me to take up smoking again. (That way I could hang around the entrance with the other escapees from death by off key singing.)

Read about it at Fraudster's Musings .

Season's Greetings from bad fairy, Fraudster.

A Glut of Junior Students

2011-12-14T19:06:00.000+11:00

Making a big production number of it, I walk to thewhiteboard. Detention, I write on the top right hand corner. The ruckus continues. Raising my eyebrows in mock surprise at thefoolishness of youth, I slowly underline the word; turn to face the class. I quietly exude the appearance of calm. Some students nudge other kids to get them tostop whatever they’re doing. ‘SHADDUP!!!’ someone yells, adding to the racket. After about a minute the group settles. I start to mark the roll. Someone, I can’t tell who, ‘blows araspberry’. Raucous laughter. I wait. I return to the whiteboard with my marker. 2 mins, I write under Detention. To no effect.

‘I will keepcertain people in at recess for fifteen minutes,’ I pronounce.

Brief silence. Thendramatic nose-covering. Girls havepulled the fronts of their dresses over their noses and mouths. Boys roar with laughter; fall off theirchairs.

‘P-PHWAWWW!’ Don’tknow how to spell that sound people make when they’re exaggerating how theyfeel because someone’s farted.

And someone had. Itwas snaking its tendrils right out to me at the front. Hard to quell that sort of disruption whenyou don’t know any of the students.

Giving up on settling the class, I turn to write the absent teacher’sinstructions on the board. Some girlsstart mocking my name. Can’t tellwho. Try not to emotionally engage withthem. If I follow my ‘discipline plan’, I’llcope. Five minutes later I evict abelligerent girl who’s screaming at me. Fifteenattempts at the ‘broken record’ technique – acknowledge the kid’s grievancethen repeat assertive statement – failed to achieve anything. Clearly, she hadn’t read the book

For the next sixty minutes, the first fifteen having beenwasted, I pace the room, assisting here and there – it’s a science lesson on light- and putting out ‘spot fires’. I have aheightened sense of anxiety for the duration.

At recess, I detain four students. I release one because she’s threatening tophysically assault one of the other detainees, who’s called her a lesbian.

Twice each day since early November, this has been myreality..

A glut of junior school students. Not a bad collective noun for thirteen yearolds one doesn’t know with whom one must interact. What I’ve failed to capture in the abovescenario is the abject rudeness of these students. They are nasty. They treat me like shit. And they don’t even know me. This seems to be the default setting for somany teenagers these days.

Why the glut? Itaught two year 12 classes. When theyfinished in November, the reward for all that extra-curricular preparation andmarking is that one takes replacement classes. Fair enough. Junior and middleschool teachers are still teaching and I’m swanning off.

When I tell non-teachers about replacements/extras/supplyteaching they say things like ‘they wouldn’t do that to me’ or, ‘if you don’tlike it get another job.’

And then I get defensive. Secondary teaching has been hard work, but mostly a great career. Or has it? It’s been manic, occasionally depressing, regularly bowel twistinglyboring – that’s meetings – and joyous. Abit Ground Hog Day. I hope I’m stilllearning what I need to know.

Next year I’ve swapped my two year 12s for two year 8s.

Dropping the C bomb

2011-12-01T13:51:00.001+11:00

Don’t know much about Mireille, a girl in my year 7 CreativeWriting class, but thirteen years ago, someone thought to give her a prettyname. Her mother, perhaps. Her mother who now, for whatever reason,lives on the other side of the country.

Mireille is short, physically mature and overweight. Her permed bleached blonde hair hangs kinkilyaround her face and shoulders. There’s adarker row at the parting where the roots are growing out. Her facial features are regular, and could beconsidered attractive, if you catch her at the right time. When she’s not sneering at you.

Mireille is at that point in the discipline handbooks wherethe ‘goal of her behaviour’ is revenge. Which translates into doing whatever the hell she wants.

That’s partly why she called me the c word today. (Weird. I can’t even bring myself to type it here, although I typed it out inthe obligatory discipline report.) Shesaid it under her breath, but I heard, and I couldn’t let that one go. Now she’s on a two day suspension. Dad’s been advised to find her another schoolbecause she’s just this side of expulsion. Very serious. Not my fault thatshe’s now at the expulsion stage. Swearingat me was just the last straw.

Mireille arrived late to class, ‘announcing’ herself bywearing a livid red cardigan, against the strict uniform rules of the school.

‘But it’s co-old!’ she declaimed, for the benefit of theother twenty-four students, when I asked her to remove it. School rules require a note, or a detentionfor uniform transgressions. ‘I didn’thave anything else to we-ar.’ A loudaffronted whine. ‘I stayed at my friend’s last night, orright!’

It wasn’t cold, but I didn’t want to have that centre stagefight over something I didn’t really care about. I decided to let it go and didn’t issue adetention. She wouldn’t have caredanyway and probably already had one with a different teacher.

Mireille is fearless, confrontational and powerful. She has no respect for my teachingstatus. ‘I hate all teachers,’ shebrags. It's as if she has no decent, ‘better’nature to appeal to. I’ve goaded herinto working occasionally but it’s been a waste of time praising or encouragingher. She wants to be bad; she thrives ondisrupting.

Once she wrote a terrific piece. She’s a natural. Surprisingly neat – beautiful, carefulhandwriting, each paragraph in a different colour pen. Error free. She’d nailed the writing task, albeit in an abbreviated way. Of course, eager to encourage her, I was likea seagull on a chip. Great writing; terrific details, I wroteon her work. Can’t wait to read whathappens next!

‘Nothing happens. It’sfinished. Why should I bother writingmore? I know how to write already. I’m really clever.’ This is yelled in my face, in response to myexhortations that she should keep writing because she’s good at it. And watching her while she wrote it, it wasobvious that she enjoyed writing.

‘I don’t want to learn. Why would I want to be a goody-goody like them?’ She waves a handtowards a row of neat, enthusiastic, well-behaved students. ‘It’s more fun being bad.’ She’s unafraid ofoffending them, or anyone

Once she turned up to school with her school skirt hitchedup under her large breasts, her school shirt splayed open and knotted at themidriff to showcase her black lace bra. Like a hooker, really.

It hasn’t been terrible having Mireille in my class. Just avoid cornering her; avoid the fight,which she’d inevitably win because she’s no holds barred, like many studentsthese days.

But yesterday, this late in the year, I was under pressureto get the students to complete their ‘Individual Learning Plans’; to reflecton their personal learning goals – what a joke, but that’s another story. The kids were a bit loud and unfocused as Imoved around the room trying to get the job done.

‘I haven’t got any goals.’ Mireille was loud andostentatious, boldly defying the task, summoning her audience. Again I decided it wasn’t worth it. The ILPs are a crock anyway. So what if she doesn’t have one in herreport? Move on. There were books she could read but she washappily drawing love hearts and silly pictures with a felt pen. As long as she wasn’t drawing on the desk Iwas happy to let it slide. Twenty-fourother students needed my attention, including several other ‘disciplineproblems’.

Towards the end of the 75 minute period, Mireille wasflagrantly breaking rules. Sharingheadphones with another student, she was doing some exaggerated dancingmotions, hands in the air, fingers twirling. Treating me like a fool. Challenging. I walked up behindher and her hapless, half-asleep side-kick and plucked the headphones out oftheir ears.

Mireille, outraged, turned in her seat. ‘You have no right to touch my property! If you’ve broken them, I’m suing you!’ This was screamed at me.

‘Hand over the phone, Mireille.’ My voice was calm, assertive.

‘It’s not a phone. It’san ipod.’ One to Mireille, but stand back, for I am anexpert in the ‘broken record’ technique. (Thanks, Lee Kantor.)

‘I hear what you’re saying, but hand it over.’

‘No, it’s brand new, you can’t take it.’ She’d zipped it into her uniform pocket.

‘Okay, it’s new, but hand it over.’ Reluctantly she surrendered it. Feeling pleased that she responded to my thirdrequest, I put the device in my office drawer. She was furious and let fly with the c bomb.

If only she’d called me a bitch. Could have let that one go through. Hate my part in this sorry mess which seems so pathetic written down, twenty-four hours later.

Muck-up

2011-10-25T16:13:00.000+11:00

“Will you miss us, Miss?” Doe-eyed Year 12 student, Leesha,is all expertly applied foundation and eye-liner, a somewhat sexual Dorothy from Wizard of Oz,spangly red shoes included.

“Yes and no,” I say too quickly. This is my character flaw; the weakness forwhich people either love me or hate me. Don’t mean to be nasty. I blamemy early childhood and my dad who used to scare all the kids in my street. I do the same, without even trying. I’m the witch.

Should have said that of course I’d missher. But thirty two years of teachinghas taught me that she won’t ‘take’ in my long-term memory. Some students will, but not the normally shy Leesha. And I'll read this and wonder who she is.

Leesha isn’t that interested in my response anyway. She’s bursting with the excitement of another muck-up day and friends who might beheading out the door without her. She’s glancing surreptitiously at them, perhaps regretting her decision to speak to me. But her politeness wins out and she lends half an ear to myresponse. I keep it brief, and it’salong the lines of 'as one class leaves, another one begins'. Started to ask her if she was familiar withTo Sir With Love, but saw her young brow furrowing and thought better of it.

After form assembly in the VCE ‘lounge’, Leesha and I walk through theschool together and she’s happy to explain that she’d bought her costume agesago, just for this occasion, on Ebay for $20. Wish they’d put as much forethought into preparing for SACs and exams asthey have into preparing for this “muck up week”. It’s not one day of mayhem at ourschool. It’s three. Kids are supposed to attend classes. What a joke. It’s three days of harmless pranks, or vandalism, however you want to look atit. Shaving cream, eggs, flour, sillystring, noxious substances sprayed from water pistols and fart bombs.

And a bit too much near nudity on the boys’ part. About six years ago, we had our first almostnudie ‘run through’ at assembly. Askinny arsed, athletic young man donned a mankini and ski mask and at Mondaymorning assembly, charged past the principal on the podium, down the steps andout into the incredulous mass of students. A senior teacher gave chase, but he wasn’t quick enough. It was hilarious, but we all agreed that thestudent had gone too far.

Good old days. Thisritual has grown. Yesterday, as I headedfor assembly, I passed the First Aid room where the principal, grinning, had corralledabout ten oiled, buff, near naked young men. During assembly, on cue it seemed, they charged past the principal onthe podium, down the steps and out into the unconcerned mass of students. No one gave chase. The boys raced one way, then they saunteredback in their g-strings, and stood in their groups, affording the year 7s acracking view.

Today, I genuinely flinched when a black-hooded, bare –waxed – chested marauder barged into my classroom, where I was reminiscing witha group of students, and held a gun – imitation – in my face. Tad intimidating, until he handed me his exitform to sign. It’s the first class he’sattended all term. “I’m going to get a Bfor English, Miss,” he says. Hope hedoes. Hmm.

Mixed feelings about this time of year.

Anger. Hate some ofthe punitive vandalism that occurs at this time.

Frustration. GATscores indicate many of our kids could achieve higher marks than they do. If they’d work harder.

Nostalgia. Wheels goround and round.

Loss. Because I amvery attached to many of this year’s students, some of whom I’ve taught forfour of their six years of high school.

Freedom. Becausehaving taught year 12 for all but two years since 1981, I’m not doing it nextyear. And, depending on how it feels onthe other side focusing on middle school – and whether I can live without the massesof extra marking incurred with year 12 – I may never teach year 12 again.

On The Waterfront and Family Loyalty

2011-09-14T15:49:00.002+10:00

It's the pointy end of the VCE year now. Just marked a pile of On The Waterfront essays, as I've written in the previous post, and discovered that many of my students wrote expository essays, appropriate for Creating and Presenting, instead of analytical text response essays. I've been spending a bit of class time, trying to remedy the problem, as one does. We worked on the topic from last year's final exam paper: How important is family loyalty in the film?

Have to concede that initially I found this a little obscure, as did my students, some of whom were freaking out. After showing them a way to deconstruct the essay topic, I decided to have a go myself. In doing so, I found that the topic wasn't obscure at all.

Here's my essay:

Near the exposition of On The Waterfront, Edie Doyle, kneeling at the side of her dead brother, cries “I want to know who killed my brother!” Her family loyalty, her relentless quest for the truth about corruption on the waterfront, initiates Terry’s moral dilemma and his eventual transformation to ‘contender’. Furthermore, Terry’s relationship with his brother, Charley, is central. On The Waterfront is also very concerned with unionism; longshoremen paying a corrupt union that they unfortunately rely on for their survival. The union could be considered a family, of sorts, albeit one subjugated by a tyrannical leader who dispenses ‘largesse’ according to his own ends. The longshoremen must remain loyal to this union to ensure their survival, or so they think.

On the Hoboken wharf, the union could be considered a family upon which the longshoremen depend for survival. Betraying this collective, as Joey Doyle (and Andy before him – ‘that’s like when they called out my Andy’) discovered, is punishable by death. The ironically named Friendly, lurking in his low-shot union quarters, with his well-dressed adherents, rules this family. The longshoremen seem entangled in his system, their tenements seemingly trapped behind a matrix of fire-escape stairs. They are dependent on his dispensing work to them each day, desperately scrabbling for work tokens on the dock. They pay their extortionate dues; accept loans from J.P. Morgan, Friendly’s loan shark. They know they are powerless against Friendly’s corrupt rule. Their loyalty to this union is unwilling, born out of fear and survival needs. This is seen in Pop Doyle’s return to work immediately after his son’s death – ‘I gotta work to pay for the funeral’. With no work token he is forced to borrow from Morgan. Pop Doyle detests the union but pays his dues nonetheless. After thirty years on the wharf he sees no other way.

Perhaps though, it is the loyalty between members of these Hoboken families that is so compelling in this film. Edie Doyle, often filmed in pure, clear light, is almost an avenging angel, defying the constraints of her gender in her pursuit of the truth about her brother’s murder. She galvanises Father Barry to take up the cause – “What kind of a saint hides in a church?” – prompting him to see the longshore as his parish and fight for justice. Further, her burgeoning friendship with Terry which stems from this loyalty to her brother, triggers Terry’s moral development. This is revealed in the cafe as Terry wrestles to understand Edie’s sorrow. “Whatsa matter with you?” he asks, struggling to fathom why she can’t leave the subject alone. Her words, “You would [help] if you could” and her touch, deeply trouble Terry, forcing him to grapple with his conscience. [Brando’s acting is sublime at this point., I think!!] Edie’s loyalty to her brother and her subsequent relationship with Terry is thus a catalyst in his moral transformation.

Moreover, Edie challenges Father Barry to involve himself in the waterfront fight; to care for his people. In this way he connects with Terry, initially when Terry is ‘stool pigeon’ for the union at the meeting at the church. Later, after K.O.’s death, when Father Barry delivers an impassioned sermon from the hold, his words prompt Terry to take a stand, punching Tullio for his interjections and drawing the ire of Friendly, watching from above. Father Barry becomes a paternal guide for Terry, hearing his confession – “I swear I thought they was just going to talk to him” – urging him to confess to Edie and later testify to the Crime Commission. Perhaps, like a father, Father Barry is able to rebuke Terry, knock him to the ground, when Terry tells him to go to hell. Furthermore, he is able to quell Terry’s anger – “I’m gonna take it out on their skulls” – leading him to fight Friendly in court, rather than “like a hoodlum on the docks”. (Ironic, as it turns out.) After Charley’s death, Terry’s respect for Father Barry greatly assists in Terry’s redemption.

Ultimately, though, Terry’s relationship with his brother, Charley, is central to the film. Charley is supposedly Friendly’s ‘brain’, trusted with the financial dealings of the union. He is one of Friendly’s acolytes and has pledged allegiance to the union boss. Initially, he seems to have an easy relationship with Friendly. He was instrumental in ensuring Terry ‘took a dive’ to win a bet for Friendly, “for the short end money” for Terry sadly, when he “coulda been a contender.” Thus he has facilitated Terry’s lesser existence, on the rooftop, hanging out with children in their Golden Warriors jackets. So often Terry is filmed behind chicken wire, highlighting his sense of restriction and entrapment. He is caged like the homing pigeons. He envies them their freedom to feed and fly around, albeit at the mercy of the hawks, hanging around on rooftops ready to pounce. Terry is at first portrayed as an errand boy, a follower, a dupe. This is revealed in the mise-en-scene as he follows Friendly and his men out of their lair on the docks prior to calling Joey out and inadvertently luring him to his death. Yet at this stage Charley has shown some loyalty to Terry, ensuring he gets easy work on the docks as long as he remains ‘D and D’.

One of the most memorable scenes in On The Waterfront is that shot in the back of a car involving Charley and Terry. In this scene, where Charley has been asked to hand Terry over to Jerry G if he threatens to ‘go canary’, we begin to see Charley’s real love for his brother. Charley is charged with taking Terry for a ride to buy his silence. We see Charley’s turmoil as he pulls a gun on his brother. This is emphasised by the disturbing lighting heightening the sense of confused loyalties that Charley faces. As Charley reconciles himself to the ‘bum’ deal he has bequeathed his brother, the soaring legato score underlines his love and emotional pain as Terry reminds him “It was you...you should have taken care of me a little more.” Charley knows he cannot give up his brother to the mob. Charley’s allegiance to Terry and his own consequent sacrifice is pivotal in Terry’s later stance. Indeed it could be said that until he lifts his brother from the hook, almost in an embrace, he does not fully comprehend the magnitude of Edie’s loss.

These family loyalties are central to, and drive the narrative of, this film. Kazan seems to suggest that such relationships override mob rule; that grappling with one’s conscience and seeking moral truth is imperative. Perhaps this aligns with the choices Kazan made: his vindication of ratting out his friends to the HUAC.

Interestingly, I handwrote this essay in between parent interviews. (It was my first parent-teacher night as a part-time teacher, and oh, what a difference. I only saw fourteen families, as opposed to about sixty. How did I do it before? How did my full-time English, Maths and Science colleagues do it last night? Teachers deserve more pay. But I digress.)

Hope the essay was of some use to you. I'm getting my students to identify the three main points in the introduction, then link these to the topic sentences and links - as per TEEL formula - in the body paragraphs. They'll have a hard time doing this in the penultimate paragraph because it's more or less an extension of the previous one.

Think I'm blathering now.

Fraud.

Procrastinate? Moi?

2011-09-09T17:47:00.000+10:00

Whilst procrastinating today - avoiding marking again - I achieved the following:

- 9.30 am. With the erudite curiosity of a PhD student, read the small print leaflet in a packet of "Menopause Harmony";
- wrote an email to a cousin in France, who I haven't contacted for sixteen months;
- encouraged, via Edumail, a teaching friend to read several blogs and start her own;
- discovered that T2 Earl Grey tea, brewed in a pot, keeps piping hot and at perfect strength for hours in a thermos, thus obviating the need for a tea cosy, boiled water and forty seconds in the microwave on the second and subsequent cups;
- Googled correct use of the term 'albeit' to confirm that it isn't a replacement for 'despite' but a rather for 'despite being'. (Felt the need to find an appropriate website to share with a Year 12 student who keeps misusing the word);
- discovered, in the Narnian depths of my wardrobe, a cardigan, bought in Italy in 1985. Furthermore, found that said cardigan, worn over a Bonds hoodie, with hood up, precludes the need for a heater in my kitchen while I'm marking, thus saving on heating costs;
- read the side of a packet of Ferro-F-Tabs to realise I shouldn't be taking an iron supplement for more than twelve months without seeking medical attention. Stopped short of Googling, again to find out why;
- put head to one side and with a bemused expression on my face, pondered my need to record all this, thereby further interrupting my marking;
- counted my 'marked' pile - 6 in two hours - and my 'unmarked' - 21;
- devised a numbered checklist so I could cross off a number every time I completed marking an essay to stop myself obsessively counting through the pile - did it anyway to see if I'd forgotten to cross any off;
- considered the tenuous similarity between marking and knitting given that I count off knitted rows in much the same way, except faster;
- visited the furthest rather than the nearest lavatory in the house several times;
- remarked on the curious nexus between the drinking of a litre of piping hot tea from a thermos and the frequency of micturition;
- thought longingly of champagne as I gazed at the flutes in my kitchen dresser. (12.05 pm. Nineteen essays still to mark.)
- Googled, unsuccessfully, to see if a student had cheated on his essay. Quite sure he didn't write it but Google wasn't letting on;
- Experienced an almost orgasmic rush when I realised I had forgotten to cross off essays on my list. I had eleven, not fourteen to go. ('Menopause Harmony' must, as promised, have restored my libido.)
- Made second litre of tea;
- wondered whether I was perhaps overdosing on tea, but congratulated myself on denying another Google opportunity and resuming my marking;
- assigned 'blues' ringtone, on my iPhone, to my son;
- went for two k walk;
- organised my laundry.

Finally completed marking twenty-seven On The Waterfront essays at 4.43. Now I can whinge about having spent my whole day off marking. Sort of.

Fraud.

Retail Therapy?

2011-09-07T21:12:00.000+10:00

Why is clothes shopping at Highpoint Shopping Centre low on my 'to do' list? Find out at Fraudster's Musings. Link in the side bar.

Cheers. Fraudster.

E-reading Revolution

2011-08-24T14:43:00.000+10:00

I was lying in my bed reading one Saturday morning, the room all buttery and sunny. In came my daughter who plonked herself on the bed next to me. She wanted to show me her new iPhone. Being at that stage a customer service person at Telstra, she always had the latest. She blithely showed me a copy of Wuthering Heights that she’d downloaded for free.

Next she was clearly entertained by me, the sobbing wreck next to her. I was emotionally overwhelmed by the sci-fi idea that I could get a book on this palm-sized device. This was revolutionary, me in The Jetsons. Books have been my life. I love them. I’m surrounded by them at work, at home, on holidays. I simply have to read. I can’t function without books. And it was all changing.

This phone was amazing. Later, I met my daughter at her shop and signed up for my own iPhone. That was three years ago. (Good sales pitch, Didi.)

Still absolutely love the phone, love having access to all its cleverness, but I’ve only just got around to actually reading an e-book.

Sure, I’d downloaded Stanza, eReader and Kindle. Marvelled at the wealth of classics all there for me. Free. Notwithstanding the seventy bucks a month I’m still paying off to own the phone, the electricity to charge it, the potential brain cancer. But hey, Tarzan of the Apes at my fingertips.

I’d made a bit of a stab at A Tale of Two Cities, but didn’t get very far. I decided that I was more likely to read an e-book if I was reading something I really wanted to read. I bought Geraldine Brooks’ Caleb’s Crossing on Kindle – it was cheaper than the other e-readers – and started.

But it wasn’t that easy. A hard copy edition of The Fry Chronicles distracted me. Oh, and all three volumes of The Hunger Games. I kept making little forays into the e-book, on the tram, in a doctor’s waiting room. But it felt seriously odd reading the one paragraph that fit on the page then tapping it off to the left with my index finger. Four thousand more pages to go.

However, with sick determination – I actually was sick in bed – I poked my way into the story. Found myself tapping more quickly as the narrative drove me. Loved the convenience of being able to press on a word and instantly access a dictionary definition – although Brooks’ propensity for archaic words stymied me a few times.

I finally finished the story last Saturday, chasing the first bit of Melbourne spring sun across my garden. Kept my back to the sun and sheltered my little iPhone under the shadow of my chest. Yeah, slightly awkward but it did the trick.

The verdict? I love reading, paper or screen. Might even buy myself a Kindle for the sake of fitting a few more words at a time on the screen. Yes, there’s all that tactile stuff about reading, browsing the book section in shops, fondling, handling, sniffing – why not? - lining one's walls, writing notes in margins. I can make notes on an e-reader too, but don’t know how I’d go teaching a novel using an e-book. Don’t think it would work as well as my own paper text, stuffed with sticky-notes. Still, might give it a try.

New e-books are generally cheaper than hard copies but they’re single use really. I can’t share them around my family and friends in the same way, so if, say, I want my digitally challenged mum to enjoy something I’ve just read I’m going to end up buying a hard copy anyway.

Happily, at this stage I have a choice. I’d call that being able to have my cake and eat it too.

I'd welcome any suggestions re teaching print texts using e-readers, BTW.

Facebook page for English teachers

2011-08-16T15:48:00.001+10:00

"There's this page on Facebook that's perfect for you." Thus I am greeted by Sneering Boy on my return to school. It's my first class for the week and I'm a bit under the weather. I've had a couple of days off; a rare occurrence. He laughs loudly, mirthlessly. I attempt to ignore the jibe, whatever it means, and wheel my data projector trolley to its usual position.

I'm about to show the kids On The Waterfront. Most haven't yet seen the film.

I didn't preempt the film too much. Told them to consider the film's production in the context of when it was made, hoping they wouldn't laugh when the dummy Joey Doyle is hurled off the roof. Explained that Kazan deliberately shot the film in black and white. Look at everything in the shot, I said, not just the central focus. If Johnny Friendly is washing his hands, for example, it probably signifies something, or why would Kazan bother?

We watched about half the film in the time we had left that session, leaving the rest for the next day. For them, and me, it was an easy session. I suppose I wanted them to engage with the plot and characters, much as I had done on my initial viewing one Saturday night, back in the '70s when I was sixteen.

Didn't give Sneering Boy's Facebook page a thought really. But that night I noticed one of my Facebook friends, another English teacher, had 'liked' this page. Out of curiosity I clicked on it. A minute ago, 19,758 people had 'liked' it. I didn't. Didn't even raise a chuckle.

Perhaps some teachers read too much between the lines and into films. Most of us study, research and attend Professional Development to develop our understanding and ensure we don't sell our students short when it comes to SAC and exam time.

And it's all there on the screen or page and is open to interpretation. I doubt whether Kazan intended to position his 2011 audience to view his film from a feminist perspective, but there it is for a modern viewer. The brave woman, knowing the truth and unafraid to speak it is silenced and side-lined by Joey Doyle's father. Terry tells Edie to do as she's told a couple of times - get back to the sisters; guard Charlie's body; do as I tell you. Another nondescript woman hurries across the background in a bar scene. It's there.

The offending Facebook page is really a testament to the zeitgeist, I suppose. Lots of poor spelling and punctuation and lots of that special combination of ignorance and arrogance - the secret of a happy life. Careless students, for the most part, engage with the social media and casually malign their teachers in the process. I concede that some of us are better or worse than others, but up at the year 12 end we're all working our bums off for our students regardless.

But being an Engliah teacher, I'm probably reading too much into it. Kudos to Sacha, the seventeen year old student who engaged in some of the discourse on the page and had the temerity to defend his teachers.

FYI, if you haven't caught up with it, the page is called Understanding a book more than the author because you're an English teacher.

Dr Douchebag

2011-06-25T15:27:00.003+10:00

Read about a recent encounter with Doctor D at Fraudster's Musings.

Fraudster.

New post at Fraudster's Musings.

2011-06-17T17:21:00.000+10:00

Some self-indulgent reflections on moving out of home for the first time back in the seventies at Fraudster's Musings, if anyone's vaguely interested.

Exam supervision.

2011-06-15T18:36:00.000+10:00

Any junior secondary teacher who's had the dubious pleasure of exam supervision - or 'invigilation' (sounds more exciting than it is) - in winter in Melbourne, has no doubt suffered the assault of fifteen of twenty-five kids taking it in turns to drag snot back up their nostrils - where else? - in the absence of tissues or handkerchiefs.

"Got a tissue, Miss?"
"No. Use your sleeve."

What's with kids not being responsible for their own secretions these days? The teacher is expected to provide.

I pace on imperiously, looking for the position in the room where I'm least likely to be infected by kids I don't even know.

These are year 8s. Their basic reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation and spelling skills are being assessed. I glance across the room to see a boy studying his dictionary. Cheeky. It's quickly confiscated. Boy feigns outrage at the contravention of his rights. Now everyone's talking.

"Settle down and get on with it," I boom. "Absolutely no communication with any other student."

"Can you shut up, Miss? I'm trying to concentrate. You're the one who's talking." The class is duly amused by 'Jonah'. (Chris Lilley got it so right in Summer Heights High.)

And what's with kids turning up to exams without a writing implement? Again, the teacher has to prepare for this eventuality. I do, and cringe as I see the kid, who's been instructed not to, sucking on the end of my pen.

So there I am, up at the front of the classroom, counting every sodding minute. I've written the time at fifteen minute intervals on the board. Should have written it at five minute intervals so at least I'd have something to do, crossing out the passing time. I've gazed out the window, over the valley. I've studied the empty playground out of the other window. I've confiscated a set of headphones from the class attention seeker and won a sotto voce glaring eyeballed battle of wills with the same kid, who for some inexplicable reason started pretending to be a fish flapping his fins.

"Flap like a fishy! Flap like a fishy!" he chanted, to much mirth, flapping his hands. A couple of near-by kids followed suit. Must be an in-joke.

"I'll put you out!" I whisper, fiercely. "Last warning!" After a final, half-hearted flap, he settles. Terribly grateful he didn't call my bluff. I generally don't win contests with kids I don't know. I'm easily overpowered.

Check my watch. Two minutes have elapsed.

How to pass the time when one can't look away from one's charges? Hmm.

You can tell a lot about a thirteen year old school boy by his hair style. His parents have either lost control of him already, and thus he does what he wants, or they think it looks cool and the kid is an extension of their own ego. This kid has that swept around the face, little boy rock star shag. Totally impractical, it requires the wearer to modify his behaviour, constantly flinging the head, and the 'fringe', over the right shoulder to maintain vision. Particularly difficult when the wearer is hunched, nose dripping, over an exam paper. This was one of the tissue-less sniffers. Fling. Sniff.

He's tiny, little legs poking out of short pants, despite it being about seven degrees outside. His little feet are in battered black canvas slip on shoes; the type that look down at heel, even when brand new. Quite de rigueur with the male school rebel. This one, yet to reach puberty, has a grey ball pierced through the lower left lip.

Another rebel, a girl with thick eyebrows and long dark hair parted down the middle, glares at me through her curtains. She slouches down in her seat and extends her legs under the table to place them on the vacant chair, barely within reach, on the other side. I decide for the sake of harmony to ignore it. She looks distinctly uncomfortable but is determined to keep her feet there, to prove some point or other. Not getting a rise out of me, she kicks off one cheap black ballet slipper, then the other. Like I care.

Excruciating, tense, mind-numbing tedium.

Another five minutes have passed. Sixty-three to go.

No, there isn't a film of Year of Wonders!

2011-05-28T15:06:00.001+10:00

When I check my 'hit' stats, as one does from time to time on the Blogger Dashboard, well, frequently for some narcissistic reason, I feel a little sorry for all those students and teachers out there who are searching for insight on Encountering Conflict, the VCE English Context and The Secret River. All they'll find is a fairly slapdash mental doodling from my inner monologue; a mere reflection as I grappled with the ideas in the text.

Would that my current year 12s would grapple with some ideas. Or even read a book. I struggle to overcome their apathy.

At our school we provide compulsory end of year VCE orientation classes. Obviously, the teachers' brief is to prepare students for the enormous transition into their next year. They're ordered to read the set texts during the summer vacation; to mark up their texts with sticky notes; to underline significant sections; to write chapter summaries. And this is just for their first reading. Many students respond enthusiastically at the time. They earnestly make notes; hang around at the end of the session for more information.

Come the new year, a few keen students arrive with their texts fluttering with fluoro sticky notes. Indeed every student will usually submit the first work requirement for assessment. I usually set a reasonably challenging analysis of the use of language in argument. They'll type their work and often will position me to reward their efforts by telling me how hard they've worked on this particular piece. Conversely, they'll start blaming their previous English teacher for their lack of skill in this particular area.

That's the first work requirement, anyway. For most students, the apathy now sets in. This reluctance to complete work and submit it for assessment seems endemic at my school. This has a cumulative effect, of course. By the time some students reach Year 12, they have few resources to draw on. The truth is that students are usually promoted each year, whether or not they've really learned the skills to cope with the rigour of the increasingly complex English course. There are heaps of valid reasons for this. We can't bank them all up at the end of year 8 until they make the grade. Teachers generally do the best they can to impart the requisite skills. And not everyone loves, or is good at English. It seems to me that if it weren't compulsory, there'd probably only be one class, rather than six, at year 12.

We started our year teaching Outcome 2, Creating and Presenting. It was abundantly clear that most students hadn't read The Crucible. Students' writing contained lots of inadvertent references to incidents in the Daniel Day Lewis film.

This term, about three weeks into my teaching of Year of Wonders - "Is there a film, Miss?" - it was becoming bleedingly obvious that perhaps two thirds of my students hadn't read the text. During the term one break they'd had a series of general questions to answer. Well, that was the idea.

One question required students to list and define some of the archaic words in the text.

"I didn't do that one, miss." Giggles nervously; tilts head to one side; winds a strand of blond hair around an index finger. "I didn't know what 'archaic' meant so I left it out."

"Nobody told me we had to do the questions."

"I couldn't do them because I was busy. It's supposed to be a holiday. Du-uuh!" Rolls eyes. As if.

"Why are you looking at me? I'm not the only one who hasn't done them!" This girl's clenched her jaw, her dark eyes glaring at me.

There's a 'redemption' system at the school. If a student fails to complete a work requirement, the teacher may allow said student to redeem him or herself. It's almost biblical. Perhaps we could call it Atonement. Students are permitted one redemption per subject per semester.

About a week ago, when two work requirements were due, I faced the prospect of issuing redemptions to about twenty six students. Redemption notices must be issued to students, which must then be signed by parents, the teacher, the student and the coordinator before being filed. In other words, it's an administrative nightmare. Rather than face it, I gave up.

"I'm not doing this for my own pleasure, or to hurt you," I tell them, in one of my regular pep talks. "I want you to get the best marks you're capable of. I've done year 12. It's not about me. It's easier for me if you don't do the work because I have less marking. But I'm prepared to die under a pile of marking if you'll only do the work!"

"Miss, chillax!" Why do I care? They don't.

It's not all bad, though. I really like these kids and I feel their pain. I'd hate to do VCE. Some students work exceptionally hard. And there's the occasional gem.

"Yeah, Miss, I read Year of Wonders over the holidays but it was a bit boring. It's just about a chick who gets stronger." Wish he'd enjoyed it more, but you've got to admit, he summed it up. Sort of.

Fraudster muses about Ebay

2011-05-19T18:32:00.000+10:00

Just in case anyone's interested, new post at my other non-teaching blog. There's a link in the side bar.

Cheers.

Fraudster, the part-time Fraudulent Teacher. And loving it.

Playing the wild card

2011-05-14T08:37:00.002+10:00

Feeling pretty darn smug.

Worked my last full-time week, hopefully forever. School found a great replacement teacher who’s going to do an excellent job; can just feel it. Finished up well with my year 8s and 10s. Sad to let them go, but glad to have some semblance of my own life back. I’ve been sporting a big smile since I worked my last ‘four-on’ day on Wednesday. It hit me then. No more weekend marking. No more crashing at 8.45 every evening, just to have it start all over again at 6. 30 next morning. No more relentlessly working six days a week to keep up with my two year 12 English classes. But this takes the cake. This is the end to all my stress.

No. More. Meetings. (Anyone who’s read my previous posts will know how much I loathe them.) My new timetable works so that I don’t have to attend meetings!

Feel like I’ve won the lottery. Well, I have, really. Work was insanely oppressive. It’s not good to be constantly fantasizing about how one is going to get out of it. Too old by too many years to pull another pregnancy. That got me out of it back in the eighties, when I hated just about everything about the school I was teaching at at the time. Still not sure that I had my now twenty-four year old son back then except as a way out of gaol, because that’s what it felt like.

They don’t give part-time lightly at our school. New mums get it, but only on a year by year basis. Part-timers are hell on a time-table, and that’s how schools operate. A few years back a colleague – an excellent teacher by everyone’s reckoning – wanted to ease into retirement by going part-time; three days a week. She offered to attend school five days a week to accommodate this. They wouldn’t do it. She retired and what a waste of an experienced teacher that was.

So how have I achieved this miracle? In an ironic way, really. I have Type 1 diabetes that’s a bit hard to manage. Stress affects it. But I’ve managed it for all but two years of my teaching career. That’s the two years I taught before I was diagnosed, BTW.

One of the Assistant Principals caught up with me in the school reception area on Thursday. He’d heard the reason for my reduction in hours and wanted to offer his sympathy. This guy is a bit deaf and consequently has a foghorn voice.

“How’re you travelling?” he bellows. Students stop their conversations. The women behind the glass wall in the office pause at their computers and look quizzically in the direction of The Voice.
“Yeah, not too bad,” I smile. “Glad to be going part-time, of course. Pity I have to have an uncontrollable chronic illness to get it.”
“Yeah. Now you look after yourself, won’t you. An old mate of mine’s a diabetic and every time I see him he’s had another bit chopped off.” He throws his head back and laughs. I titter awkwardly, aware of the audience at reception.

You might see why I keep the Diabetic Card close to my chest. Comments like his are not uncommon. I could write a book about it.

Anyway, I’ve played that Diabetic wild card now, and it feels sublime.

To celebrate, thought I’d pop in and visit Dan on the way home. That’s Dan Murphy, my mate. (It’s the liquor superstore, for any readers who may live beyond Australia.)

Swanned down the chardonnay aisle with a beatific smile on my face, feeling wonderful, despite the bleak leaden sky and pelting rain. Pulled up at the curb outside my house. Waved, queen-like, at my thirty-something neighbours and pitied them with their screaming baby and a whole lot of people arriving. Strode confidently around my car and opened the passenger door. Head held high, relishing the gale force wind in my hair, positively beaming, I scooped up my bag in my left hand. The six pack of chardy – well, it’s cheaper by the half-dozen – was one of those with ‘carriers’ cut into its sides. I grasped it with my right hand and yanked it out of the car, still in an attitude of Uma Thurman on the red carpet, so thrilled was I, on a Friday afternoon, with my part-time status.

Rrriippp. That’s the sound of cardboard tearing. I dropped the case of wine on the grass verge, luckily avoiding any breakage.

Felt a tad less smug as I put the other bag down and hoisted the carton, by its base, onto my left thigh and into my arms. When I put it down at my front door, before fumbling with my keys to get inside, I discovered, when I tried to brush the mustard looking stuff off my thigh, that I was pasted liberally with foetid dog turd.

Pride goeth before a fall. I’m even less smug now.

Nah. I’m lying. It cleaned up and I still feel amazing. Sometimes all the cards, even the diabetic ones, fall into place.

Me and Sisyphus.

2011-05-01T15:20:00.000+10:00

Eight-fifteen, Sunday morning. In bed. First cup of Earl Grey and let the marking begin. A colleague said that his wife forbids him to do any school work in bed - as if he should be at his age! Fair call. It's a bit of a violation of the marital boundaries, I suppose. But for me, it's the best place to do it. The marking. Get it done quickly enough and I can trick myself into believing that I'm not really working. (Gotta feel for my old man, eh.)

By ten fifteen I'd completed it. This is the thing. Marking that pile of year 8 work was a light-bulb moment - well, 120 minutes. I had an insight, and it wasn't how shit it was to be working for the second day of my weekend. No, it dawned on me that I was actually enjoying what I was reading, albeit some of it laden with technical errors. My year 8s, despite the vagaries of their thirteen year old selves, had engaged with the task. They were having fun writing an alternative ending to Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo. They were playing with similes and metaphors and writing entertaining, plausible scenarios. Well, mostly. One student had turned Sarge, Lockie's dad, into a pathological practical jokester, setting up Lockie to believe that (a) his whole family had perished in a car accident on the way to church, and (b) that Lockie had terminal cancer. Even got a doctor to play along. Gotcha! This was Sarge's strategy to get Lockie to stop moping over the demise of his relationship with Vicki Streeton. Made for interesting, entertaining reading.

Just about every kid in the class completed the assignment. Some of their stories contained writing in my own hand, a sentence or two to give them direction or inspiration when they claimed they were stuck. Love doing that. Love the responses when the kids grab an idea and run with it. Lots of the kids had redrafted their writing. The finished pieces showed genuine pride in their work.

So this morning, I was pleasantly rewarded to be able to see where I'd been as a teacher. I'd facilitated the learning, and here was some evidence in the finished work.

However, I'm not seeing this much from the Year 12s, and it's not for the want of trying. I do most of my teaching at year 12 and for a lot of the time I feel like Sisyphus, if he's the guy who had to keep rolling the boulder up the hill just to have it roll down again. Spent about four hours yesterday marking SACs on Encountering Conflict. Mostly they were turgid. Some students are genuinely engaged in the task; developing as writers. Others try, but with limited success. And then there are the students who write unmitigated pretentious rubbish; page filler. Sadly, their literacy skills suggest that if they just made an effort they'd be quite capable of writing well. There's my dilemma and there's that massive rock again. How to motivate the disengaged.

Think I need a sabbatical from teaching VCE. It's not fun. It's constant pressure to get through an enormous workload: wall-to-wall SACs leading up to the final be-all-and-end-all exam followed by the judgment in December when the results come out.

A couple of years ago I suggested to my former principal that I have time off from teaching the year 12s. She told me I'd miss it and wouldn't cope! When I assured her I would, she told me that in that case she'd have to give me a directive to teach it. The trouble is that few English teachers at my school want to teach year 12 because they know how demanding it is. Meanwhile, I keep working six days a week pushing that rock up the hill. Perhaps, like Sisyphus, I'm being punished?

Auspicious start to Term Two.

2011-05-01T13:15:00.000+10:00

Quite weird returning to school on Wednesday after a longer break than usual. Nonetheless, four on. That is, a full day of teaching awaited me. No biggie. This is my teaching lot on Mondays and Wednesdays; for the entire year. The timetable has remained unchanged for me for three years. I'm used to the pace.

However, I was feeling the pain on Wednesday. Dragging my feet. Should have been energetic, instead I was enervated, for a variety of reasons. But as teachers know, we can't let our moods affect us. Take that mood into the classroom and you can guarantee a lesson of kids acting out.

Had year 12s last period. Last term, I'd planned that this lesson would be low impact, on me anyway. The students had a task to complete during class. That was it.

As I approached the classroom the students milled around the door, enjoying the warmth of the autumn sunshine. I could feel it on my back as I approached. Bit of a breeze too. Pity we all had to go into the classroom.

"Hi, Miss, how was your holiday?"
"Too short! You?"
"Yeah, good." The usual post holiday banter. I was amongst them now, smiling, feeling not too bad.

In front of me was Rodney. He's a big fellow; stocky and about six four. He's one of the brightest students in my class, but I'm hard pressed to get his best work out of him. Something in him renders him reluctant to give too much. His year 11 teacher admitted to seriously loathing this kid. He's sarcastic; too ready with the smart-arsed remarks. Kids aren't born like this, and at the end of last term, I felt I was beginning to get around his self-defeating behaviour. As if.

"Marked our SACs yet?" Rodney asked. All our year 12 SACs are cross-marked. We do first and second round marking, and third marking should it be necessary if the first two rounds throw up discrepant marks. I learned this during the years I marked exams for VCAA. As it happened, all the teachers had completed the first round marking. Of course, it being our first day back, we hadn't had a chance to do the second round. I started to explain this to the assembled students. We still weren't in the door. But before I could get it out Rodney let me have it.
"What's wrong with you?" he barked. "You've had three fuckin' weeks!"

This prompted an explosive verbal reaction from me, not to mention a near coronary, by the feel of my heart banging in my chest. Yeah, I shouldn't have sworn. Teachers should be above this, and generally I am. My arm was thrust out, indicating the direction he should go to get out of my sight. He spluttered something but retreated. At that stage I became conscious of the silence in the yard. About forty kids had witnessed a woman of a certain age going off.

After that I could barely function, despite the support of the students who felt that he had it coming. For me, it was my loss of control that was so shattering, as was the flagrant disrespect of a senior student who also should have known better. Within about ten minutes, Rodney had apprised another student, via text message, that he'd phoned his mother, who'd phoned the principal. Naturally, he had played down his own part in the drama. Apparently he'd asked an innocent question at which I'd abused him and unfairly banished him from the class.

So there I was, at 3.15, seeing the principal. Fortunately, he understood.

In conclusion, what? So glad my own kids have pursued careers other than teaching? Teaching can really suck? Is it worth it? Why am I still dwelling on it even after the principal told me not to lose sleep over it? Back for more of the same tomorrow? And why have I spent six hours this weekend marking?

Fraudster's Musings

2011-04-14T16:02:00.001+10:00

Writing my previous post about Parent Teacher Interviews, Mark 2, I felt that I'd come to the end of the loop re writing about my teaching life. It was a variation on a theme; same horse, different jockey. Think the earlier parent-teacher post was probably better; less cynical, perhaps.

A couple of my colleagues have mentioned they've noticed a change in my attitude at school. They're right. I seem to be channeling bitter much more than I'd like.

Thought it might be time to branch off in a different direction in my lazy writing. Thus, I've started a new blog, in which I'll try to develop my writing about other stuff, the minutiae of my other, equally significant life away from school. No doubt there'll be some overlap, because just as I can't switch off being all those other things I am, I can't switch off being a teacher either.

I've linked to it in the side-bar, if you're interested.

Meanwhile, I love holidays during which I've got times to think about such things. Of course, I'll also continue to write about teaching, as and when the mood takes me, in this blog.

Cheers.

Fifty-four parent teacher interviews: the bitter sweet excremental excruciation that keeps on taking.

2011-04-04T20:50:00.003+10:00

The steps and path leading to the hall are lined with parents and kids getting in early. Lots of undisguised staring as we descend the steps. I am on a stage, it seems. Or am I running the gauntlet? Take a photo. It’ll last longer.

We have a different, somewhat ironic seating arrangement this year. Young Rick and I are sitting back to back. Trust we have each other’s. I’m flanked by two other colleagues. One I know. The other looks about seventeen. I don’t know his name. He seems to be coping. Perhaps his open laptop affords some protection, creating a bit of a screen. Must have a good battery, given that the interviews go for seven hours. Other teachers range around the walls of this glary echoing sports’ centre. Their backs are against the wall. Seventy or so teachers are here. It’s like a market. The place is quickly crammed with milling families, shouting above the racket, catching up with friends, children running around. Seated, I feel vulnerable.

I’ve been teaching all morning and have sacrificed my two free periods to this afternoon’s proceedings.

Our tables are organized alphabetically. I don’t know where I’m sitting, but needn’t have worried because, despite me being five minutes early, I already have customers who wave and beckon me over to my seat.

I place my mark book on the table before me and we’re off.

It’s speed dating without the bells or the promise of romance.

I teach about a hundred students. I’ve been working with them for eight weeks and in that time I’ve learned something, some little, of each. There’s this quick dip into my head as each family sits, smiles, frowns, occasionally weeps, and waits for some news. In that process, my brain quickly scrambles. My head feels tight after about eight families. Swig some water and press on.

It’s mostly positive.

During a brief hiatus, I twist around in my chair to see how Rick’s going.

He leans back, stretches his legs, cups the back of his head in his hands and chuckles. He’s in his second year of teaching and has found his stride.

“I can’t get over how some of them play out their domestics in front of me.” He’s laughing, incredulous. He’s about to say something else but he has another customer and so do I. Ahead of me a couple of families compete for the seats. I check the list to see who’s first but Ms Billet is already determinedly seated.

“Ms Donald is actually next,” I say as Basil Fawlty obsequiously as I can to Ms Billet, but Ms Donald is happy to concede her place.

“You go ahead,” she says. She waves at Ms Billet, who’s terribly grateful, as am I, to have avoided an unpleasant queue dispute. In about three minutes, Ms B has been dispatched, given her daughter is the model student, and Ms Donald and son, Dwayne, assume the position.

Ms Donald is beige looking, with short, grey-brown hair, nondescript except for a few blonde highlights. With a medium build, jeans and top, she’s an ordinary middle aged woman.

I had been grateful for her earlier forbearance. Little did I know. Seems she is the bad fairy, waiting her turn to curse me. And I did not see it coming.

Next to her, Dwayne is wearing dark sunglasses. He’s in year 12, and is extremely weak in English. Nine out of 30 for his SAC. In class, he’s told me he has no idea how to complete an essay. One to one, I’ve directed him to the relevant sections of the textbook, told him to read through, to look at the annotated model answers and to just have a go. I’ve even given him the starting sentences.

“But no one’s ever shown me how,” he’s whined. “Can’t you just show me what to do?”
“Well, yes, but first I need to see your attempt. It’s early days. We’ll get there.”
“But I don’t know what to do. My teacher last year did nothing.”
“Look, I’ve told you what to do. It’s your first piece of work. The marks aren’t going anywhere. But you need to try or I can’t help you.”

But he doesn’t want to do the work. This was at the beginning of the year and it was the same for lots of students, complaining about the inadequacies of their year 11 teachers who didn’t show them how. No doubt these teachers were also faced with the same passive aggression. These kids just don’t want to try. It’s a familiar litany

Dwayne’s mother and I have introduced ourselves. I eagerly lean forward better to hear mum amidst the background din in the hall. Ms Donald also leans in. She’s sitting at the corner of the desk, stevedore-like, with her legs spread around the leg of the table. Dwayne folds his arms and leans on the table, a slight smirk on his face. I cannot see his eyes.
“What’s with the sunglasses?” I ask.
“They’re prescription,” he says. “Left my other glasses in the car.”

It’s disconcerting. I avoid looking at his blank dark stare. He seems focused on me but for all I know he could be napping behind his shades.

“I wanna know why you haven’t been teaching my son.” And there it is, the ball that comes out of left field to strike me in the head.
“Sorry?” I’m not sure I’ve heard correctly. It takes me a while to process. This is, after all, perhaps my fifteenth interview.
“My son’s told me that on at least two occasions, he’s asked for your help and you’ve refused.”
“What?” Deep breaths. Calm. “That’s not true.”

I can imagine the scenario at home. This is how Dwayne keeps mum busy; keeps her attention. Act helpless and make out it’s the teacher’s fault. And she responds. I’ve seen it many times over the years. The kid’s learned that if you blame someone else, you’re off the hook. Way to get ahead in life. And who knows what feeds the anger and self-righteous ignorant indignation of the mother? Probably goes back generations. Have these people never thought that their kids might be spinning them a line?

“What did I get for my SAC?” Dwayne’s awake. He’s demanding; aggressive now, something I haven’t seen the vaguest hint of in class. He’s been reluctant to try, but otherwise innocuous and polite, even friendly. “Remember? I was away when you gave everyone their marks and I asked you the other day what mark I got but you never told me.” So there, he seems to be saying. Here’s your proof.
“You have to remind me.” I say, “I’ve got other things going on in class.”

With that, I found the mark. “Nine,” I said.

“Out of what?” spat Ms Donald, perhaps trying to expel the bad taste I’d left in her craw.
“Thirty.”
“Yet you refuse to teach my son. What sort of a teacher does that?” She was menacing, getting closer; in my face.

I leaned away from the table at this stage, wrapping my arms around the back of my chair, same din continuing around me but her invective poking me hard in the chest nonetheless. Happily the adrenaline kicked in. I chose fight.

“That’s it. Interview over!” I shouted to be clear. “I’ve got about forty more parents to see. Don’t speak to me. The pair of you are extremely aggressive and I’ve had enough!” I reached fever pitch. “And as for you, sitting there in your dark glasses so I can’t see your eyes… Make an appointment with the coordinator. Next!” Was that the Soup Nazi? No. It was me.

“How dare you?” she spluttered, standing. “Well! I’m seeing the principal! Right!”
“Feel free. She’s not in ‘til five, but go for it.”

I may have sounded in control, but as soon as she’d stamped off, Dwayne trailing behind her like a blind man, tears of frustration and rage sprouted from my eyes. I turned to my nearest colleague, who’d heard nothing, so engrossed was he in his own line of parents – he saw sixty-two families that day.

There was no one to tell. No one to care. A few members of Prin Class were swanning around beatifically in their Sunday best, but none handy. Besides, I had a queue, the first parent of which had kindly waited. “Thought you might need a minute,” she said, smiling, slowly sitting.

Later, at meal break, another colleague confided a similar story. Another weak student; another parent blaming the teacher who was in her second year of teaching this girl. Clearly, it was all the teacher’s fault, according to the parent. Nothing to do with any other environmental, genetic or socio-economic factors. This gentle teacher is heart-sloughed. Because she does care and goes to extraordinary lengths for this girl and all her students to ensure the best possible learning outcomes.

My dilemma remains. How to continue to do my best for Dwayne tomorrow, first period, knowing my words will inevitably be twisted. No doubt there’ll be a summons to the principal to explain.

Wonder if Dwayne will be wearing his sunnies. Perhaps I’ll wear mine.

Sickie.

2011-03-28T11:50:00.003+11:00

About 3.38 am I'm writhing in my sheets, greasily sweltering in the cool bedroom air. Doona off. Kick. Fling myself over. Now I'm too cold. Now something's crawling on my hand. Flick it off. No, something really is crawling on my neck. Frantic slapping and jerking. Light on. 'Can't see anything,' says the old man, who's up on one elbow assisting with the insect inspection. He drops back onto his pillow and almost immediately the gentle, but fucking annoying, not quite snoring resumes. (Happily I can't hear myself snore. Apparently I regularly reach motor mower on a Sunday morning proportions. In case anyone's interested.)

Why am I thinking about students, at, what is it now, 4.25 am? Haven't been back to sleep, just continued the hot cold twisting, thumping head on the pillow, first this side, then that. To no avail. I'm thinking about how immature these two rangy Bobsy twins are, swanning in late with immaculate foundation and hair swinging, to every lesson. My faultless peripheral vision picks up their incessant signals to each other from their 'seating plan' seats on opposite sides of the room. Why don't I just sit them together and cut out the middle man, me? They're disruptive anyway. Let them sit together and giggle their thirteen year old hearts out about the tricks they've played on 'the hobo' at Watergardens. Suppose they're allowed to be immature at thirteen. But why are they in my head at, what is it now, 5.13? The joys of the red eyed digital clock keeping an exact watch on my insomnia.

I'm not feeling well. I feel positively queasy and belly-cramped. No. I can't be sick. I've got four-on. The year 12s - I've got both classes today - need to get their third Creating and Presenting SAC topic. The Bobsies will ruin the substitute teacher's day. The writing class has got work due in. And it's parent-teacher night on Thursday and I won't get their work marked in time. And we've got to do the change over for the second SAC marking. The year 8s will be all right. They can just go on with English Basics. And I was going to miss last period anyway because I'm going to the Skin Cancer Foundation to get this BCC off my face. The year 12s can just start preparing their next SAC. What are the writing class going to do? Journal writing? They're getting sick of that. Geez, my guts hurt. Doubles up in pain before staggering off to the smallest room, grabbing yesterday's "M" along the way.

Curiously, no matter how ill I am, I still have to read. I usually put the newspaper, book or magazine down when heaving, of course, but it's generally there on standby. A trip to the toilet without a text is a wasted opportunity. At times, caught short, I'll even 'delay' until some tolerant family member can fling some reading material - junk mail, anything - through a crack in the door. In desperation, I've even read the back of my watch. Actually, the iPhone has made staying in camping grounds so much more amenable. It fits discreetly into a pocket. So much reading material.

Where was I?

Will I or won't I? Seven-thirty-three. Decision is made. I can't work today. That's it. Why do I feel so guilty? I leave an apologetic message on the school's answering machine, adding that I'll email my lesson plans before school starts. This is obligatory at our school, for what it's worth. The kids never do the work anyway, but it looks good in the marketing. On occasions, I've been at the computer making up vague plans for my classes, with a bucket handy at my side. Today, I'm hunched over the laptop, hugging my abdomen as I tap out four lesson plans with one finger. Never get a return email thanking me for sending plans through.

The upside? By about 10.24 I'm still in bed but feeling a bit hungry. Showered, I definitely feel better. The sun's breaking through the clouds, and having worked on Saturday, I have no marking to sully the remains of the day. An unexpected plus? I'm at home when my twenty-four year old son gets a phone call telling him he's got his first professional job. Whoo hoo.

Behold! For I am Fraudster, queen of procrastinators!

2011-03-19T18:41:00.002+11:00

Saturday, eight am. Wake up and spend about twenty minutes' side-splitting time reading David Sedaris’ Naked. Back to bed for...first pile of marking of several discrepant Creating and Presenting SACs. Riveting.

Next, cheap home hair dye to make me less like someone who should be advertising Australian Pensioners Home Insurance. My old man assists with the back of the head so I don’t end up looking like a greying Blondie. With gummed up hair, flying around my house in a protective plastic cape, get first load of washing in.

Call to my mum to arrange her eightieth birthday bash. “Oops! Gotta go, mother. Gotta rinse.”

Not a bad dye job, but, interestingly, think I’d still get the APIA gig; perhaps even more so.

The old man cheerfully accepts that he’ll be doing the Saturday shop alone, cos Fraud’s got marking, as per usual. Off he goes as I settle to start the batch of thirty-eight ‘analyses’ - I wish; most were summaries - of the language use in a Mark Seymour piece from last year’s Age. Click. That’s the washing machine door telling me the first load of washing is done. Delighted, I spring up from my desk to hang it out and get the next one in. Gives me a welcome break from the marking I haven’t yet begun. Find myself inspecting the laden apple tree while I’m out there. Using the legs of a pair of pegged up jeans as a bird hide, for about ten minutes I study a couple of king parrots eating the apples. Bit of a dawdle around the back garden. Still haven’t marked a paper, but I confess to having actually picked up the red pen and removed the lid, before replacing it, and drifting through my autumn house into the bathroom for a quick eyebrow inspection.

I’m not one for obsessive eyebrow plucking, but it seemed an opportune time to peer at them. Have to get up really close due to special combo short and long-sightedness. I have perfect visual acuity, without the aid of contact lenses or spectacles, provided whatever I want to look at is exactly four inches from my eyes. That is, my left eye. My right eye is, well, fucked. Consequently, only the left eyebrow got plucked. God knows what’s happening on the right side of my face.

Back to the marking. Think I assessed about three papers before replacing the dangling deodoriser in the dunny. Seemed like a good idea. Yes, the eyebrows were still there. Well, one of them. I checked. Really must get stuck into the marking.

The old man returns with the shopping and I’ve barely started.

And thus I proceed through my day, desperate to sweep up leaves on my back porch, to inspect grouting, to weed pot plants, to clean out the fly zapper, to read Sedaris – fluent, witty, correctly spelt and punctuated, as opposed to my students’ labours. And they really have tried hard. Their efforts exude from their awkwardly expressed convoluted prose as they dip inappropriately into their thesauruses. There are some who’ve nailed it, and I sail through these. It’s the others that take their toll. (Hey, I’m full of clichés too.)

Marking is the curse of the English teacher, but for me it’s worse because I am the queen of procrastinators. If I’d just got on with it, I’d have finished it in three hours. Instead, I took about nine.

Me and John Proctor

2011-03-18T10:24:00.002+11:00

In 1973, when I completed my HSC, I had a brief respite from mediocrity during my English classes, and, happily in the final exam. I’ve had several shining moments since, in terms of writing, but quite often I struggle because I just can’t take it seriously enough; can apply neither the intellect, nor the endurance – one of the many reasons I consider myself to be a fraud.

It’s probably why I have a couple of recurring dreams. In one, somehow I’ve slept through an alarm, or forgotten to turn up on the first day of school. I flap around under the shower, usually fully clothed, trying vainly to rinse suds out of my hair. I stumble late into a room packed with year 12 students and unsuccessfully attempt to wing the lesson. (Actually, this isn’t far from the reality on occasions, but I usually manage to divest myself of my clothes while showering.) In the other dream, I’m sitting in a silent exam hall doing my year 12 English exam. And I’m caught out. I can’t do it. Consequently, my life is a sham. I simply fluked it back in ‘73, and I shouldn’t even have been admitted to my lesser Melbourne State College B. Ed. course; shouldn’t even have got in by the back door, which is what my father pronounced when I didn’t get into Melbourne University – for which I hadn’t even applied, by the way. My acceptance into La Trobe didn’t impress him at all. It was common knowledge that you could get in there if you could play three chords on a guitar.

Which is all a rather rambling lead up to me trying unsuccessfully to write an imaginative response to a prompt for that part of VCE Units 3 and 4 English called Creating and Presenting. Our Context, with a capital C, is Encountering Conflict. (I’ve been doing a bit of that lately. I like to think I’m John Proctor from The Crucible, but I’m not sure I’d die to save my name.)

This is the prompt. Think it’s from the 2008 exam. “In times of conflict ordinary people can act in extraordinary ways.” And this is what happened, and why, once again, I’m the fraud who’s been up the front of the classroom for thirty-one and a quarter years.

John Proctor languishes in gaol, awaiting execution. I’m trying to capture the tone of Proctor’s thoughts back in 1692. Here goes:

Their lying, their pretence, has conjured a demon. Though it be invisible, though it be wrought from the girls’ demented minds, it has risen up and has taken men’s senses. They quake in fear as that whore cries witch. Though I believe not in these incubi and succubi I see that something has taken hold in Salem. It be not born of goodness. It be born of fear, lies and vengeance. (Thought that wasn’t too bad, then ensued my own descent into the pit.)

In Salem we were a hardworking community, not given to idleness. Not three months gone we were united. Aye, one had not time nor strength for aught else. How did such mayhem arise from such mischief?

Indeed. How? Fucked if I know what Proctor was thinking when he sacrificed himself. Extraordinary indeed. He had nothing left but his name, and, as he said, ‘leave me my name...I cannot have another’. What drove him to such lengths? Would anyone fall on the sword like this? Evidently not. Ordinary people meld into the group. Reminds me of those Arctic or Antarctic penguins flocking together against the cold, occasionally taking their turn on the outside but nonetheless clinging to the warm mass. To leave the group is sure death. But that’s penguins and we aren’t really concerned with the behaviour of the ‘animal kingdom’.

I don’t find humans surprising at all. I find them very predictable. A percentage will show altruism, will give of themselves and bequeath extraordinary gifts to humankind. I recall an episode on Australian Story. A young Australian girl adopted a number of homeless Cambodian children, raised funds and ran her own orphanage and school. It’s as if there are certain people who are wired in some way to commit these extraordinary acts when they see a need. Were such people ever ordinary?

John Proctor, from the outset, struck me as different. By being his own true self, he inadvertently made others, the Parrises and Putnams, feel their inadequacy. Or perhaps, like my students, I’m just confusing the ‘novel’, as they say, with the ‘movie’. Perhaps I just like the look of Daniel Day Lewis with his twinkling eye/teeth combo, striding across the fields, no grim reaper, in his baggy britches.

I rest my case.

My ongoing relationship with Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo

2011-03-09T17:59:00.003+11:00

Last year, I began my crusade to have Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, removed from our book list. I've 'taught' the text for the last ten or so years. In some ways, it's kept me young. I put it down to being immersed, for a couple of hours each week, in the fug of pubescent hormones emanating from twenty-five excited students. I should be grateful. It's evidently helping me to ward off osteoporosis, facial hair, night sweats and the other scourges of the menopausal.

I'm not bothered that Lockie and Vicky get sexy. I'm more concerned that Winton gets preachy. There's one line in the text where Lockie tells the Sarge, his dad, that the Sarge could never be a teacher because he's got too much going for him. Really hate reading that line. Every year I hate it.

I also dislike Winton's stereotyping of rich kids and their parents, of the kids at the church youth group, the bogans, and yes, the teachers. However, it usually leads to worthwhile discussion about the positives and negatives of stereotyping.

Almost every year that I was coordinator, I received complaints from parents, concerned about their precious children reading about sex. One poor kid, forbidden from participating in any class on Lockie, had to suffer the ignominy of sitting in my office, wading through The Sun on the Stubble - a novel of which his mother, a rabid Christian, approved. Interestingly, she thereby guaranteed that Jimmy, a bright and curious kid, read all three Lockie Leonard books, perhaps with a torch under his bedsheets.

So why is Lockie still doing us, despite the protestations of an oldish former English Coordinator who wouldn't mind aging gracefully?

Basically, most students love it. I even received a petition from one group last year who'd heard from their loose-lipped teacher that we were considering dropping it. So Lockie stayed. Can't fight that.

My students read Lockie aloud in a sort of 'readers' theatre'. One person reads the 'narrator' and other students take the various parts. There's great competition to read the 'rude' bits. This year, two boys desperately wanted to read the first nipple section. With a coin toss, we sorted out who would read. 'Fair enough,' conceded the losing contender, after another had tossed a dollar into the air and called heads. He was crest-fallen but placated by my promise that he could read the next rude bit.

I teach my year 8s in the period before lunch each day. A couple of weeks ago, so enthralled were they with what they were reading, they begged to be allowed to stay in at lunchtime to finish the chapter. I kid you not. They stayed in for seven minutes, and even though I had a full teaching day, I didn't care because I don't think that's happened before. Engagement with reading is what it's all about for us English teachers. I felt really good.

It's been interesting observing my students this year. They're more sophisticated than last year's group. They pick up lots of unintended innuendo. They cracked up at the men holding their sausages in the water-skiing scene. Neither have I received any complaints. I suppose I am teaching in the world of Two and a Half Men.

I do wonder though, what Winton thinks of Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo from the perspective of twenty years. Wonder if he cringes. Wish I'd written it.

Whew!

2011-02-26T12:54:00.002+11:00

"Finally read your blog." That's Reggie, older sister talking. "All it'd take is one phone call," she says, warning. "It'd be a spectacularly mucky end to a brilliant teaching career. Is that how you want to be remembered?"

Of course she won't make that call. But someone else might, out of the goodness of its heart, in my school's best interest, naturally. And perhaps because I'm a smart-arse who's had it coming and they've been waiting for just this opportunity.

I've been sobered - well, not literally - and sphincter-clenching since I read a brief report in this week's Age about Natalie Munroe who was suspended from teaching because of her blog. Of course, this was in the US, and in Oz we're a bit more relaxed, but I just got this feeling. Sounded like her blog was remarkably similar to my own, perhaps minus the expletives, which I thoroughly enjoying writing. (Oh-oh. Done it again.) Munroe got hung out to dry for far less, from what I can tell.

I've also noticed that one of my followers (and you know who you are, my witty friend!) is only a couple of clicks away from inadvertently betraying my precious anonymity. Thought I'd get done a few years back when one of my posts was published in a national teaching magazine. Happily, no one twigged to that one and my secret remained safe.

As I've said before, blogging is therapy and writing all that nasty stuff and turning it blackly humorous is illicitly thrilling - graffiti taggers get the same thrill, I'm told, as they darkly dart around defacing our burbs with their stupid black scrawl. That's not a bad analogy, actually, because while I'm venting, I'm also betraying my colleagues. And okay, they sort of deserve it, but I'd be mortified, and probably sacked, if I hurt such well-meaning, albeit boring people by lampooning them for my own psycho-therapeutic purposes.

So, unlike Hamlet, I've made a decision. I've deleted the blogs that could get me sent down. I dare say there will be others, cos the teaching world keeps throwing shit my way, and I have to deal with it somehow.

I'm not ready for retirement yet, dear sister Reggie. I'd miss the cut and thrust which abounds at my school.

And for anyone who cares to trawl back through the archives, there's still some stuff there, and if a certain person reads it and recognises his/herself therein, perhaps he/she will finally get the message and piss off.

More VATE conference reflections

2010-12-10T11:21:00.004+11:00

VATE 2010

The VATE conference reached my expectations this year; provided stimulus to kick start my thirty second year of teaching.

1. It was really good getting away from school for two days.
2. I had a like-minded colleague – and driver - to hang out with.
3. Saw a couple of my writing idols, Shaun Carney and Catherine Deveny.
4. Participated in an intimate master class led by Deveny.
5. Got some new insights into Elia Kazan and On The Waterfront.

1. The end of the school year is invariably fraught. The senior students, in many ways my raison d’etre, have gone. I’m left with my small dose of year 7 and 8 students, most of whom are yet, through no fault of their own, to reach ‘the age of reason’. I have to watch myself to avoid encounters like this:
Scene: I’m showing the DVD of Holes using laptop and data projector. The DVD is damaged – unbeknown to me prior to starting the lesson. The DVD keeps freezing. The only remedy is to eject it, insert it and try again in a different place. Kayla, a sullen, usually benign 14 year old, is telling me, repeatedly, how to fix the computer, as only a 14 year old who knows everything can. Like I’m an idiot. Other students, from their vantage point of strength in numbers in a dark room, join in the meddlesome, unhelpful chorus. I’m equally frustrated by the faulty DVD as I’m leaning over my laptop, peering at the dimly lit keyboard, vainly trying to find a solution. The patronising adolescent know-it-all non-advice is getting right up my wick. I lose my temper. Oh-oh. I ask the stupid question. “Kayla, do I look like a complete moron?” “Yes,” she titters, delighting her friends.

And then there are the replacement classes which one picks up. Mostly hell. Reports are being finalised. People are leaving, some against their wishes. Positions of responsibility are being assigned for good or bad for the following year, and at our place, some bad decisions have gone down. It’s good to have time out at a conference.

2. My “driver” – KD, a colleague - picked me up at eight for a nine o’ clock start. An effortless drive, well, for me anyway. As he negotiated the peak hour traffic for an hour, I allowed my inner monologue out and KD listened and contributed appropriately. This luxury seemed to add to the whole package. He probably had to hug a tree at the end of it all, but what the hey?

3. My writing idols. Too much to say. It’s a personal thing.

4. Perhaps Catherine Deveny was, for me, the most stimulating person at the VATE conference. I attended her master class on Tuesday morning. I saw a different person from the person I’ve seen before. (I’ve attended Deveny’s book launch, seen her God is Bullshit show and have relished her writing in The Age until her infamous sacking.) Suppose it was a more intimate and personal setting. She was enthusiastic; full of passion and good ideas; extremely generous and personable. “Perfection is the enemy of good,” she said, amongst other things. This is her exhortation to just get on with one’s writing. She’s rarely satisfied with her writing, she says, but it doesn’t stop her getting on with it and getting it out there. Wish I could be more like Deveny. She bounces back. Things that would have made me livid and ready to attack or retreat don’t seem to faze her. Deveny spoke on a panel following the master class. She was witty and commanded the audience. Obviously riled some participants including ‘Dr Glenn McLaren’, another panel member. “Unlike Catherine,” he said, beginning his speech, “I want to make people think.” Prick. He certainly made people bristle. Such an insult – from an adult - would have rendered me impotent. I’d have been unable to function. But not Deveny. She evidently registered the remark but continued to listen respectfully, even throwing in a ‘hear, hear’ when he mentioned something about increasing teachers’ salaries. I’m so impressed by this resilience; this boldness that allows her to damn the torpedoes and get her ideas out there.

5. The final session I attended on the second day was led by Rachel Kafka. It was called Kazan’s America. This woman had a tough gig. People are tired after long days of concentrating. Some don’t even make it to the final session. I was just about keeling over with exhaustion. Happily, this presenter was great; erudite, lively, well prepared, passionate about her subject. What’s more she generously emailed her PowerPoint the next day.

I'm not sure I write so well when I'm being positive. Seem to do cynical better. But it's only fair to pay credit to VATE when it's due.

Random thoughts on VATE 2010

2010-12-09T13:13:00.002+11:00

Arriving at Deakin Uni, my colleague, KD, and I headed straight into the keynote. No time for coffee. First, the inaugural Ian Maxwell address delivered by his grandson, Roland. Nicely nostalgic and anecdotal. And brief. Breathed a sigh of relief thinking this was it. But this was the Jubilee Conference; a self-congratulatory name-dropping conference, it seemed, when our revered speaker took the podium, striding out confidently in frock, blazer and high heels, despite the prodigious weight of her CV. Down hill from there. Aunty Doreen’s quasi-religious gumleafy earnest Welcome to Country had already given me a push. It’s just me. I’m irreverent.

The incredibly well-credentialed keynote speaker read, and misread, a tedious potted history of VATE. Her misreading and subsequent apologising was almost punctuation. Couldn’t see from my seat whether or not she was wearing reading glasses. If she wasn’t, she should be. If she was, time for an upgrade. Was a bit surprised that she seemed to have written in her speech “And now perhaps with my principal’s hat on”. Thought those remarks were off the cuff. Apparently not.

It was about this time that someone in the control booth turned on the massive slideshow so we had Deakin Uni spruiking its stuff behind her. Maybe she flicked a switch herself to wake us up. It was a bit hard to concentrate, even though I know it’s important that VATE has achieved all this stuff. At this point I opened my notebook and started focusing on the woman in front of me in her puff sleeved beige patterned shirt with a Christmas decoration pinning up her hair. Quite diverting watching her fumbling to get a rattly Eclipse mint from her little tin without making a noise. KD was playing with his iPhone and around me people were poking through the contents of their show bags.

The only way to proceed after this was up. I wasn't disappointed. More later, perhaps.

Writing a memory

2010-10-18T15:14:00.003+11:00

I teach a Year 7 creative writing class and occasionally I write while my students are writing. I was using Andy Griffiths' Swinging on a clothesline and the word 'parka' in one of his pieces sparked my memory.

Parkas were in fashion in 1969. Eventually, I got one, probably after lots of pleading. We bought it one Saturday morning at Victoria Market. This was the only place to get a bargain, or so it seemed, back then. There wasn’t the plethora of markets and shopping precincts that we have now. This was before Highpoint, before the late Moonee Ponds Market, now a sleek overpriced shopping complex. This was way back. Shops closed at 5.30 on Friday nights and at noon on Saturdays. Absolutely no trading on Sunday; a day of rest, church for lots of families, followed by Sunday roasts. So Saturday morning was a bum’s rush of driving from Avondale Heights to North Melbourne through Kensington - no freeway back then - Spanish donuts, sacks of potatoes and spruikers of vegetables. And my mum worked full-time , so this shopping time was precious. It would have been an extra effort to fit in a shop for a parka for her middle daughter, but somehow she managed it.

The thigh length parka was navy blue with criss-cross quilting. It had a zip detachable hood with a white fur edging, side slit pockets and long sleeves. I loved it. It was winter so I wore it to school. I was in Form 2 at high school. An outer overcoat was forbidden over our grey gym tunics, grey jumpers and blazers but nonetheless I was wearing it one recess in the B Block corridor by the grey metal lockers. We were hanging around inside at the end of B Block where the Form 2 girls’ lockers were, outside the needlework room and opposite the laundry where I had my violin lessons. (No dedicated music rooms back then.)

Somehow the girls and I got into some stupidity that involved me tucking the sleeves of my parka inside, making a straight jacket of sorts, and putting the jacket back on and getting back into my jacket with my arms pressed to my sides. One girl then zipped me up to my neck. Still in the mood of hysterics, giggling and teasing, they decided to put me in a coat locker. How small I must have been.

I had ceased enjoying the experience but was trying not to show it. I protested but I was still pushed into the grey metal hole. I was helpless in my straightjacket.

I was distressed, almost crying but trying to play along bravely as if I didn’t care; I felt, well, trapped and humiliated.

Friends were very important and one could be ousted from a group on less than a whim.

I begged to be released. And then the bell sounded. Still laughing, my friends grabbed books and headed to class. We were more afraid of authority in 1969. Lateness was forbidden.

The corridor had cleared a few minutes later, when our young and highly respected history teacher, freed me. She didn’t rebuke me. She didn’t need to. I was a combination of relieved and deeply embarrassed to appear such a fool in front of a teacher I held in such high regard.

I wonder if I would have been so embarrassed had I been a thirteen year old in 2010.

Holiday. Celebrate.

2010-09-27T08:39:00.003+10:00

Interesting how many of my English teaching Facebook friends have posted about doing piles of marking during the holidays. I have an aversion to this particular holiday torture, but despite working double time for the last week of term, I inevitably end up with at least one pile of marking that needs my attention during the break. This time I had two, unfortunately, but I dealt with them by putting my school bag at my bedside and doing a few hours marking on the first Saturday morning of the hols. My thinking was that if I did the work before I got out of bed, it wouldn't impinge on my holiday time. That is, my holiday wouldn't commence until I got out of bed on the Saturday. Mental. But who wouldn't be after thirty years of this?

Our school has also got with the zeitgeist of making the year 12s do their trial exams during the break. The idea is that the dedicated teachers will dash in, tongues hanging out, to collect the exams and get a head start on term 4 by beginning it with all the exams marked. Well, they can stick that up their jacksy.

Or are you one of those teachers who take extra lessons during the school holidays? I was a little that way inclined back in the day. Not now. If I haven't taught the course effectively during term time, with all those classes and all that extra-curricular counselling/tuition that I do, not to mention 24/7 availability on line, I'm evidently not efficient enough. As such, I get a little miffed when inevitably, at briefing at the start of the new term, 'prin class' thanks those 'more dedicated' teachers who gave up their own time to run classes during the vacation.

For me it's been a bit of travelling/cycling and some light holiday reading. Just finished 'Petite Anglaise', an appealing looking true story that I found amongst the remaindered items in a local book store. It's about an expat English womah blogging, famously (and I thought inappropriately) about her life in Paris. Oh to have a personal life to blog about. Clearly, she's not an English teacher.

Actually, it's not that bad. I did manage to steal a little carefully organised leave this year, without inconveniencing my students too much. Spent a blissful five weeks cycling in France.

Ultraflop

2010-08-09T16:36:00.003+10:00

Seventy plus teachers and ancillary staff head to various computer rooms for Ultranet training. And thus it begins, entirely as expected. No one can access the Ultranet. But like dutiful children, we persist. No doubt, so do the other thousands of teachers across the state, trying to log onto the system at 9.05 this morning.

Eventually, IT guy gives us a twenty minute break for coffee and asks us to meet in the library for a bit of a lecture on the capabilities of the wonderful Ultranet. During the lecture, which is very hard to follow because we can't access the system, I - and everyone else illicitly checking their in-boxes - receive an Edumail message from DEECD IT support informing us that the Ultranet is not functioning. Hilarious.

Our collective inability to access Ultranet continues for the rest of the day.

IT guy informs me that as the organiser of the day, he'd been directed to forward both his plan for the day with a functioning Ultranet, and a contingency plan, should the system fail.

We all knew it would fail. The My School website crashed on launch day. Myki still isn't working properly.

In the messages from the IT department, reminding us throughout the day that the system wasn't functioning, we were directed, like children when it rains on sports day, to do some other busy work task that didn't rely on the Ultranet.

To borrow from the abbreviated textings of many of my students: LMFAO for much of the morning. But at 1.30 an email arrived from the IT service department telling us the Ultranet was now fully functioning and that we were invited to get on it and do our stuff.

That's when I became frustrated. Because initially I still couldn't get on it. And when I finally accessed my home page, I couldn't move from the home page onto any other site. Like a good girl though, I kept on trying until 3.45.

Meanwhile, our English department has a perfectly well functioning wikispace that already meets all our on line needs. In all the time I've been using it, wikispaces has never failed me. Nor have any one of loads of sites I frequently use that have millions of worldwide users.

But apart from today's Ultranet fiasco, I'm not thrilled with the Ultranet. As head of my department, I've already done some training and have had a play on the site at home. I find it slow and hard to negotiate. When I started using Facebook, I found it easy to navigate. Same with Blogger. All the help readily at hand; really simple to use. So what's the story with the Ultranet, given all the monetary resources that have been thrown at it??

On the positive side, had we not had our abortive Ultranet training day, I would have had a full teaching day, followed by a meeting. And the catered lunch was good. Otherwise, it was an unforgivable waste of time, affecting every state school teacher, and every family with children in state schools. Pretty disgusting all up.

Teaching's not all bad!

2010-05-15T17:03:00.002+10:00

I often commemorate the crap on this blog. But it's not all bad. In fact it's quite often uplifting, or I wouldn't have pursued this vocation for the past thirty or so years. Here's part of an email I just received from a student's mum:

...Also thanks for going through Em's
story the other day, she really does appreciate your thoughts,
comments. I think that she would really benefit from being in your
class. I am really hoping she has you next year & you can steer her in
the right direction, Em seems to respond well to you. Your the only
teacher that received a gift from overseas - couldn't wait to buy you
something. You must be a fantastic teacher."

This particular student had a burgeoning talent as a writer; something I tried to nurture when she was in my Creative Writing elective. That was eighteen months ago, so I was quite surprised when she turned up at the staffroom the other day with her latest piece of writing, wanting my advice. I didn't know I'd made a difference - thought she'd bought everyone a gift after her overseas trip.

Something to remember when it seems overwhelmingly negative.

Ultrawhinge.

2010-05-04T18:18:00.004+10:00

I'm feeling overworked and a bit like packing it in, today. First, yesterday's news.

A stranger was lurking with a clipboard in my classroom yesterday. "I'm just auditing," he said, by way of explanation. Just had to trust that he was official, and not about to filch my purse or my laptop from the office. He seemed congenial.

"Hope I don't have to move out of my room," I told him, as if he cared. "Think I'll have to retire if that's the case."
"Not to worry," said he. "Just an audit!" Yeah, whatever that is.

I did freak a bit though, and shared my paranoia with my office companion. "Not to worry, Jude." He didn't raise his eyes from his Age. He's used to me catastrophising.

Three-thirty, the same day, one of the Assistant Principals wanders into our rooms. "You've got to pack up all your things and clear out of your office and these rooms by Friday," he told us. And FARK said the crow, me.

The department has decided that our asbestos-y ceilings must be replaced. They're pulling the ceilings down and replacing them. Yes, I'm glad I'm being protected from asbestosis - hopefully I haven't picked it up in the last seven years that I've lived and breathed in my poisonous classroom and office. But I hate chaos. And this all comes in the middle of marking and cross-marking the first Creating and Presenting SAC, which I organise for all the year 12 teachers. I'm also on countdown to a well deserved short stint of Long Service Leave. Prior to departing for a bit of swanning along the Danube on a bike, I have to organise the whole faculty to operate smoothly during my brief absence: reports, exams, my senior students, my replacement teacher.

It's fraught, but I know I'll cope, despite a bit of pain between the shoulder blades.

Which leads me to what made me feel like opting out of this teaching lark altogether. At our staff meeting this afternoon, with the sky darkening, wind howling, trees thrashing the windows, IT guy told us, in his dulcet tones, about the Ultranet. Now I've rolled with all the changes incurred in secondary teaching since 1978, including the biggie: the introduction of VCE in 1991. I've adapted to the introduction of ICT when I can still remember us all oohing and aahing over a computer mouse in 1984, wondering whether it would ever catch on. But this whole expensive Ultranet thing really got up my wick.

It sounds as though the department wants us to be drones, accessible to parents at their convenience, not ours. Everything - curriculum, assessment records, comments on students' work - must be on line to allow parent scrutiny whenever.

I'm deeply concerned about teachers' rights and teachers' workload. It's just taking some of the spontaneous joy out of what has been a demanding but worthwhile career.

Hope I'm just negative because I've been up to my elbows in dust and cockroaches clearing out my office. Hope the Ultranet really does improve teaching and learning.

Time to connect with my old man and see what he's got planned for Europe. Lucky one of us has time to plan the trip.

Wiki wiki wiki!

2009-09-03T19:17:00.002+10:00

I'm running around the students, with their laptops, like a blue-arsed fly. My year 7 creative writing class numbers twenty-four. Sitting these kids in front of their own computers quickly identifies the really tech savvy, the competent and the passive aggressive borderline personality disorders.

The litany from the sulky kids: "My computer won't work!" (Have a cry, I think.) "I don't know what to do...My computer won't let me log in." Whinge, whinge, slump at the desk, rest head on heel of hand and look miserable. Meanwhile, one female student has logged on and edited my wiki homepage in a way that I don't particularly like. Other students are using the discussion board: "dont u think patrick is sooooo cute!??!" As I rush around the room students, quickly click out of forbidden sites. The creative writing lesson I've planned fails to eventuate except for five students. The lesson is about me trying to appear competent when I'm not. I'm okay on my own; it's a bit trickier managing the entire class. Despite this, I book in for another lesson.

People who teach with laptops and computers may find this pathetic. Me? I pop a couple of paracetamol tabs before my next class, which is, happily, back in my regular classroom.

Between classes I type in all the kids email addresses and invite them to join the class wiki. About four comply, given that if they join they have to do so from their home computer. Sounds too much like homework to the rest.

I consult the IT guy at school to see if there's a better way to achieve what I want: getting all the students signed up to the wiki and publishing their writing on line for the pleasure of the entire class. (BTW, I'm the only one reading the class wiki. Reminds me of my blog!) He suggests I get the remaining students signed up during class and tells me an easier way to do this involving students signing up to wikispaces.com, then requesting membership of the class website and me pressing my 'refresh' key. It is easier.

Kids begin posting links to their work on one page on the wiki. This doesn't work. It's too much of a convoluted process for me to click on the link, open their writing in Word, correct and assess it, then reload the modified work onto the wiki.

IT guy tells me to set up a page for each kid in the class, which I do.

Next lesson in the library computer area, I dole out the laptops to the students, carefully recording which laptop each student has taken, to help prevent vandalism. (Funny how they like to prise the keys off the keyboard and slam the computers around, or carry them around by their lids.) The students log on. They retrieve their work from the 'student share' area and begin writing. They're entering the Write Across Victoria competition and most are keen to participate. They write away happily and then when it's pack up time I tell them to copy and paste their work to their page on the wiki. This is when the internet drops out. Suddenly there's a scramble for USBs - for those students who have brought theirs to class. The rest line up while I pass around my own USB so they can save their work. I'm then the one who ends up emailing all the kids' stories later.

See how cleverly I've increased my own workload?

But wait, there's more.

I was feeling quite pleased with my ICT enterprise. All my kids had published their work appropriately on the wiki. Time to assess it. The process went thus: log onto the class wiki; click on each student's page; when page opens; click 'edit'; wait a few seconds for page to load; mark up and underline student's work; make comments in caps in brackets; type encouraging remark and grade at the bottom of the story; click 'save'; wait a few seconds for page to load; click on next student...

Twice during this process, the internet dropped out due to the weather, or whatever! I was craving 'hard copies', highlighter pens and hand-writing. So much easier.

Assessing on line took bleeding ages!

But back for more next week.

Professional Learning Team. Not.

2009-08-25T18:22:00.003+10:00

Once a fortnight, in that precious time between 3.30 and 4.30 in the afternoon, when everyone's worn out, after the day's teaching, prep and marking, we teachers assemble for another mandatory inevitable meeting. This one's called, oddly, Professional Learning Teams. I say oddly, because I'm yet to do any professional learning through this forum.

This year, I'm on the Information and Communication Technology team. Sounds good, but it's not. It reminds me of my own Form Six Politics class back in the early 70s, in that I didn't learn much in that class either. The teacher was disengaged and so were we. My loss, I know. Suppose it's the same with this PLT.

This afternoon it is even more hysterical than usual. Outside, winds of unprecedented strength for Melbourne, whip up anything that isn't lashed down. I wonder how I'm going to cope on my cycle home; whether I'll beat the storm. (I didn't, but it was fun anyway.)

And what's more, we rely on the internet in this PLT. But the internet at school hasn't functioned for three days due to storm damage, or some such. Needless to say, we are all led into the ICT room anyway. (No way could we be allowed to spend that hour preparing for classes. No, we must 'meet', dammit, and tick the box for 'professional learning', even if few are learning. Thus the school can report to the region that we have a 'culture of professional learning' and that all staff members are on PLTs.)

Our convenor, hands us reams of printed notes - the photocopier still works, apparently - interpreting VELS for ICT for the assembled group of teachers - about ten of us. Naturally, I began to read the document as soon as I got it. Bad move. Should have waited for our convenor to read it aloud to us. Should have seen that one coming. And wasn't that rivetting.

Our convenor, BTW, is sitting in a zen-like cross legged configuration on his desk top. He's earnestly trying to engage us, with his breathy, cultivated tones, but nobody's listening. I'm trying to be good, but I can't. The whole process just seems like sketch comedy.

One of my colleagues, is leaning back in his chair, eyes serenely closed, balancing his wrist watch along the line of his nose. The rogue art teacher is being deliberately provocative, as is his wont. He's an eccentric man-boy with the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old in his lanky fifty-something frame. He talks over the convenor and contradicts everything. Another colleague is reading an Artemis Fowl book. Others talk amongst themselves.

A colleague gets a call on his mobile. Unapologetically, he drifts out of the room for a couple of minutes and returns to interrupt the proceedings. Can I make an announcement? he says, taking the floor. His wife has called to tell him that the city of Melbourne has been evacuated. It's the end of the world, it seems. There's a brief pause while we process the information. No one seems particularly perturbed. I think it's probably an overreaction, given my husband works in town and I haven't heard of any drama from him. I consider that knowing my old man, he'll probably evacuate from his city office to the local pub. (He does.)

The time ticks slowly towards 4.30 and my cycle home in the 'cyclone'. If I could have skipped the meeting I'd have beaten the storm.

The ICT team again learns nothing. Whose fault? Mine? Yeah, I suppose. I'm an oldie and I should know better. Funnily enough though, I've always pursued my own professional learning without anyone telling me to, even during the eleven years when I was only teaching one evening class for three hours a week. It's what I do. But this school based 'professional learning team' that's been imposed on me, and my colleagues, just doesn't seem to work. Except for a bit of ironic entertainment value.

My space.

2009-08-19T17:49:00.000+10:00

I spend fourteen seventy-five minute periods each week in one battered portable classroom, that's happily not going anywhere. I say that because last year, every other movable classroom was actually rounded up and moved down to one of the 'playing fields'. These relocated rooms are too far from toilets and running water for my preferences. The whole set up is often referred to as Siberia, as in, shit I've got an extra in Siberia. One has to allow a good five minutes to get down to Siberia if one is teaching down there. And in our sequestered days, counted out in minutes, that can really add to one's load.

I wanted to write about my work space: what's good about it; what stinks, literally.

My portable classroom is actually half of a double set, with offices and poky storerooms in the middle. As I said, it's battered. I've been teaching exclusively in this room for about six years now. The walls of my room are dirty off white. The room was painted in 2004 because some thoughtful maintenance person found some tins of paint somewhere and my room was next in line for a spruce up. But that paint has flaked off where students rock back against the walls on their green plastic chairs. They also kick them occasionally, as one does I suppose. I've also stopped one student idly picking the paint off the wall with her long finger-nails.

The carpet in my home away from home is putrid grey-brown and pocked with ground-in Blu Tak and chewing gum. There's an unsettling whiff of urine about the room; human not cat. It's concerning. The carpet is allegedly cleaned annually, yet the stench remains. Hope it's not me.

The desks, which I've arranged in an educationally unsound - according to the zeitgeist at our school - horseshoe shape, have brown hacked and scraped wood-grain laminex tops. They're gouged and scrawled upon, despite my regular efforts with methylated spirit and elbow grease. The problem is that other teachers use this space for the six periods that I'm not in there, and they have less of an anal retention problem than I. The desks are also of two different heights, so the whole effect is higgledy-piggledy crap.

My office adjoins my classroom. The office is little more than an overstuffed small rectangular box. All my office furniture is mismatched throw out stuff, appropriated during renovations of other areas of the school. There's a hole in the ceiling that allows access to the occasional wasp. Bit of fun on a hot day. The windows also admit the afternoon sun. No blinds. No air-con. If it's over 25, the office becomes stifling; unuseable.

Even so, I like it.

It's handy having one's office attached to one's classroom. None of that lugging of materials to various locations. I've also got a lockable storeroom for my bike. Very convenient.

I'm working towards the positives - and they far outweigh the negatives - of this space.

Lots of other rooms in the school have been modernised to be open spaces, not unlike fishbowls. In these fresh rooms, the new colourful tables must be grouped in 'islands' to facilitate better teaching and learning. ('Prin class', as they like to be known, get shirty when you move the desks to fit a lecture style of teaching.) In these rooms, the teacher doesn't have his or her own desk because today's teacher should be moving amongst the students, engaging them. Fair enough, but sometimes one needs to allow the students quiet time to actually get on with their own work, without the teacher bothering them, especially in a creative writing or senior English class. (I don't like people watching over my shoulder when I'm trying to write.)

So my room, with its broken mismatched blinds, and politically incorrect desk arrangement, has escaped the desk police. Apart from students and a couple of teachers, no one comes near my learning space. This means I'm missing out on the refurbishments that seem to have happened elsewhere in the school, but at the same time, I'm left alone to do my own teaching thing. Which is good because I know what I'm doing and I do it well.

To Sir With Love Revisited.

2009-08-12T19:17:00.000+10:00

It was probably Christmas Day, 1968. I’d just finished my first year of secondary school. At Maribyrnong High School, actually, in case anyone’s interested. My family had joined with another family for Christmas lunch, which we’d already eaten. I was in a group in the suburban back yard, excitedly discussing the film, To Sir With Love, which one of the neighbours, a girl my age, had just seen. Lucky her. She was allowed to see it. I wasn’t. (Nor was I allowed to see The Graduate. Unsuitable for teenagers, according to my parents. It didn’t stop me reading through the racy paperbacks amongst the classics on my parents’ bookshelf.)

Back to the hushed discussion in the back garden. Vicky, the friend who’d seen the film, was telling us about this shocking scene in the film. Mr Thackeray, the Sidney Poitier character, walks into the classroom and finds that one of the female students has put something unmentionable into the fire.
I remember being somewhat incredulous and awestruck at the horror of it all. Periods were strictly women’s business back then.

Fast-forward forty-one years. A few weeks ago, To Sir With Love was on television and I idly watched the last half of the film, as you do sometimes on a weekend. I’d shown the film to students in the early 1980s, but hadn’t thought about it for years, apart from when Tina Arena released a cover of the title song.

Subsequently, I thought it might be interesting to show the film to my current year 8s. I’m always telling them ‘back in the day’ stories, and I thought it might interest them. I’ve shown them two ‘instalments’ of the film so far. (It’s a bit of a bribe that’s working well. If they work well for the first forty-five minutes of the afternoon session, they can spend the last half hour watching this film.)
It’s been fascinating watching these kids watching the film. It’s also been most interesting contextualizing certain scenes for the students. The pause button is handy here.

“Oh my god! Did you hear what he said?” says one of my students. “That is so racist!” Mr Thackeray, meeting his teaching colleagues for the first time, is calmly bearing the brunt of racist jibes from a jaded old teaching colleague. This led to a discussion on racism, and whether anything has changed, and what it was like back then.

Back to the film. To me, it seems almost silly; so dated. The clothes, the dancing, the accents, the attitudes, all seem so twee now. Yet my own students have watched it with considerable engagement. I had to press the pause button to explain the scene where the female ‘unmentionable’ is being inappropriately incinerated. In the film, Thackeray quickly exits the boys so he can talk frankly to the female members of his class, who should be learning that women should have more dignity. I explained all this to my mixed class, who were struggling to understand what was going on in the scene, given that those times are happily well and truly over. Took me right back to the days of the incinerator in the girls’ toilets, back in the day – not a place one wants to go.

The times have changed considerably since those grotty sexist times. Hurrah.

I didn’t expect that the film would generate so much interest. I honestly expected the kids to reject it, and demand something more contemporary. Initially, having a half hour of ‘film study’ Wednesday, last period, really was just a way of trying to engage the students at a time when they are usually totally disengaged. But showing this oldie has been surprisingly ‘educational’.

The Secret River and Encountering Conflict.

2009-07-18T12:18:00.000+10:00

Some brief thoughts after second, or third reading of the text. Nothing special. Just some stuff I'll share with my current students to stimulate a bit of discussion and writing, I hope.

The most significant conflict in the text was incurred because Thornhill, and the other settlers, took land that belonged to the aboriginal people. This is so fraught. What else could they do, given who they were? They were ignorant, uneducated convicts, transported to

Australia

at a time when the average human hadn’t evolved much. (The average person’s mind still functions at a base level and is racist, territorial and often morally savage. Can’t pretend to be nice and all embracing of my fellow humans. This is just the truth for me.)

Thornhill struggles to recognize the humanity in the aboriginal people even though he sees their intelligence and their similarities to himself. (This isn’t a text response essay, but think of him noticing the shape of the poisoned child’s skull; consider him pondering the ease with which the blacks found the food they needed yet still had time to play with their children. Think of your own prejudices and be honest about them. I’m not going to confess my own here, but I had to bite down on a racist reaction to a woman who won a lot of money on Deal or No Deal during the holidays. BTW, speaking of dumb, I’ve only watched it once in my life – my son had to explain how it worked – and I was recovering from flu.)

Given who Thornhill was, and his lack of opportunity in England, he couldn’t return. He had to stay on his land, even if it meant being involved in the slaughter of the aboriginal people who lived there before him. (And how gormlessly did he go along with that?? Pity he wasn’t more like his son, Dick. But there you go. He didn’t have his son’s perspective. He couldn’t have it.)

So this conflict, however terrible, was unavoidable for the types of people involved, with their very human nature. It changed the world, decimating a race of people. And how many times throughout history has that happened?? It wasn’t so much survival of the fittest as survival of those with superior weaponry, cunning, and immune systems.

Dealing with a difficult parent.

2008-05-30T18:08:00.000+10:00

I dutifully returned the call of a parent concerned about her fourteen year old son’s progress in Year 8 English. The previous week, parents had received their child's ‘interim’ reports. Every six weeks, in addition to parent teacher interviews and formal reporting, our school prepares these reports for close to a thousand students. (That's a lot of reporting.)

After telling me she was concerned about her son’s unsatisfactory progress, the call proceeded thus:

Her: My son is only getting Ns in your class.

Me: What are you implying?

At this stage of my career, I’m sick of parents ringing up and thinking they can malign my teaching competence in this way. It’s something I have never done when addressing the teachers of my own kids. It’s simply rude. It’s even more rude given my status within my school and my excellent reputation - no false modesty. But I suppose she’s not to know me from a bar of soap.

Now of course I understand just about the entire psychology of parental investment in their children. Yes, it’s probably an unfathomable body of work, but I’m getting a bit long in the tooth and I know what I know, based on protracted, sometimes excruciating years of experience as a moderately intelligent teacher, and parent of a couple of occasionally ‘ne’er do well’ children to boot. I know how terrible it feels when you know you’ve put in so much as a parent and your kids won’t come to the party and satisfy your parental needs with 'braggable' ENTER scores and virtuosity in the performing arts or rocket science.

I take umbrage at the implication that it is my teaching that is making her boy fail.

This mother assured me that she wasn’t implying anything; she just couldn’t understand why her son was passing in every other teachers’ classes and failing in mine. Again, the castigations.

She wanted more from me, more than the blood I’m already giving.

She was demanding time that I don’t have to spare, given the fact that I’m just about always in the classroom, either teaching, or counselling and consoling year 12 students, or dealing with the occasional recalcitrant who needs a bit of a talking to at the end of a lesson, away from an audience. If I’m not in the classroom, or guarding the yard, I’m in a bleeding hour long meeting after school three afternoons a week. Or on the phone taking shit from caustic parents. I suppose she and her ne’er do well son could catch me for a spot of private tuition after I’ve done my weekly five hours of assessment and correction in bed on a Sunday morning.

The conversation became quite terse:

Her: Well, if you haven’t got the capacity to assist my son…

Me: I beg your pardon. Have you any idea how rude you sound?

But ultimately, despite twenty minutes on the phone, generally biting my tongue and being my political best, I was unable to ameliorate the situation.

And unfortunately, after I hung up the phone I burst into tears of frustration at the unfairness of it all, in front of two of my colleagues, one of whom is only twenty four, a new teacher in the area I coordinate and just embarking on her career. I felt pathetic.

Next day, the parent has followed through with a facetious open email, which borders on harassment, to the school office, which was then forwarded to me and the head of the junior school.

Fortunately, the junior school and year 8 coordinators are well apprised of my abilities as a teacher and have assured me I will not have to communicate with this parent again.

The irony is that it doesn’t matter how many successes I have, it’s these incidents that have the power to overwhelm me; hence the need to vent on a blog that is rarely read, to put it out there to float around unnoticed in the ether forever. But it has more chance of surviving than my volumes of self-absorbed journals, which my daughter, a writer herself, has assured me she will compost as soon as I’m in the nursing home, if not before.

Time for a chardonnay.

Sometimes it all falls into place

2008-05-22T17:57:00.000+10:00

Today has been a magic day at school. It's good to acknowledge these days. My plans came to fruition.

Since December last year, as I'm sure have many of my colleagues around Melbourne, I've been planning for our VCE students to see a performance of Eagle's Nest Theatre's production of The Crucible.

Big deal, some may say. But I hate organising such events - or 'incursions' as it says on our school's official forward planning form. (Nothing like a raid to get the heart started. ) And I always feel responsible for the success of such ventures. A couple of years ago, I took a group of students to see a performance of Stolen at the Malthouse. Our team of Year 12 English teachers had spent a good six weeks or so battling against our students' racist attitudes prior to the performance. The performance in itself was excellent, but the ensuing Q and A was a disaster. One of the performers 'paid out' somewhat on the non-indigenous audience and it was just the spark our students needed to reignite their racist flames. That young performer perhaps undid in a couple of angry comments - and fair enough - all the effort we'd put in to quell the endemic racism of many of our kids back then. It was really disheartening, and I, as the organiser of the excursion, felt that somehow I'd let the side down.

But today, everything worked, despite the limitations of the space we were able to offer the performers. They basically had to work in our 'theatre', which is really just three converted classrooms, one of which forms an endstage. I'm thinking there must have been twenty actors on that stage, many of whom were lined up, seated, not quite out of sight behind the curtains. There was no special lighting on the stage; no sound effects; no son et lumiere tricks. No, just a group of enthusiastic skilled performers who generally embraced their roles with gusto. The house lights were left on during the performance, which may have assisted with students' behaviour. But I think our kids were seriously engaged.

We've been studying The Crucible since the beginning of term. The students have already completed two pieces of writing on the Context. They've also watched the film. So today, they were generally looking forward to seeing a live performance.

For me, it was extremely rewarding to see about a hundred of our Year 12 kids suspending their disbelief and really getting involved. During the scene where Abigail pretends to see a bird in the rafters, many students stared around in horror to see what all the players were looking at. I even 'teared up' a bit at the poignant ending.

But the greatest part of the entire performance was how I felt about our kids. These students generally have not been exposed to any live performances, other than rock concerts and Big Days Out. They haven't seen any live theatre since an anti-bullying production in Year 8. Yet they were an excellent audience. I think I told one kid to put his foot down off the seat of the kid in front of him, which he did without demur. And the production took the best part of three hours. Our students missed their recess and three quarters of their lunch break, yet they quietly, respectfully watched the entire production. It was terrific to hear the genuine applause as the players took their bows at the end. Furthermore, the actors approached me at the end of the play to tell me our students had been just about the best audience they'd had since they'd been touring the play around the schools. I felt really proud.

Last period I taught - I use the term loosely; I was a bit worn out - one of my year 12 English classes. The students were full of chat about the production, quoting memorable lines and laughing at how they'd all jumped when Abigail started screaming. It was very gratifying for their teacher. Me.

Too old for this??

2008-05-19T18:14:00.000+10:00

I've always quite enjoyed disruption in my school day. Others bemoan interruptions to their chemistry classes, their routines. Not I. I welcome little diversions in the order of the school day. Bring on the fire drill! It's a chance to get out in the fresh air and have a break. I like a bit of excitement, like the Year 12 coordinator interrupting my class twice today. It's a different face. Someone else to banter with.

So when the newish principal decided we would alter the arrangement of the school day I thought, what the hey? I've always worked in schools with six 48 - 50 minute periods per day. Change would be good; as good as a holiday.

So this altered timetable was more or less rushed through after about six months serious planning last year. Now it's careful what you wish for.

The new day is possibly killing me. I can feel the future years dropping from my life span. This is the thing. The periods are seventy five minutes long. That's four seventy five minute periods per day. Yes, the students are well and truly getting their 300 minutes of tuition each day, and there's less movement around the school and blah, blah, blah. But when one has first 'three on' it's hell on wheels, especially when one gets an emergency yard duty thrown into the mix, as I did today, and as frequently happens. Today it was morning assembly, Advance Australia Fair and all that, then into class for a 9.05 start. Double year 8, recess yard duty, year 12 after recess, and no break until 1.15. It's crippling me. After lunch I find it difficult to use my spare period effectively because I have that hit-over-the -head-with-a-housebrick feeling. Pity my colleagues with their four-on days. Happily, I'm spared that.

And I've got to do it all over again tomorrow morning.

The other problem is extras. Under the old system, one would rarely get an extra on a five on day. Now, however, most people have an average three periods a day, so when they get an extra, it's a full on day. And seventy five minutes is a long time to be taking an extra.

Oh for some real forward planning.

I hate parent teacher interviews

2008-04-28T16:08:00.000+10:00

While I was talking to the first parent, the room started to shift around her. I felt spacey. It was probably the lighting in our school gym where we were all lined up in exam like rows. And the dread of the ordeal facing me. So to focus, I concentrated on her protruding teeth and her badly dyed blonde hair; her eyes were wrinkled around the edges from self-deprecating obsequious smiling.

“How’s her spelling?” she asked. “I can’t understand why she can’t spell. I never had a problem with spelling.”

How many parents tell the teacher – me, or me at ages 21 to 51 – except for that blissful ten years when I taught adults and didn’t have to wade through this necessary shit – what they were like as students? Or they tell their kids off in front of the teacher, as if that will have more effect, or to show that they are serious parents and it’s not their fault that their kid is recalcitrant, or whatever.

I asked Fart Boy, when he made his appointment, how he thought his parents would react if I told them how many times he disrupted the class with his explosive bowels.

“My dad will think it’s hysterical,” he boasted. “He taught me everything I know.” And then I meet mum and dad; middle aged, ordinary people. Fart Boy has preempted anything I might say to his parents. They allude to it. I tell them he says his dad thinks it’s funny. Dad looks embarrassed. Clearly, small conservative bald dad isn’t full of the bravado that his son is.

At my most recent parent teacher day/evening, between one and eight pm, with an hour break, I spoke to forty four families. Mostly the interviews were positive, but three were appalling. How can these ignoramuses possibly think that it serves their kids well if they give the teacher a serve?

They just don’t pay me enough for this torture.

In one interview, this harassed looking thirty something is restraining a struggling toddler on her knee. Another of her children stands quietly, its nose level with the edge of the table. Her daughter, my student, stands quietly behind her mother and father while the woman attacks me because I’ve given her daughter an ‘unsatisfactory’ on her interim report. She challenges every aspect of my teaching, makes me explain all my teaching methodology and then still won’t accept that her child deserved the grade. And she’s shouting and waving her free hand around while the toddler squirms to free itself. The woman is dressed in business clothes. Looks like she’s come straight from work. Her babies are driving her batty and perhaps she feels inadequate because she hasn’t paid enough attention to her daughter’s progress. So I have to pay the price and sit passively and wear her aggression because the customer is always right in these market driven league table days. She even slaps at the sign hanging on the front of the table which says I’m the English coordinator. “Coordinator. Hmmmph!” she says.

Furthermore, what does a kid’s grey unshaven father think will be achieved if he abuses the teacher on the basis of some spurious allegation made by his daughter, possibly to avoid a beating? This unkempt down-at-heel father sits in front of me. Because I’m dazed by the lights and the thirty something families I’ve already interviewed, I don’t immediately perceive his rage. He glares at me. Why have I made an example of his daughter because she didn’t have her text book? What?? That’s not true, I manage, but he’s not listening. A small crowd waits behind him. He’s right up in my face, eyes blazing, lips a thin line. Breathing at me. I tell him I won’t speak to him unless he calms down, which enrages him further. His daughter sits smugly beside him while he explodes. I stand and tell him the interview is over and begin to walk away.

“I demand to see the head-master,” he says. “Where is he? Where is he?”

“It’s a woman,” I say, and begin to walk away but he blocks my path. Meanwhile, my colleague intervenes and tries to direct the man away from the masses of parents witnessing the assault on the hapless teacher.

I head into an office with my heart beating rapidly and steady myself for about twenty seconds before I return to the hall and sit to interview the next parents. The mother immediately puts me at ease.

“It’s all right,” she says. “I understand. I’m a teacher.”

Reflections on my Saturday at the VATE conference

2007-07-29T18:09:00.000+10:00

I didn’t get much out of the 2007 VATE conference.

Perhaps it’s best to examine it in context.

Let me go back a day.

I didn’t attend the Friday session of the VATE conference for a couple of reasons. First, it’s so bleeding expensive now it’s almost extortionate. I’m the English coordinator at my school and funding is scarce. To send teachers to the conference, not only must we pay for registration but we must also pay for CRTs to replace the staff who attend. Second, I would miss double year 12 English and it didn’t seem right to leave them just so I could have a PD day. So I sent two of my colleagues and satisfied myself with attending only the Saturday session.

When my year 12s told me on Thursday – the day before the VATE conference – that they would be away on a careers expo the next day I was a bit put out. The two replacement classes I was given didn’t help. But this is the teaching life, isn’t it?

Last period Friday is Year 10 English. Even on a good day, most of my year 10s are inclined to hyperactive bestiality. They can’t help it. And it’s not my fault. They were like that before I met them. Actually, after the occasional morning session with them, when I’ve put the chair and the whip down, I almost feel that I’ve made some slight progress with them, even after Swearing Emo Girl has effed and c-eed her way through the lesson and Fart Boy has punctuated every five minutes with his effluent wind section ejaculations.

But Friday, they were insane. Not worth describing. My strategy for coping with such behaviour is to tell myself that even if they’ve learnt nothing they will not leave the room until the floor is tidy and the chairs are put up on desks. Pathetic, but it generally retrieves some of my sanity at the day’s end. It almost happened according to plan, but when that bell sounded I was rushed at the door. I managed to intercept two students to make them finish off the job with the chairs.

Blonde Boy was compliant and even wished me a good weekend as he cheerfully left the room.

However, Aggro Girl was not so compliant and tried to barge through me in the doorway. Unfortunately, I have an inclination to resist such students. I caught her by the wrist as she pushed past me and ordered her back to clean up her area.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled. Of course, I let go of her wrist.

“Because you are not an animal,” said I, “you will go back and pick up your chair.” (Sounds so pathetic when you write this stuff down, doesn’t it? In the scheme of life it’s less than crap.)

Anyway, she complied. I thanked her and wished her a good weekend. Honestly.

So imagine my surprise when fifteen minutes later I’m summoned to the AP’s office because an irate father has demanded to know why the English teacher has assaulted his daughter.

Dad is livid. “It takes a lot to make my daughter cry,” snarls this parent – an imposing dust covered bearded lumberjack of sorts. Aggro Girl is looking smug but won’t meet my eyes. There’s this other kid in there as well, who turns out to be the younger sister. She, too, says her piece, without looking at me. “She ad no right ta touch er!” Who are you? I’m thinking, and why has my esteemed leader allowed you to be present at the interview?

Finally, Dad is satisfied with my recount of events and my assurance that I had intended no physical or emotional assault on his daughter. But it left a nasty taste and made me realize how vulnerable I am – we all are – as teachers. We are at the mercy of such students. And how I wish I had a dollar for every parent who has said to me over the years that his or her son or daughter does not lie, when clearly kids do.

And for this I gave up the VATE conference? Perhaps though, it was a good reminder. Never touch a student. (Let’s face it, I shouldn’t have grabbed her wrist.) And students have no loyalty. But I’m sure that the next time one student starts smashing into another in the canteen queue I will still grab them both by the shirt front and march them to the coordinator’s office. Do you let them beat each other senseless while you stand back vainly blowing your whistle?

So sandwiched between that and a four hour pile of marking today, I had VATE on Saturday.

I felt dissatisfied with my VATE experience this year, apart from Ross Huggard’s presentation on Year 12 Creating and Presenting. He never fails to deliver. However, just one day didn’t do it for me this year, and the negatives obsessed me. I am utterly sick of those delegates in the audience who feel they have to contribute their own anecdotes whenever they get an opportunity; who hijack. I was in a small room with about twenty people and really wanted to hear what Susan La Marca and Pam McIntyre had to say about their new book, Knowing Readers. Yet I was surprised when Dr McIntyre spent too much time reading two picture books aloud to us like she was auditioning for Play School. I found the subsequent class activity twee and useless. It would have been enough to quickly relate Aidan Chambers theory from his book Tell Me, and trust that we’d be able to apply it in our own classrooms. But it took up time. As did three persistent audience members who felt they had to contribute their unoriginal thoughts on everything that was said. Unfortunately, both presenters happily listened, even encouraged these interjectors who were contributing such wisdoms as ‘kids say that they don’t like writing book reports’ or ‘it helps if you share your own love for books with your students’. Well, hello.

The presenters didn’t get through all their material, but three old teachers left the room feeling good about themselves and their invaluable contributions. I wasn’t one of them.

The forum, “Good English for Good Citizenship” was stimulating and one speaker, Mark Lopez, was provocative. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something which suggested that some students feel that they can’t confidently express their traditional, conservative or politically incorrect views to their English teachers, who are PC and left leaning. This was based on his experience as a tutor. It was infuriating to listen to, knowing how I’ve been shouted down by racist, homophobic students who think because there are more of them than me that they are right. He certainly stimulated responses, if not applause.

But the chair of the forum irritated me intensely, especially when the woman next to me mustered the courage to walk to the microphone to make a contribution and he made her stand there waiting while he told his own pompous little anecdote. And then I was trapped while the same chair received his life membership of VATE and I was forced to endure the accolades and his acceptance speech.

Just my opinion, of course. But VATE – and I know how much good tireless work this organization does – often seems to me like an exclusive little self-congratulatory Sunday afternoon club to which I’m certain I wouldn’t want to belong.

Next year, I expect I’ll return to the conference, but I’ll attempt to go for full immersion, instead of one day. If I survive the year 10s.

The art of the pathetic professional development presentation.

2007-04-23T18:45:00.000+10:00

First, pay your audience to attend.

Last week. First week of term two.

Principal: I’d really like you and Helen to attend this Literacy PD.

Me: I did get the email about that PD but I didn’t think it would be appropriate for me as I attended a Literacy Coordinators’ conference for five days not so long ago at great expense to the school.

Principal: But they really want people to attend this PD. Maybe they haven’t had many takers because they’re prepared to pay schools to cover the cost of emergency teachers.

Me: But that will mean I’ll miss teaching my year 12s. Ahh, I suppose they’ll cope. They’ve got plenty of work to do. But Helen doesn’t normally work on Mondays. It’s her day off.

Principal: Do you think she might go anyway?

Me: Well, knowing Helen (very dedicated; always goes above and beyond the call) she won’t mind. Perhaps you could pay her the CRT money for working on her day off.

Principal: No. (Laughs nervously.) Well, I’ll put you both down for it.

Me: (Thinks. Hmm. Probably won’t be too bad. Two days off campus followed by Anzac Day on the Wednesday. It’ll be like a holiday week with a bit of learning thrown in. Pollyanna. Fool.)

The PD

A literacy resource has been created for literacy leaders in both primary and secondary state schools. This has been compiled by some hard-working seconded teachers who work for the department of education. The resource is actually useful in that it provides theory and teaching strategies and it’s linked to the Victorian Essential Learning Standards. The department is evidently keen to get it out there into schools. One requires a bit of time to get one’s head around this multi-layered resource; bit of time to read the dense text and work out all the interfaces. The PD time-out could be used very effectively to allow teachers to wrap their minds around it with a bit of planned direction.

But no.

Find a presenter who thinks very highly of itself. (Let’s protect this person by giving it anonymity, after all, this is just about me venting.) Give your presenter free rein to be spontaneous; to have a vague notion of where the day might serendipitously head. Allow the presenter to waste time by talking itself up and advertising its own private enterprise.

Find a presenter who claims to be a master of its field and who spends time explaining how clever it is and how much longer than everyone else it’s been teaching. Allow the presenter to bring in silly hats, bells, whistles, squeezy noise-makers, rattles and wigs. The presenter encourages us to play with and wear these toys. Isn’t the presenter a wag? Isn’t it jolly? Isn’t it so hilariously funny? Aren’t we all so stimulated to learn by this puerile patronizing adult play?

Spend the first forty-five minutes of everyone’s precious time getting them to introduce themselves around the room. That’ll get our presenter half way to morning tea break. Keep reminding the group of the time line for the day, rather than actually teaching them anything.

Tell the group they’re going to do a ‘jigsaw’ activity to share their expertise around the group. But first ask if anyone’s unsure what a ‘jigsaw’ activity is. Everyone knows, according to the lack of raised hands. But go on. Explain what the activity comprises anyway. After all, that’ll take up more time.

Now, give your captive teachers a vague task. They are required to read some brief theory about a literacy guru then share it with others in this jigsaw activity. “Right, you’ve got ten minutes. Right, stop. Time’s up,” our presenter says before we’ve had time to digest the material. Off we go to our allocated tables to try to sound intelligent. Somehow, we manage.

During the morning, we are encouraged to write our responses to the session on post-it notes and stick these to the whiteboard. Our presenter wants lots of notes. After lunch, our presenter – “I’m being very brave”, it says. “I’m not going to go home and cry” – reads out the negative comments. One reads. “This is vague and directionless. I have learnt nothing that I can use back in my school. It’s a waste of time.”

So, we’re made to ‘workshop’ this, and other negative comments, in groups. We’re required to valiantly turn the negatives into positives. We’re amazingly tolerant and kind in our responses. “Now wasn’t that a good activity? You can do the same with your own classes when they’re being negative!”

The post-it note activity takes around forty minutes. What had our presenter planned to do had five people in the group not been brave enough to write some honest comments?

And while all this transpires, our presenter drifts around the tables in a variety of wigs and hats, stating the bleeding obvious and big-noting itself, completely oblivious to the negative body language in the room despite being a self-proclaimed and no doubt masters-degreed expert in neuro-linguistic programming.

And I’ve got another day of it tomorrow. I regaled my hapless pharmacist with the story when I popped in to get another packet of Codral Day and Night tabs after the day had ended. Ironically, I would have had to stay home sick today had I been required to teach. His suggestion for coping with the second day of the presentation? When you get there, take two of the night time tabs.

I’d prefer to set my Year 10s on our presenter. They wouldn’t spare our presenter’s feelings.

Cheating

2006-08-10T19:34:00.000+10:00

As a teacher of VCE English Units 3 and 4, I spend lots of time dealing with cheating in School Assessed Coursework. The fact that as teachers we can’t trust more than a few of our students really spoils the intent of the VCE English course.

In past years we allowed students to bring notes into Text Response and Craft of Writing SACs. To ensure consistency across classes, we specified that the notes had to be in the students’ own handwriting and that they were only allowed to bring in, say, two A4 pages. Of course, as specified in the Study Design the work had to be completed mostly in class and under teacher supervision. Seemed clear. Unfortunately, this allowed for cheating. Under such conditions, one student produced a film review vastly superior to anything that he had written, or that I believed he was capable of writing. Yet I’d supervised him, and the other students, closely during the SAC. He only had the permitted notes which I thought he’d produced largely under my supervision in a previous session.

At the next opportunity, I asked the boy to remain behind.

“Harry,” I said, “I don’t think this work is your own. You’re going to have to redo the SAC.” I can still see his open affronted mouth.

“I wrote that, I swear. You can ask anyone.”

“Look, Harry,” I said. “You’ve been getting a D average for the past two years. I know this isn’t your own work.”

“I swear to god it’s my work.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t accept it. I’m giving you the opportunity to repeat the task. You’re lucky to be given this opportunity. Many teachers would simply fail you.” I thought I was being extremely generous.

Just out of curiosity, I googled his work and, lo and behold, found the exact film review that he’d painstakingly hand-written on his two A4 sheets. He’d then evidently copied these a second time during the SAC.

Two days later, the principal summoned me. He questioned my supervision of SACs; demanded to know how I could have allowed this cheating to take place. You see, Harry had run home and told mum that his wicked teacher had accused her precious child of cheating. (By the way, how stupid was this kid??)

I explained exactly how Harry had managed to conceal his cheating and produced the article that the boy had plagiarised. Principal ordered me to ensure this never happened again. I must tighten up the procedure for SACs.

But mum was not mollified. Her hatred of me was put into writing for the record. How dare I suggest that her son wasn’t capable of producing A plus work? She trusted her son. Her son would never cheat. The teacher – me - was unprofessional and shouldn’t be allowed to teach let alone teach Year 12. And here’s the rub. Even after being shown the plagiarised documents she still didn’t believe that her son had cheated.

This incident prompted a review of our procedures for SACs. Students would no longer be permitted to use prepared notes during SACs.

Dictionaries would, however, still be permitted.

This year we’ve had a few incidences of students writing essays in their dictionaries. This happened in one of my classes. I was immediately suspicious when I noticed a student studying what appeared to be the Z section of his dictionary as soon as the SAC had begun.

In another teacher’s class, a student had meticulously typed an entire essay in about a 6 point font and had pasted it flawlessly throughout her dictionary.

Another of my students had his bag under his desk and for the duration of the SAC was taking surreptitious glances down at a page of prepared notes in his bag. I was very grateful to the student who dobbed him in because I had no idea, even though I was closely supervising. I just didn’t see him. He cheated so deftly and looked so innocent.

Another student, according to the posse that dobbed her in to the Year 12 coordinator, allegedly wrote parts of her essay on tiny scraps of paper concealed amongst the pencils in her pink pencil case. This one couldn’t be proved – the cleaner had emptied the bin where she’d allegedly disposed of the evidence - and the student had to be given the benefit of the doubt.

Now all bags and pencil cases must be placed at the back of the room before the SAC begins. Dictionaries must be surrendered to the supervising teacher at the start of the SAC. This hasn’t stopped kids writing essays on hands and arms. One desperate student had an intro on her palm and a topic sentence on each finger!

The craft of writing SAC is a joke. Our current practice – necessitated by the rifeness of cheating - is to ask students to produce a draft of each piece that they intend to complete in the SAC. Teachers comment on this first draft and make suggestions as to how it might be improved. Students must then reproduce this piece under exam conditions. Students with good memories can then vomit up what they’ve remembered. As if writers produce ‘finished’ pieces of writing in 90 minutes under such conditions.

We spend lots of time theorising about ‘Teaching and Learning’, and what is ‘powerful to learn’, thinking of all these wonderful ways to inspire learning. But this is the reality of the pressure of competition, disadvantaged desperate kids and the ENTER score.

What’s not working for me in teaching: meetings.

2006-08-06T15:07:00.000+10:00

School Council Meeting. I’m wedged between two largish people at a long table. The table groans under its weight: plates of party pies and sausage rolls, hard cheese, soft cheese, three types of dips, rice crackers, sandwiches, with various tempting fillings, cut into little triangles, plates of sliced carb rich fruit. Squeezed amongst the plates and cups and saucers and brightly coloured paper napkins are drifts of papers to which people will talk as the meeting proceeds. I’m starving but food at this time is prohibited for me because I have Type 1 Diabetes. (And no, I don’t want a plate of carb free food at this juncture. Perhaps I’ll blog on the joys of diabetes some other time.) Besides. My father’s disdain for church ‘bun fights’ rubbed off on me a long time before I was diagnosed with diabetes.

So I’m the only person at the meeting not slavering with glee at the repast spread before us. The abundant food adds to my torture. My nose is almost in a plate of food but there’s nowhere to which to remove it. (My nose or the plate.) The chairs around the table are remarkably upright and close. I can almost feel the ample flesh of two enormous upper arms – one on each side of me – not mine – especially as they reach delicately across me for party pies before tucking them into their pie-holes. (One grasping hand has fake red manicured finger-nails at the end of sausage fingers adorned with too much bling.) The person on my right has gappy protruding teeth and talks with food in her mouth. Pastry has flaked onto her left breast and down onto her enormous navy polyester clad thigh.

I shouldn’t be noticing these details, a hidden agenda, I should be focusing on proceedings. But if I do I will fall sideways, probably onto the cushiony arm of the person on my left. In fact, it’s an appealing thought. I’m unutterably tired and the meeting is so god-awful boring that I’m nearly sick with stifled yawning; my eyes, barely open, are blurred with exhausted tears.

I should just pack it in. But I’m an elected staff rep at the beginning of a second two year term. I feel I’ll be disappointing my constituents if I resign. Laugh out loud.

Earlier. Same day. Curriculum Committee Meeting. I loathe this one. Our Leader lacks emotional intelligence and a sense of humour. The members of committee must mind the eggshells. (I wonder what it’s like to have people walk around one on eggshells.) The meeting, as usual, is repetitive and unproductive. Intelligent people with great ideas repress them lest Our Leader take umbrage, roll her eyes, and sulk for the next three weeks. My two worlds almost collide when we are taught how to blog on this very site. (Big scary adrenalin rush, but my secret is still safe.) We are to have an on-line ‘conversation’ – “these professional conversations – spotto new buzz word - are the most important aspect of Teaching and Learning”. Not a bad idea, but woe betide anyone who upsets Our Leader on-line. I clench every muscle that will clench for the duration to avoid letting Our Leader have it.

At the previous meeting Our Leader sanctioned me for making some innocuous quip, which got a laugh from those who dared to. The minutes possibly recorded my loud “It was a joke! Fuck!” Very unprofessional, I admit. (Another committee member later suggested that, for the benefit of our dour Leader, we should hold up smiley faces on poles to indicate levity.) Anyway, for the rest of the meeting I recited the lyrics of American Pie in my head to calm myself. (By the way, this works very well. I recommend it.)

The meeting ends eighty minutes after it began.

I’m dying with fatigue and I’ve still got to get through School Council.

I should just pack Curriculum Committee in. So much stress is not good. But I enjoy other aspects of being English Coordinator. Curriculum Committee is simply penance for The Fraud.

Same day. Six on. Double Year 12, double Year 7, double Year 10.

And I haven’t even started on the oxymoronic Professional Learning Teams.

What’s working for me at school? My teaching revolution.

2006-07-22T14:45:00.000+10:00

I’ve been teaching for a lifetime now, and many things remain constant. Where I teach, students are still of mixed ability and, when they come to us in year 7, most can invariably write reams of poorly spelled text without using a full stop. Somehow, it is part of my role as a teacher of Year 7 English, to eliminate the run-on sentence. I’m wondering if when I die it won’t matter any more. Perhaps I should just roll with it; let the language regress to some unpunctuated past; get over myself. Students seem to communicate efficiently on MSN in their abbreviated codes. I’ve almost capitulated to ‘quote’ being used as a noun. It even appears thus in respected VCE English texts. Has the world ended? Am I an old fart for caring? Possibly not. After all, Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves has been a best seller.

Back to my teaching revolution. About three years ago, I made the tentative decision to bring technology into my senior English classes.

How did this happen? Initially, I’d decided to reduce the number of handouts I gave to all my years seven to twelve students. I didn’t think these printed notes were enhancing teaching and learning. (I wasn’t even thinking of the trees.) The handouts contained what I considered to be invaluable information, whatever it was, that I wanted students to absorb and use, and indeed some students did value these resources. However, just as many students tuned out during the lessons; failed to engage. Many handouts were surreptitiously folded into paper aeroplanes which flew a few times around the room or were jettisoned into the rubbish bin on the way out. Other handouts met their crumpled end amongst the detritus accumulated in the bottoms of school bags. Consequently, many students returned to the next lesson having lost the handout and thus needing a replacement. Somehow, the prepared, photocopied notes were ‘too much information’ for the average student. As long as I was preparing notes for my classes, most students weren’t actually thinking or writing much. I’m not talking about mindless copying of boards full of notes. I suppose I’m talking about note-making based on students’ contributions; writing down ideas; plans; vocabulary; definitions – material that can be remembered, revised and used in extended pieces of writing. I wanted to engage students more in contributing to discussions; force them to think. And it does bother me that students in Years 11 and 12, who at our school are required to hand-write their School Assessed Coursework essays under exam conditions, often struggle with the task, in some part due to their use of computer word processors.

So how did this lead to my teaching revolution?

For a few years now, I’ve taught two Year 12 English classes both of which require the same curriculum. And when other teachers are sharing your classroom, it’s a bit selfish to cover an entire whiteboard wall with terrific notes that you’d love to use with your other class and write PLEASE LEAVE! at the top. Every time I erasedthese notes it seemed like such a waste.

I toyed with the idea of using an interactive whiteboard. We do have one – yes one – in our school of 900 students. However, I felt this would lead to more photocopied notes and back to base one.

Instead, I decided to use a data projector – we have three of those! - and my lap top computer. This would have two advantages, I thought. I’d be able to re-use those wonderful student-discussion inspired notes and I’d be able to efficiently store my class materials and be rid of some of those arch files. However, I was unaware of how brilliantly the technology would work, once I got the hang of it.

After being ‘in-serviced’ by an IT support person, I trialled the set up with my Year 11s. The first lesson was hysterical. The students were mischievously delighted with the idea of me using the data projector. I couldn’t get the projection the right size on the whiteboard. I was fumbling, publicly and hilariously, as far as I could gauge from the laughter, with my toolbars, trying to enlarge the image. I’d foolishly used the Inspiration software thinking I’d be doing these brilliant Venn diagrams and concept maps – as I’d seen one of my colleagues do - while my students’ heads expanded with all the learning they were absorbing. Well, the students – a great bunch of people – didn’t learn much that lesson. But we had a few side-splitting laughs, so it wasn’t a total waste.

At this stage, I might have given up, but I didn’t. I kept practising. I decided instead to project a Word document onto the whiteboard. This worked very effectively once I got the font to the right size. Easily done.

There have been unexpected advantages. First, you know that when you turn to write on the whiteboard you lose a little – sometimes a lot – of your connection with your class. On many occasions when I turn to write on the whiteboard the class erupts into irrelevant talk. Or projectiles fly just outside one’s peripheral vision. “Hello?” I’ll say. “I’m still here; haven’t left the building. Back to work.” I turn back to the whiteboard and it starts again. Unless you’re one of those people who can face the class and write legibly on the board – and I’ve recently seen a brilliant presenter with this skill – or one of those teachers who terrifies students into submission – and happily I’m not one of those - like me, you probably get frustrated that your students disconnect when your back is turned and you have to waste a bit of your precious teaching time getting them back on track. Well, using your typing skills, your laptop and your data projector, this doesn’t happen!

And there’s more. I can sit down occasionally - hurrah - and direct class discussion more effectively. Somehow, it seems more civilised and much more educational. No more problems with the illegibility of my handwriting. Given I can touch-type quickly, my note making can keep pace with the discussion. If students are absent I can easily print, or email them notes from the lessons they’ve missed. It’s easier for students to keep track of discussion and to make notes; good for those visual learners. Furthermore, it helps me to keep track of my progress with a class, or a text I’m teaching.

With the addition of a couple of speakers, it’s great for film viewing too. Anything you can see on your screen can be projected onto a whiteboard.

Young techno-savvy teachers will not see this as revolutionary. However, I know that many of my colleagues - some not so old - are shy of technology. But I’ve proved that you only have to start using technology to develop your skills and become comfortable with the equipment and experience your own teaching revolution.

What’s the downside? Well, I teach in a battered portable classroom with no blinds. The sun blazing into my early morning classroom has me scurrying for the whiteboard marker. Another problem? There are only three data projectors in the school for which several teachers must compete. One has to book ahead and can be occasionally caught short when a teacher fails to return a projector to the resource centre after use. The inevitable five to ten minute round trip to the resource centre to collect the data projector is a pain when one is teaching a ‘full-on’ day. But, that’s life in an under-resourced state school. (And there was the time when my computer crashed, mid-lesson. School IT gurus to the rescue and my files were saved. Don’t forget to back up your files.)

I used to suffer from a condition that I called ‘whiteboard – formerly blackboard - arm syndrome’ – a chronic ache in my upper right arm. No more.

Dumpster ruminations

2005-12-02T22:26:00.000+11:00

It’s that fraught time of year. Reports. Deadlines. Desk cleaning. Dust. Desiccated old moths, the dried remains of old insects swept from the top shelf of my desk. Today, finally free of teaching duties for the year, I’ve successfully disposed of useless lessons and out-dated texts that I’ve been hoarding, some since 1999 when I began teaching at my school. Four long round trips in the rain to the dumpster to fling boxes full of crap. Despite my inclination to hoard, just in case, I rarely reuse materials from past years. Somehow, they lose something in translation from year to year. Success with one class doesn’t guarantee success in another, or in subsequent years.

I dislike working in teams writing VELS units with over zealous teachers. Why expend all that energy for what will inevitably, for me, be a one off?

In fact, I detest writing ‘units’ of work. I haven’t really done this since I was a student teacher. It was a requirement. Still have my leatherette book of handwritten lesson plans. I wrote units when I had the luxury of only being required to teach two lessons a day on teaching rounds. Once out there, teaching twenty-one forty-eight minute periods a week – Ah! The early ‘eighties! – I abandoned ‘the unit’. How else could I get through the shitloads of marking?

Would I become a better teacher if I began preparing units, filling in tables and ticking boxes? Recently, with other members of my faculty I’ve spent time working through the Essential Learning Standards and the Principles of Learning and Teaching and planning a Year 7 unit of work on the novel, “Parvana’s Journey”. I still haven’t completely written up the ‘unit’. Yes, it was beneficial to work with colleagues to talk about what we do and why we do it. And we had the luxury of a dedicated curriculum day to fill in the documentation; tick the VELS and PoLT boxes. But if I had to articulate a ‘unit’ in such detail for everything I teach I wouldn’t have survived in this profession. Don’t fancy tagging an extra ten hours onto my forty-five hour weeks for the sake of writing up ‘units’. I’m not sure of the point, for me. Considering what I’ve dumped into that blue bin today, it would be a waste of paper.

VELS and PoLT. Teachers making a difference. Supposedly, anyone can be a successful teacher if he or she thinks about ‘what is powerful to teach’. For more buzzwords, check out the Sofweb site. It all sounds so brainstorming pizzazzy. Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here watching the wheels turn round and round. Trying not to be cynical. Trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid writing fragments, rather than sentences.

News break. Fraud still stressed despite hols.

2005-09-21T05:20:00.000+10:00

First week of sure to be fleeting school holidays, but still can't stop thinking about school, particularly Year 12 English, and how my students will fare. It's also my second year running of being the parent of a Year 12 student, which adds considerably to the stress load. I'll be glad when the final exams are over and my kid - currently watching television and eating a late breakfast prior to hopefully doing some work - is off enjoying a well earned vacation. I've foregone my own trip up north this year to accommodate the exam schedule of my kid's school. It runs for the second half of week one of the hols and the first half of week two. The coordinators - well, those who have to supervise exams - at that school have my deepest sympathy. At my own school, we schedule practice exams for the first three days of term 4. Piles of marking under pressure on the first weekend back, but at least I'm spared working during the hols. (Marking on the weekend? What else is new?)
Chris Wheat's article in The Age about the proposed English Study Design made lots of sense. Perhaps because his views coincide with my own.
My kid's on MSN now she's finished brekkie.
Time to nag.

VCE English 2007 English Lite?

2005-09-15T12:22:00.000+10:00

I’ve been reading the debate in The Age about the proposed 2007 VCE English/ESL Study Design with much interest. Tony Thompson ("English Lite is a tragedy for students", The Age, 12th September, 2005) laments ‘dumbing down’ in the new Study Design. He also says he teaches in an ordinary suburban secondary college. I have a bit of insider knowledge here. Both my kids recently attended that ordinary college. I, too, teach in an ordinary suburban secondary college; a different one. Perhaps some colleges are more ordinary than others.
Thompson says “a few years ago, we pulled To Kill a Mockingbird from the year 10 reading list. The students have never stopped complaining and next year it is going back on.” Interesting. Personally, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird when I first read it in 1970. I’ve enjoyed teaching it over the years, too. The first time was back in 1979. The last time was in 2002. (Maybe if I’d applied the multimedia approach, as I did with Of Mice and Men, my year 10 kids might have enjoyed it more.) Unfortunately, many of them didn’t have the skills to read the text, so worthy classic or not, what’s the point if your kids can’t read it? (And there’s always the risk that the ‘well-meaning’ English teacher will read the whole thing aloud to the captive audience! One enterprising student carried a little pillow in his backpack so he at least knew he could sleep during this ‘well-meaning’ teacher’s English classes.)
We no longer booklist Mockingbird at our school. I’m unaware of any complaints from students or parents. No one has begged to return it to the booklist, not even the teachers. Nor do we force students to read Macbeth at Year 11. My focus is improving literacy. My aim is to booklist texts that most students are able to, and will want to read, even if they’re relatively ‘easy’ reads. (At year 10, we booklist Bernard Beckett’s Jolt. Worthy themes. Driving narrative. Most students and teachers love it.)
I don’t see the proposed English Study design as lacking intellectual rigour. If the course lacks rigour, that will probably be down to the people interpreting the course at school level. One can’t just rely on ‘doing’ a text each term, an issues SAC and the craft of writing then a bit of a run up to the exam with a few practice Writing Tasks and analytical text responses. One might have to be a bit more inventive. For me, the present Study Design has almost become a bit of a comfort zone. (I still remember all the freaking out that was happening when VCE was introduced in 1991. That was a fun year. The year of English as political football. I digress.)
Perhaps we should be encouraging those students more inclined to enjoy reading and analysing books to take English Lit Units 1 to 4.
I’m pleased the ‘old warhorse’ (Thompson's term) issues unit is still there. When I’m teaching issues, I tell my students that this is the most important part of the course. I accept that many of my students will never read another book after they leave school. (Of course I tell them they don’t know what they’re missing when they tell me they can’t understand how I could possibly enjoy reading.) But they will certainly be deluged by the media and they need to be able to recognise how easily they can be manipulated. (Outfoxed was a text we included in our Year 12 course this year. Worth watching.)
At present, we teach three VCAA listed texts at VCE, as do many schools. The other text is decided at school level. So, in 2007, we’ll teach two from the VCAA list, and no doubt, several others.
In my ordinary school, there’s no way I’d ever teach Hamlet at Year 12, even though I love it. It’s not about me.

Of Mice and Men goes multi-media

2005-09-08T16:58:00.000+10:00

Inspired at this year’s VATE conference by Sarah Boland, author of To Love Veronica Bee, I thought it was time to give the hoary old beast, Of Mice and Men, the multimedia treatment. I explained the concept to my Year 10s. (And by the way, for the past three years, most of these students have been passive recipients of entire novels being read aloud at them.) They were to read the entire text, then produce an ‘art form’ based on their reading. We had a bit of a discussion about what they could do and they actually seemed moderately aroused by the idea. Is it do-able? I asked, knowing little about getting students’ work on-line. Yes! beamed Girl In The Back Corner, normally resistant to anything. That was enough for me.
Thought I’d need to be very regimental about deadlines for this project, so I set the due date four weeks in advance. The students seemed okay with that. I intended to use the expertise in the classroom to overcome my shortfalls with technology. (You have to understand that I’ve never even held a video camera.) I devoted all class time for each of the four weeks to completing this project. To assuage my fear that they might not actually do anything during that time, I anchored them, and me, in their regular language development program, so they were submitting written work each week and getting their usual feedback.
The outcome? Seven weeks later, the project is still a work in progress. The positives? More students were engaged in what they were doing. The whole experience reminded me of my drama teaching days. Kids who work, get on with it; kids who bludge are even more conspicuously bludging.
We had some Japanese exchange students and their teachers visiting the school at the time. Very conservative people. (Our Japanese teacher, bit of a comic, warned me not to mention the war to one of the older men!) Anyway, these teachers wandered into my chaotic classroom. Students sitting on tables, hats on, swinging their legs; someone rolling on the floor in the corner; the Japanese exchange student seemed bemused at the freedom compared to his school back home. I asked him what it was like at his school. Another student translated my question and the boy keyed in what translated to ‘discipline’ and ‘regime’ on his little computer.
I explained the project to the visiting teachers, and despite the mayhem, I managed to throw in a couple of words like ‘multiple intelligences’, ‘ICT’, Middle Years Literacy, VELS – like they really cared! – and pretended, fraud that I am, that I was in full control of a planned, highly educational, literacy enhancing ‘unit’. Smiles set on their faces, they bowed out of my classroom. Wonder what they thought.
So what did my students do with Steinbeck?
Two groups decided to make films of scenes. Both groups wrote huge scripts; lines were rehearsed. The girls filmed Lennie and George doing the ‘ketchup’ scene. They dressed up and brought props. I was treated to the sight of this little group, sitting amongst the trees, one of them stabbing at the top of the can with a knife (!) and Lennie, improvising in a southern drawl saying “Why don’ you just use the ring-pull, George.” Pity their video camera wasn’t working properly. No sound. They had to do it all again.
The boys did the fight scene where Lennie crushes Curley’s hand. They didn’t bring along any props, but as they were filming in the sick bay, they took advantage of what was available. So Curley wore a surgical glove to keep his hand soft. This was a feature of the film. So was the mercy dash through the admin block and out to the canteen, with groaning Curley and his mashed hand on the sick bay stretcher. A couple of concerned teachers made spontaneous cameo appearances.
Both videos are in the process of being edited.
Three students decided they were going to write a children’s picture book based on the novel. These girls struggled to motivate themselves. Full of good intentions, but quite often off track with Dolly and gossip. Then they had a fight and one of their group, Girl In The Back Corner, decided to go it alone. What did she do? Presented a very nice looking book of character studies, but with very little evidence of actual engagement with the text. She copied the lot from a text book. No doubt developed her copying and typing skills. The other two approached me at the eleventh hour to show me their kids’ book. In one illustration, two cartoony hayseedy looking bumpkins are sitting under a couple of trees by a stream A blonde frilly floozy is talking to them. The accompanying text says: This is Candy, Curley’s wife. She’s going to give her money to George and Lennie so they can buy the farm they’ve always wanted.
- Have you actually read the book?
- Bits of it.
- Well, you didn’t read the bit about Candy being a bloke.
They panicked. One of them did an all-nighter and managed to produce a very effective cartoon strip, which the other one coloured in.
Another student dressed up as Crooks, the stable buck, and filmed a plausible dramatic monologue. Another devised a Power-point slide show based on a chapter of the text. Another did a collage.
A couple of boys worked laboriously on a animation using Flash. This was particularly good, because one of these boys hasn’t done any work, at all, this year. He proved to be a bit of an expert and taught the other boy how to actually work the program.
Three boys did very little, but they did hang around on the periphery of the other groups and occasionally read the parts of absent students or operated the video camera. I have to see this as a positive. They were more involved than they are when we are doing more conventional English.
I learned how to operate a video camera and how to design web pages. I also had lots of exercise charging around the school checking on the various groups.
Did the kids have fun? Definitely. What did you learn? I asked. You’ve got to read the book! they chorused. You’ve got to cooperate; work as a team; learn your lines; learn to use the computer programs for animation and editing; keep on task. In their evaluation, however, they conceded that it was really easy, and tempting, to bludge. This is problematic. And the whole thing looks very casual and I spent a lot of time wracked with guilt because students easily got off track. Hence the frantic running from place to place. I suppose the lesson is to stick to deadlines, make sure the equipment is available and functioning properly and be prepared to push and support those students who are inclined to relax.
And no one said This is shit. Why do we have to read this shit book?

Check out Sarah Boland’s website www.bumble.com.au It’s very inspiring.

VELS pd activity for teachers with ADHD

2005-09-06T18:50:00.000+10:00

The Fraud is at a meeting to discuss curriculum matters and the new Essential Learning Standards and how they will be implemented. Also present are department heads, level coordinators, the principal. It’s been a long day. It’s a long way from over. Around the long table eyes glaze over as more downloaded photocopies, in plastic envelopes this time, to give them increased importance, it seems, are distributed. The Fraud and her colleagues dutifully take them and put them in folders. And then we’re into an activity, the purpose is apparently to validate our current teaching practices; to model an activity which we’re to present to our own faculties. Write about a time when you really thought that you were teaching effectively. What were you doing? Why did it work? How many examples do you want? the Fraud asks. She scribbles down the required three examples. Next, we cut out our work. Our leader pastes our efforts onto coloured prism board. The Fraud is again amazed at how much pleasure some people gain from this cutting and pasting process. Kinaesthetic learners? The colourful display of our efforts is posted on the wall. Now we are given coloured sticky dots. We all must take four. We’re to stick our dots against the lessons with which we most identify; the best lessons. At this stage, Fraud has hit the four-thirty wall. It’s an age thing. Do I have to actually get up? she asks. Yes, says the leader. Fraud collects her dots and stands at the back of the group of her colleagues who are dutifully leaning in to read about others’ lessons. The LOTE teacher hits a few points with his Principles of Learning and Teaching knowledge. Gets a few dots. Fraud doesn’t get any. She’d like to think it’s down to her handwriting. The meeting concludes an hour and three quarters after it began. The Fraud ponders the purpose of the activity, which worked for some, on the way home. It failed to augment her understanding of VELS. Similar ‘hands-on’ activities have worked well in the past for the Fraud when she’s been teaching twenty-five year eight students, thirteen of whom have ‘diagnosed’ ADHD. Well, it worked for about ten minutes until the students worked out how much fun could be had by snipping the tops off the Blu-stiks and firing them at the ceiling, where they stuck. Some of them are still up there four years later.