Nearly finished week three of term one now. It's challenging, the start of the school year, isn't it?
If you're lucky you score a group of amenable students who know you and already approve. You just roll happily with it. This is me this year with my year 10s given all those teething battles were played out back in 2010. Our first session was an emotional reuion. Even teared up a bit seeing how they'd grown. They were all smiles and sheepish laughter as they automatically sat in their year 8 'seating plan'.
In a big school like mine - nearly 1200 students - you can easily go for a year without seeing any of your former students. It was great to see my year 10s and I look forward to watching them develop as the year progresses.
And then there's that other class; amongst the 25 students there are five fourteen year old boys giving me what for, yelling over me in a constant barrage of testosterone-fuelled insolence. These lads are IN MY FACE and DID YOU SEE THAT? SHE'S PICKEN ON ME! WHY ARE YOU PICKEN ON ME?? They're chesting up to me, anything to disrupt, to draw my attention, to grab an opportunity to assert themselves over me. My adrenal gland's been getting a bit of a workout. Have to remember to breathe; act angry before I'm really angry. Be patient, tolerant, understanding. This isn't about me, I'm just generic 'old female teacher' now.
Leap on those opportunities to praise, to build self-esteem like a seagull on a cliched chip. Oh so many complex personalities to fathom before it subsides. Well, usually.
My other year 9 class has been a gift; 25 bright, eager students who are open to possibility so why not try out some slam poetry? I attended a VATE conference session last year on slam poetry. (Thanks, Anthony Young @ProffPoet) I showed the students some examples of other students performing slam poetry - a YouTube search was helpful here. The students were a tad skeptical but they gave it a go. I gave them a list of possible topics - places such as the city, the beach, holidays and so on, and emotions that they could write about. As per Anthony's instructions I got them to work in groups as a strategy to help them to overcome their performance anxiety.
I used Anthony's formula for constructing their poem. Poems had to contain a metaphor, an anecdote, a repeated line, a really long line and a really short line. They brainstormed their ideas individually then collaborated with other group members. I darted around the class offering suggestions and encouragement, as you do when you're the alleged teacher.
The students, bless them, ran with it. Today they presented. It was wonderful and they knew it as they savoured the power of their own and each other's words.
If you haven't given slam poetry a try, it's worth doing. The kids loved it and so did I.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Padlet in Year 10 English
The plan. Utilise Padlet - the web tool formerly known as Wallwisher - to engage year 10 students in a meaningful discussion about youth justice. Basically, with Padlet, you can create a 'wall' upon which you can post things.
At the end of the lesson, the teacher and her students will have created a number of discussion 'walls'. Students will have participated in on-line discussions on the causes of, and possible solutions to, youth homelessness. They will have shared their own opinions, as well as considering, and responding to, a variety of views from their fellow students.
Prior to the lesson, I'd played around on Padlet so I'd be confident with the tool. In class, we'd also discussed various issues concerning youth justice and had just watched the harrowing Oasis documentary. I'd prepared a few questions to promote discussion. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen it, the Oasis documentary is essential viewing.)
As a background to all this, I've done some school based professional development using Padlet. This involved participating in an educational on-line discussion with my school colleagues. We pasted a particular URL into our browsers then responded to a question. The 'wall' quickly filled with thoughtful, earnest remarks. It was the first day of the new year and the principal who facilitated looked pleased with the outcome. I think he mentioned something about aiming to be a paperless school somewhere down the track.
You see, we're in the 'one to one' age now. Every student from years 9 to 12 has been given, gratis, courtesy of the federal government, a netbook computer. What's more, we've been urged to use these computers, especially since the school is expecting years 7 and 8 students to buy their own. We don't want the older students telling the younger ones that the computers aren't being used, do we? That wasn't a question. It was a directive from an AP. Parents Will Complain.
So what happened in my classes today?
First, I had to send several students back to their lockers to get their computers. The government may have funded these computers to make our students the smartest in the world - whatever - but that doesn't mean the kids are going to charge them up overnight, or even bring them to school. (It's a discipline thing and we're working on it.)
Second, I recapped our previous lesson about youth homelessness to remind students of the gravity of the issue.
I gave them the URL for our first 'wall' and made a couple of rules. No anonymous comments. No profanity.
As if. (My favourite phrase.)
The wall was instantly and hilariously covered in totally inappropriate, often misspelled, sexually explicit posts. Students quickly discovered that they could also take photos of themselves and other students and tag them.
In nano-seconds I had a wall plastered in posts that had the students in hysterics. The comments were posted faster than I could delete them - it was my wall so I had some editing control for all the good that did me.
I suppose at least they were all engaged in the activity.
Seriously, I'd like to know what really happens in other teachers' classes when they do these activities.You know, teachers who work, like me, in western suburbs state secondary schools. During the PD session, this activity was presented as a highly effective teaching and learning tool and of course I can see its potential. But if kids can write anonymous comments - and get away with it because it's impossible to monitor - how does this occur?
Will it get better if I persist, once the novelty wears off?
Help.
Seriously, comment below. I really want to know.
At the end of the lesson, the teacher and her students will have created a number of discussion 'walls'. Students will have participated in on-line discussions on the causes of, and possible solutions to, youth homelessness. They will have shared their own opinions, as well as considering, and responding to, a variety of views from their fellow students.
Prior to the lesson, I'd played around on Padlet so I'd be confident with the tool. In class, we'd also discussed various issues concerning youth justice and had just watched the harrowing Oasis documentary. I'd prepared a few questions to promote discussion. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen it, the Oasis documentary is essential viewing.)
As a background to all this, I've done some school based professional development using Padlet. This involved participating in an educational on-line discussion with my school colleagues. We pasted a particular URL into our browsers then responded to a question. The 'wall' quickly filled with thoughtful, earnest remarks. It was the first day of the new year and the principal who facilitated looked pleased with the outcome. I think he mentioned something about aiming to be a paperless school somewhere down the track.
You see, we're in the 'one to one' age now. Every student from years 9 to 12 has been given, gratis, courtesy of the federal government, a netbook computer. What's more, we've been urged to use these computers, especially since the school is expecting years 7 and 8 students to buy their own. We don't want the older students telling the younger ones that the computers aren't being used, do we? That wasn't a question. It was a directive from an AP. Parents Will Complain.
So what happened in my classes today?
First, I had to send several students back to their lockers to get their computers. The government may have funded these computers to make our students the smartest in the world - whatever - but that doesn't mean the kids are going to charge them up overnight, or even bring them to school. (It's a discipline thing and we're working on it.)
Second, I recapped our previous lesson about youth homelessness to remind students of the gravity of the issue.
I gave them the URL for our first 'wall' and made a couple of rules. No anonymous comments. No profanity.
As if. (My favourite phrase.)
The wall was instantly and hilariously covered in totally inappropriate, often misspelled, sexually explicit posts. Students quickly discovered that they could also take photos of themselves and other students and tag them.
In nano-seconds I had a wall plastered in posts that had the students in hysterics. The comments were posted faster than I could delete them - it was my wall so I had some editing control for all the good that did me.
I suppose at least they were all engaged in the activity.
Seriously, I'd like to know what really happens in other teachers' classes when they do these activities.You know, teachers who work, like me, in western suburbs state secondary schools. During the PD session, this activity was presented as a highly effective teaching and learning tool and of course I can see its potential. But if kids can write anonymous comments - and get away with it because it's impossible to monitor - how does this occur?
Will it get better if I persist, once the novelty wears off?
Help.
Seriously, comment below. I really want to know.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Back to high school.
Attended a high school centenary yesterday. Probably wouldn't have bothered except a friend reminded me it was happening and another friend came along with me.
Didn't give it much thought before we turned into the car park where we were lucky to find a space. You see, this event was packed. The school 'playing fields' had even been converted to parking space for the day and they were chockers with cars.
However, I felt really odd, crossing the side street and walking through to the quadrangle, past the staff room. Appeared as though nothing had changed since I'd left there nearly 30 years ago.
I spent the first six years of my teaching career at that school. Those six years went on for a very long time, much longer than the 14 years I've been at my current school. The years flash by a bit these days. My dad used to say that when he was around the age I am now, but in my twenties I had no concept. I was still waiting for the big things to happen: travel, marriage, mortgage, children. In that order.
I encountered a former student almost immediately. An older man: fifty-something? Shaved presumably bald head, portly, acting more confident with me than he should have been. 'I'm going to kiss you,' he said, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me close. I got an unwanted wet one to the corner of my mouth. I generally avoid random kissing.
He invited me to 'stroll' over to the registration table; offered me his elbow. I hooked my arm through his for about ten seconds. 'Sorry,' I said, letting go. 'This feels really uncomfortable. I wouldn't even do this with my husband.' I didn't like the feel of this guy's arm under his shirt sleeve.
I didn't see him again after that. He was in my first ever form five English class. I was 22, in my second year of teaching. Interesting that I could remember him and the quality of his English. Now, I can barely remember the names of kids I taught last year.
I saw a few familiar faces, all former teaching colleagues. Mostly, I was incredulous that all these people were so delighted to be there. Masses of them milling around, greeting very old friends. Lots of white hair and quite a few walking frames. They'd all made the effort to go back to their old school with its almost unaltered central quad.
I had my moments back there, made a few life-long friends, learned heaps, had some great memories. But somehow, my experiences left a slightly bitter aftertaste. I think of clashes with a couple of colleagues: people being really unprofessional; some awful behaviour. And of course, i think of my own immaturity back when I knew everything, as many of us do back in our twenties. I was glad to leave that version of myself behind in that place. As if.
I heard bits of a couple of speeches yesterday - the sound system swallowed the rest as I strained to hear beneath those quadrangle eaves. Two former students, one In his 70s, one in her 40s, spoke so fondly of their own six years in the place. Around me, former students and teachers tittered and nodded at remembered characters and anecdotes. The woman who spoke was overwhelmed by emotion. It really got to me.
People's school days are really precious. That's a statement of the bleeding obvious. But yesterday was a bit like a church gathering; worship.
Despite having spent my professional life, since 1978, in secondary schools, I really hadn't thought of schools like that before.
I did make my own pilgrimage to my primary school back in Sheffield, UK, a couple of years ago, but that was about emigration, memory and being severed from my childhood when I was eight.
School, for me, and perhaps for most teachers, hasn't been something intense in my formative years. It has been my life. The continuum. Suppose that's why I was so incredulous that those six years of high school had been so precious to so many people who did the pilgrimage yesterday.
Thanks to the organisers.
Didn't give it much thought before we turned into the car park where we were lucky to find a space. You see, this event was packed. The school 'playing fields' had even been converted to parking space for the day and they were chockers with cars.
However, I felt really odd, crossing the side street and walking through to the quadrangle, past the staff room. Appeared as though nothing had changed since I'd left there nearly 30 years ago.
I spent the first six years of my teaching career at that school. Those six years went on for a very long time, much longer than the 14 years I've been at my current school. The years flash by a bit these days. My dad used to say that when he was around the age I am now, but in my twenties I had no concept. I was still waiting for the big things to happen: travel, marriage, mortgage, children. In that order.
I encountered a former student almost immediately. An older man: fifty-something? Shaved presumably bald head, portly, acting more confident with me than he should have been. 'I'm going to kiss you,' he said, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me close. I got an unwanted wet one to the corner of my mouth. I generally avoid random kissing.
He invited me to 'stroll' over to the registration table; offered me his elbow. I hooked my arm through his for about ten seconds. 'Sorry,' I said, letting go. 'This feels really uncomfortable. I wouldn't even do this with my husband.' I didn't like the feel of this guy's arm under his shirt sleeve.
I didn't see him again after that. He was in my first ever form five English class. I was 22, in my second year of teaching. Interesting that I could remember him and the quality of his English. Now, I can barely remember the names of kids I taught last year.
I saw a few familiar faces, all former teaching colleagues. Mostly, I was incredulous that all these people were so delighted to be there. Masses of them milling around, greeting very old friends. Lots of white hair and quite a few walking frames. They'd all made the effort to go back to their old school with its almost unaltered central quad.
I had my moments back there, made a few life-long friends, learned heaps, had some great memories. But somehow, my experiences left a slightly bitter aftertaste. I think of clashes with a couple of colleagues: people being really unprofessional; some awful behaviour. And of course, i think of my own immaturity back when I knew everything, as many of us do back in our twenties. I was glad to leave that version of myself behind in that place. As if.
I heard bits of a couple of speeches yesterday - the sound system swallowed the rest as I strained to hear beneath those quadrangle eaves. Two former students, one In his 70s, one in her 40s, spoke so fondly of their own six years in the place. Around me, former students and teachers tittered and nodded at remembered characters and anecdotes. The woman who spoke was overwhelmed by emotion. It really got to me.
People's school days are really precious. That's a statement of the bleeding obvious. But yesterday was a bit like a church gathering; worship.
Despite having spent my professional life, since 1978, in secondary schools, I really hadn't thought of schools like that before.
I did make my own pilgrimage to my primary school back in Sheffield, UK, a couple of years ago, but that was about emigration, memory and being severed from my childhood when I was eight.
School, for me, and perhaps for most teachers, hasn't been something intense in my formative years. It has been my life. The continuum. Suppose that's why I was so incredulous that those six years of high school had been so precious to so many people who did the pilgrimage yesterday.
Thanks to the organisers.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
"The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas." Why I love reading. And teaching.
Friday, home time. I'd held a couple of Year 10 students back after English. I was giving my annual plagiarism lecture, which usually occurs at about this time of year.
"Look," I pointed to my laptop screen. The girl was standing next to me, arms crossed defiantly. "You'll have to admit that it's quite strange that your essay is identical to this one."
"I swear I didn't read it," she persisted in the face of contrary evidence.
Her friend, packing up her books, was listening in. "I copied an essay from the internet when I was in year 7," she said, matter-of-factly. "I was really embarrassed when I got caught." Had a bit of a laugh at the memory.
The boy was all outraged innocence too when I showed him how easily I'd Googled a few words from his essay, enclosed in inverted commas, and found what he was passing off as his work
I wasn't particularly angry. Plagiarism happens even more regularly in these 'one to one' days - every kid has a computer and internet access - and it's easy to spot. It's good for students to find out early that this is cheating. It avoids more serious consequences in the future.
They left, ruefully promising to repeat the work.
Meanwhile, Chris was waiting to see me. He's a quiet, intelligent student.
"You said you wanted to read this, miss." He placed a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on my desk.
I taught Chris for a couple of semesters in years 7 and 8. He was one of the more talented students in my now defunct Creative Writing class. A couple of days earlier he'd asked for help with his 'wide reading' essay. He was working on the topic "A worthwhile text makes you view the world a little differently". This is one of five generic topics that my Year 10s must respond to. I'm trying to teach them to write well structured introductions including at least three general points that they'll develop in the bodies of their essays.
I hadn't read Chris' novel but knew vaguely that it was about the Holocaust. I took a stab at an answer. Suggested he could write about those awful perennial themes, survival, racism, inhumanity, good versus evil. He seemed satisfied with this and set about writing his essay. I'd also asked if I could borrow his book, given several students had expressed an interest in reading it.
Well, Chris, your old teacher started reading your book on Friday evening and was easily engaged, as one is by an apparently simple driving narrative. I finished it this morning and I have to say it's made me see the world a little differently.
The simple narrative cleverly belies the wisdom and strength of this story. It is the story of 9 year old Bruno, whose quite self-satisfied life is somewhat spoiled when he, his small family and their servants are transported to 'OutWith' as he pronounces the unfamiliar Polish word Auschwitz. However, at Auschwitz he is on the protected side of the fence, his father being the camp commandant. Bruno's naive remarks on his life in what becomes his new home are profoundly ironic.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has given me another poignant indelible impression of the horror, injustice and cruelty of the Holocaust. I highly recommend that you read it. (Having done a bit of Googling myself, I'm thinking I'm perhaps the only English teacher around who hasn't read it.)
Chris, thanks for putting up with my plagiarism lecture, cos you were subjected to it too on Friday arvo. I'm really moved that you remembered I'd said I'd like to read your book. You've reminded me why I love both reading and teaching. (And you know how I said you might really appreciate Markus Zusak's The Book Thief? I'm sure you would.)
"Look," I pointed to my laptop screen. The girl was standing next to me, arms crossed defiantly. "You'll have to admit that it's quite strange that your essay is identical to this one."
"I swear I didn't read it," she persisted in the face of contrary evidence.
Her friend, packing up her books, was listening in. "I copied an essay from the internet when I was in year 7," she said, matter-of-factly. "I was really embarrassed when I got caught." Had a bit of a laugh at the memory.
The boy was all outraged innocence too when I showed him how easily I'd Googled a few words from his essay, enclosed in inverted commas, and found what he was passing off as his work
I wasn't particularly angry. Plagiarism happens even more regularly in these 'one to one' days - every kid has a computer and internet access - and it's easy to spot. It's good for students to find out early that this is cheating. It avoids more serious consequences in the future.
They left, ruefully promising to repeat the work.
Meanwhile, Chris was waiting to see me. He's a quiet, intelligent student.
"You said you wanted to read this, miss." He placed a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on my desk.
I taught Chris for a couple of semesters in years 7 and 8. He was one of the more talented students in my now defunct Creative Writing class. A couple of days earlier he'd asked for help with his 'wide reading' essay. He was working on the topic "A worthwhile text makes you view the world a little differently". This is one of five generic topics that my Year 10s must respond to. I'm trying to teach them to write well structured introductions including at least three general points that they'll develop in the bodies of their essays.
I hadn't read Chris' novel but knew vaguely that it was about the Holocaust. I took a stab at an answer. Suggested he could write about those awful perennial themes, survival, racism, inhumanity, good versus evil. He seemed satisfied with this and set about writing his essay. I'd also asked if I could borrow his book, given several students had expressed an interest in reading it.
Well, Chris, your old teacher started reading your book on Friday evening and was easily engaged, as one is by an apparently simple driving narrative. I finished it this morning and I have to say it's made me see the world a little differently.
The simple narrative cleverly belies the wisdom and strength of this story. It is the story of 9 year old Bruno, whose quite self-satisfied life is somewhat spoiled when he, his small family and their servants are transported to 'OutWith' as he pronounces the unfamiliar Polish word Auschwitz. However, at Auschwitz he is on the protected side of the fence, his father being the camp commandant. Bruno's naive remarks on his life in what becomes his new home are profoundly ironic.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has given me another poignant indelible impression of the horror, injustice and cruelty of the Holocaust. I highly recommend that you read it. (Having done a bit of Googling myself, I'm thinking I'm perhaps the only English teacher around who hasn't read it.)
Chris, thanks for putting up with my plagiarism lecture, cos you were subjected to it too on Friday arvo. I'm really moved that you remembered I'd said I'd like to read your book. You've reminded me why I love both reading and teaching. (And you know how I said you might really appreciate Markus Zusak's The Book Thief? I'm sure you would.)
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Walking target: an apple for the teacher
All teaching staff have been issued with fluoro vests. These must be worn when one is on yard duty. I've already written about yard duty/aka fruit watch. Well, I'm on duty in the same area this year
'Prin Class', as it likes to be known, has added to our pleasure by increasing our visibility whilst we're on patrol. Suppose this helps the friend of the kid who's having an anaphylactic reaction to find me in a crowd.
Teachers do compulsory anaphylaxis training annually. A good thing. As a parent, I'd want to know that teachers knew first aid in this event. I'm not knocking it.
But as a teacher on duty, I'm highly visible anyway, given I'm in my mid-fifties - albeit with dyed hair. Perhaps I could be mistaken for a dumpy, jowly girl with a dowager's hump? Oh, hang on. I'm not wearing a school uniform. I'm possibly going to be visible as I amble around the yard with my tongs and beatific smile. As I've previously written, kids easily find me when they want someone to hide behind when another kid's chasing them.
Yesterday I experienced my second real assault, in 32 years of teaching. I'm naming the beast. It was an assault. I may be mistaken, but I think my fluoro vest turned me into a target. As I walked through my little slice of the danger zone I was pelted, at close range and with considerable force, by a 'projectile'. I'm reluctant to say it was a piece of fruit cos it sounds so freaking benign and ridiculous.
That apple for the teacher really hurt, so much so that tears sprouted on impact. I turned to see who'd thrown it but just faced a row of hefty 'innocent' year 10 boys, none of whom I teach. Had I known them, it wouldn't have happened.
I was unable to take any retributive action against the culprit, who simply had the delight of seeing he'd hit his target and that his target was really angry and hurt. What a hero.
I went in search of a fluoro vested colleague. Lucky he was wearing it cos I'd never have identified him by the business attire, tongs - de rigueur for prin class on duty - and sun glinting off his bald pate.
He bawled out all the kids in the area, but basically they got away with it. Trouble is, you can't identify your assailant (and issue a 5 day suspension) when it hits you from behind. And of course, none of the kids saw anything.
I felt like packing in teaching. Had I driven to school, instead of cycling, I would have taken the rest of the day off. I was shaky and profoundly hurt by the incident. In my time I've stepped between warring boys and grabbed them by the shirt-fronts, narrowly avoiding being clouted in the process. But that's not about me. I don't think yesterday's incident was particularly about me either. I was just 'generic teacher'.
My assault yesterday was about disrespect. Made it really hard for me to teach my year 9s and 10s for the next two lessons. But I'm okay now. I got to document it on Edusafe, so everything's all right, isn't it? I've got my day off to get over it.
'Prin Class', as it likes to be known, has added to our pleasure by increasing our visibility whilst we're on patrol. Suppose this helps the friend of the kid who's having an anaphylactic reaction to find me in a crowd.
Teachers do compulsory anaphylaxis training annually. A good thing. As a parent, I'd want to know that teachers knew first aid in this event. I'm not knocking it.
But as a teacher on duty, I'm highly visible anyway, given I'm in my mid-fifties - albeit with dyed hair. Perhaps I could be mistaken for a dumpy, jowly girl with a dowager's hump? Oh, hang on. I'm not wearing a school uniform. I'm possibly going to be visible as I amble around the yard with my tongs and beatific smile. As I've previously written, kids easily find me when they want someone to hide behind when another kid's chasing them.
Yesterday I experienced my second real assault, in 32 years of teaching. I'm naming the beast. It was an assault. I may be mistaken, but I think my fluoro vest turned me into a target. As I walked through my little slice of the danger zone I was pelted, at close range and with considerable force, by a 'projectile'. I'm reluctant to say it was a piece of fruit cos it sounds so freaking benign and ridiculous.
That apple for the teacher really hurt, so much so that tears sprouted on impact. I turned to see who'd thrown it but just faced a row of hefty 'innocent' year 10 boys, none of whom I teach. Had I known them, it wouldn't have happened.
I was unable to take any retributive action against the culprit, who simply had the delight of seeing he'd hit his target and that his target was really angry and hurt. What a hero.
I went in search of a fluoro vested colleague. Lucky he was wearing it cos I'd never have identified him by the business attire, tongs - de rigueur for prin class on duty - and sun glinting off his bald pate.
He bawled out all the kids in the area, but basically they got away with it. Trouble is, you can't identify your assailant (and issue a 5 day suspension) when it hits you from behind. And of course, none of the kids saw anything.
I felt like packing in teaching. Had I driven to school, instead of cycling, I would have taken the rest of the day off. I was shaky and profoundly hurt by the incident. In my time I've stepped between warring boys and grabbed them by the shirt-fronts, narrowly avoiding being clouted in the process. But that's not about me. I don't think yesterday's incident was particularly about me either. I was just 'generic teacher'.
My assault yesterday was about disrespect. Made it really hard for me to teach my year 9s and 10s for the next two lessons. But I'm okay now. I got to document it on Edusafe, so everything's all right, isn't it? I've got my day off to get over it.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Help! I can't teach but I've been practising for 32 years.
I read lots of inspiring educational blogs. I find them through Twitter, or other people's blogs. I also read lots of educational articles. All these wonderful things are happening in these other educators' classes. It both inspires and overwhelms me. I began my day reading the wonderful things that are happening in Rich Lambert's school. I was put to shame before I'd even had my breakfast.
I must confess that no one really learned anything in the past 75 minute period I spent with my Year 9s. I know that for a couple of reasons:
1. My feeling of despair as I charged around the room, vainly trying to keep abreast of what 19 kids were variously doing on their brand new free government issue netbooks.
2. I asked them at the end of the lesson. 'Put your hand up,' I demanded, 'if you've learned anything this period.' Shrugs. General uninterest. Resumption of various conversations that I'd briefly interrupted with my stupid question. One boy did say he'd learned how to create a Google account. Suppose that's something.
The teacher's aide - I have 3 integration kids in the mix - shuffled past me to get out the door early but the kids weren't going anywhere.
With about a minute til the bell, I asked students, as I do, to put their chairs up and stand behind their seats. I was blocking the doorway and shooing kids back to their places, because some try to barge past me and make a run for it.
Seeing that all the chairs are up, the desks are straightened and the rubbish generated by a class full of 14 year olds is in the bin, I release them. No one learned anything, but at least they left the classroom tidy.
The lack of learning resulted from a number of things:
1. New computers. I'm hoping the novelty will wear off, that we'll get a couple of decent routines happening and that I'll be able to teach the class.
2. It's a new year and the class dynamic hasn't found its level yet.
Another big problem for me this year is the texts that have been booklisted. Won't mention company names here, but a 'package' of texts, complete with hard copy dictionaries and thesauruses, was on the booklist. It seems to me that no one closely investigated these texts, back when booklist decisions were made. (That's a bother, isn't it?) The books include their own unique codes so kids can join an internet site and access the entire book and a couple of lame games on line. And of course, the texts are related to AusVELS.
You know what though? I'm not sure that my particular kids, who've reached age 14 with no real exposure to grammar, are going to see any benefit from being able to identify phrasal verbs, gerunds and the future perfect continuous tense. My throat closes over just thinking about it.
I must confess that no one really learned anything in the past 75 minute period I spent with my Year 9s. I know that for a couple of reasons:
1. My feeling of despair as I charged around the room, vainly trying to keep abreast of what 19 kids were variously doing on their brand new free government issue netbooks.
2. I asked them at the end of the lesson. 'Put your hand up,' I demanded, 'if you've learned anything this period.' Shrugs. General uninterest. Resumption of various conversations that I'd briefly interrupted with my stupid question. One boy did say he'd learned how to create a Google account. Suppose that's something.
The teacher's aide - I have 3 integration kids in the mix - shuffled past me to get out the door early but the kids weren't going anywhere.
With about a minute til the bell, I asked students, as I do, to put their chairs up and stand behind their seats. I was blocking the doorway and shooing kids back to their places, because some try to barge past me and make a run for it.
Seeing that all the chairs are up, the desks are straightened and the rubbish generated by a class full of 14 year olds is in the bin, I release them. No one learned anything, but at least they left the classroom tidy.
The lack of learning resulted from a number of things:
1. New computers. I'm hoping the novelty will wear off, that we'll get a couple of decent routines happening and that I'll be able to teach the class.
2. It's a new year and the class dynamic hasn't found its level yet.
Another big problem for me this year is the texts that have been booklisted. Won't mention company names here, but a 'package' of texts, complete with hard copy dictionaries and thesauruses, was on the booklist. It seems to me that no one closely investigated these texts, back when booklist decisions were made. (That's a bother, isn't it?) The books include their own unique codes so kids can join an internet site and access the entire book and a couple of lame games on line. And of course, the texts are related to AusVELS.
You know what though? I'm not sure that my particular kids, who've reached age 14 with no real exposure to grammar, are going to see any benefit from being able to identify phrasal verbs, gerunds and the future perfect continuous tense. My throat closes over just thinking about it.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Shakespeare's sonnets with middle school students
Experienced a little frisson this morning as I was preparing for my year 8 poetry lessons. Shakespeare telepathically communicated with me from somewhere circa 1590. He was talking to me.
In my youth I wasn't a big fan of Shakespeare. I enjoyed Macbeth in Form 5, taught by a great teacher. At fifteen, I also liked the idea that I was studying Shakespeare. But more or less left to my own devices in Form 6, through a special combination of my own ignorance, immaturity and an uninspiring first year out teacher, Othello was pretty much lost on me. I'm better now, you may be glad to hear, given I've been teaching English for over 30 years.
My copy of Shakespeare's sonnets is a Signet Classic. In 1975 I covered it in some recycled plastic. The plastic has a red RCA records logo on it. I'd saved it from some throw out pile when I was a sales assistant at John Clements Records in the city. Melbourne, that is. Loved that holiday job. Was actually sad to leave when I finished my degree and had to start teaching. (Sorry, can't remain focused and don't really care. Just saying.)
The pages of my Signet Classic are 'maiden' - see paragraph 2 - and yellowing with time. There's an irony there, if you're familiar with Shakespeare's sonnets. That tyrant Time, 'Devouring Time', has been at my little book, and the rest of me.
I've been 'doing' some poetry with my year 8s. I always like to begin this work, as you do, by getting the students to write out the lyrics of a song they like that they can remember, or look up on their phones. This really appeals to most of them, despite my 'no profanity' clause. (Have to explain what profanity is, but that's okay. Vocab development.) I tell them they can choose anything, even a nursery rhyme - sad how many kids don't know what they are (and these same kids watch Underbelly and other unsuitable stuff on their own in their rooms). I tell them they can even choose the theme from a television show.
To demonstrate I sang the theme from Gilligan's Island - a ballad? They loved that, and how surprised they were to hear me singing, quite tunefully and going the full soprano on the last line. Have to say it took some courage to sing the whole song, complete with swaying motions when the weather started getting rough.
The kids didn't mock me. They clearly enjoyed the show and understood the task. I told them they could sing their lyrics if they felt confident.
They also listened respectfully when I recited Vanessa Amorosi's Shine, especially given I'd told them that her original refrain had been 'Everyone you see, everyone you know is going to die'. Considered too dark, apparently, hence the change to something quite different, if perhaps less striking. Or so I've heard.
So the students wrote their song lyrics and recited or sang their lines in front of the whole class. Quite confronting for them. A few students opted out but most had a go. My theme was that words have power. Even a pair of students reciting Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star created a certain mood and presence when they took turns to say each word. They added value to the words and the student audience could tell.
One boy with a lovely voice sang Bruno Mars' Grenade. The audience was moved by his rendition and easily able to appreciate the power of the imagery in the words. I was able to segue into a talk about the pain of unrequited love; how so many songs - so much poetry - is about these human emotions.
Which led me to dig out my old Signet Classic and read a few sonnets; wonder whether I could possibly read these arcane verses with my year 8s, many of whom are below their expected VELS level in reading and writing.
I photocopied sonnets 16 to 19 on one A4 page for the students and searched for some translations on-line. Too easy. It was sonnet 18 that worked its magic on me. I had shivers and tears sprouted, because there was Shakespeare's adoration for his love, and his love alive in his words, just as he said it would be. Shakespeare writing it back there in 1590 something, and me thrilling to it in 2012. Felt amazing.
And what's more, my year 8s, who've never heard any Shakespeare before and often struggle with the simplest text, were moved by the words and the experience. They listened respectfully to my very brief history of Shakespeare's times and enjoyed the sound of the words in the sonnets.
Once more Shakespeare was immortalising his love down through time.
It worked.
In my youth I wasn't a big fan of Shakespeare. I enjoyed Macbeth in Form 5, taught by a great teacher. At fifteen, I also liked the idea that I was studying Shakespeare. But more or less left to my own devices in Form 6, through a special combination of my own ignorance, immaturity and an uninspiring first year out teacher, Othello was pretty much lost on me. I'm better now, you may be glad to hear, given I've been teaching English for over 30 years.
My copy of Shakespeare's sonnets is a Signet Classic. In 1975 I covered it in some recycled plastic. The plastic has a red RCA records logo on it. I'd saved it from some throw out pile when I was a sales assistant at John Clements Records in the city. Melbourne, that is. Loved that holiday job. Was actually sad to leave when I finished my degree and had to start teaching. (Sorry, can't remain focused and don't really care. Just saying.)
The pages of my Signet Classic are 'maiden' - see paragraph 2 - and yellowing with time. There's an irony there, if you're familiar with Shakespeare's sonnets. That tyrant Time, 'Devouring Time', has been at my little book, and the rest of me.
I've been 'doing' some poetry with my year 8s. I always like to begin this work, as you do, by getting the students to write out the lyrics of a song they like that they can remember, or look up on their phones. This really appeals to most of them, despite my 'no profanity' clause. (Have to explain what profanity is, but that's okay. Vocab development.) I tell them they can choose anything, even a nursery rhyme - sad how many kids don't know what they are (and these same kids watch Underbelly and other unsuitable stuff on their own in their rooms). I tell them they can even choose the theme from a television show.
To demonstrate I sang the theme from Gilligan's Island - a ballad? They loved that, and how surprised they were to hear me singing, quite tunefully and going the full soprano on the last line. Have to say it took some courage to sing the whole song, complete with swaying motions when the weather started getting rough.
The kids didn't mock me. They clearly enjoyed the show and understood the task. I told them they could sing their lyrics if they felt confident.
They also listened respectfully when I recited Vanessa Amorosi's Shine, especially given I'd told them that her original refrain had been 'Everyone you see, everyone you know is going to die'. Considered too dark, apparently, hence the change to something quite different, if perhaps less striking. Or so I've heard.
So the students wrote their song lyrics and recited or sang their lines in front of the whole class. Quite confronting for them. A few students opted out but most had a go. My theme was that words have power. Even a pair of students reciting Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star created a certain mood and presence when they took turns to say each word. They added value to the words and the student audience could tell.
One boy with a lovely voice sang Bruno Mars' Grenade. The audience was moved by his rendition and easily able to appreciate the power of the imagery in the words. I was able to segue into a talk about the pain of unrequited love; how so many songs - so much poetry - is about these human emotions.
Which led me to dig out my old Signet Classic and read a few sonnets; wonder whether I could possibly read these arcane verses with my year 8s, many of whom are below their expected VELS level in reading and writing.
I photocopied sonnets 16 to 19 on one A4 page for the students and searched for some translations on-line. Too easy. It was sonnet 18 that worked its magic on me. I had shivers and tears sprouted, because there was Shakespeare's adoration for his love, and his love alive in his words, just as he said it would be. Shakespeare writing it back there in 1590 something, and me thrilling to it in 2012. Felt amazing.
And what's more, my year 8s, who've never heard any Shakespeare before and often struggle with the simplest text, were moved by the words and the experience. They listened respectfully to my very brief history of Shakespeare's times and enjoyed the sound of the words in the sonnets.
Once more Shakespeare was immortalising his love down through time.
It worked.
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Fruit watch. Another side of secondary teaching.
Best to keep on the move on yard duty, twenty-five minutes of which I endure each week. (Full-time teachers get more.) Even better to grab some barbecue tongs and a bucket and pick up kids' rubbish. The time goes more quickly, the yard gets cleaned up and I can avoid engaging too closely with some of the bestial behaviour one is sure to encounter on one's tour.
But on this particular Friday, fate had other plans for me.
Morning briefing.
"Teachers on yard duty in Zone A need to be particularly vigilant. Especially at recess. We've had some serious fruit throwing incidents." That's the principal speaking. He does a spoonerism on fruit-throwing and laughs at his tongue trip. It is hard to say fruit-throwing fast.
Guess who's on yard duty in Zone A at recess.
I'm to plant myself amongst the picnic tables and watch for rogue Year 10 fruit throwers. Great. Standing still on yard duty invites confrontation with randoms: kids who don't know me and don't care that I Am A Respected Former VCE English Guru and Coordinator. Kids will generally utilise me as they see fit.
On good days, especially when the sun's shining, some kids will bail me up for the simple pleasure of a catch up. I love that.
Other days, I can be a prop in whatever boisterous game they're playing.
"Miss! Miss! Did you see what he did?" they cry as they climb up each other. I'm also 'barley'; the safety zone. If a kid's chasing you, run behind 'Miss'; dodge behind her, grab her by her hips and whip her around, your human shield preventing your assailant from catching you. That's me. Buffer zone. No matter that buffer zone is a 56 year old woman.
That's all good; part of what I signed on for back in 1974 when I accepted my studentship and guarantee of three years work in one of our state secondary schools. Thirty-two years later...
But on this particular TGIF, I am stuck guarding Zone A, at recess. I'm eating an apple. Several teachers scurry by on their way to the refuge of the staff room. "Now don't throw that apple core!" They all say words to that effect; wagging fingers. Hilarious.
I'm already attracting student attention. A couple of big boys gawp at me and laugh. I resist flipping them the bird.
My problem? I can't ignore all the blatant littering going on around me when there are three big green bins in the immediate area.
Girls are generally more discreet than boys. Girls gather in groups on the very expensive and quite aesthetically pleasing fake lawn. (Seriously, this stuff works.)
They cross their ankles and lower themselves effortlessly to the ground as thirteen year old girls are wont to do. Some hands are thrust deep into those little multipack snack bags. They blithely drop empty bags by their sides and let the breeze have them. Or they stand simultaneously and walk away, leaving a circle of tetra packs, orange peel, half eaten apples and sandwiches.
"Girls! Pop your rubbish in the bin, thanks!" I have to shout over school yard noise but my tone is polite.
"That's not ours. It was there when we got here." They're all stunned by my rude accusation. "Is she serious?? Oh my god!! Get a life!!"
"Put it in the bin! Now!"
They sullenly comply, casting me filthy looks, muttering.
How dare I demand that they put their own rubbish in the bin? Clearly I'm deranged and a Big Bitch to boot.
If I have somehow communicated that this school yard interaction is benign, it's not. You have to really stand your ground. Doesn't affect everyone like this, but my little heart will be thudding in my chest. It's a battle of wills. Yes, I know. I could just ignore it, and often I do. But yesterday I was stuck there.
That was when a portly boy strolled down the steps. He threw the lid of his icecream cup vaguely towards the bin. Suppose I should have just given him credit for trying and picked it up myself. But I didn't.
"You missed," I say. Well, he's had eye contact with the hapless teacher on fruit watch. What could I do? "Go back and put it in the bin."
He keeps swaggering towards his group of mates, all the time, eye-balling me.
I step towards him to block his path. "You can either pick up your own rubbish, or you can clean up this whole area."
Reluctantly he backs up. leans down and hurls the lid into bin, snarling at me now. He stomps to his group who've been watching the show, which unfortunately must go on. He scoops a huge spoonful of icecream and plops it onto the fake lawn.
"Clean it up."
"No." He's huge; towers over me. The crowd closes around me and Mr Plop, who continues to defy me.
My hackles rise as I'm taunted by twelve year olds, none of whom I can put a name to. My arms are out now, clearing a space around me. I order them off.
"Coordinator's office. Now." Mr Plop stands his ground. I reach behind him and steer him in the appropriate direction.
"Get your hands off me!" this gruff giant threatens.
"Yeah, what are you going to do?"
Without further physical contact I barrel the kid along the gauntlet of year 7s who part in front of him, with his melting strawberry swirl in one hand and his plastic spoon in the other.
He sits outside the coordinator's office and I feel ridiculous explaining the situation to the twenty-something male coordinator - who's in his second year of teaching, BTW, but, you know, he's the Year 7 coordinator; he has power - and a shitload of work that he's welcome to.
Mr Plop, true to form, denies any transgression.
"So you're calling me a liar?" I demand.
"Yes," he sneers.
"Leave it with me," says my young champion.
I trail off back to fruit watch, dragging my dignity behind me. Definitely didn't win that one.
Bet Mr Plop is in my class next year.
First world problems.
But on this particular Friday, fate had other plans for me.
Morning briefing.
"Teachers on yard duty in Zone A need to be particularly vigilant. Especially at recess. We've had some serious fruit throwing incidents." That's the principal speaking. He does a spoonerism on fruit-throwing and laughs at his tongue trip. It is hard to say fruit-throwing fast.
Guess who's on yard duty in Zone A at recess.
I'm to plant myself amongst the picnic tables and watch for rogue Year 10 fruit throwers. Great. Standing still on yard duty invites confrontation with randoms: kids who don't know me and don't care that I Am A Respected Former VCE English Guru and Coordinator. Kids will generally utilise me as they see fit.
On good days, especially when the sun's shining, some kids will bail me up for the simple pleasure of a catch up. I love that.
Other days, I can be a prop in whatever boisterous game they're playing.
"Miss! Miss! Did you see what he did?" they cry as they climb up each other. I'm also 'barley'; the safety zone. If a kid's chasing you, run behind 'Miss'; dodge behind her, grab her by her hips and whip her around, your human shield preventing your assailant from catching you. That's me. Buffer zone. No matter that buffer zone is a 56 year old woman.
That's all good; part of what I signed on for back in 1974 when I accepted my studentship and guarantee of three years work in one of our state secondary schools. Thirty-two years later...
But on this particular TGIF, I am stuck guarding Zone A, at recess. I'm eating an apple. Several teachers scurry by on their way to the refuge of the staff room. "Now don't throw that apple core!" They all say words to that effect; wagging fingers. Hilarious.
I'm already attracting student attention. A couple of big boys gawp at me and laugh. I resist flipping them the bird.
My problem? I can't ignore all the blatant littering going on around me when there are three big green bins in the immediate area.
Girls are generally more discreet than boys. Girls gather in groups on the very expensive and quite aesthetically pleasing fake lawn. (Seriously, this stuff works.)
They cross their ankles and lower themselves effortlessly to the ground as thirteen year old girls are wont to do. Some hands are thrust deep into those little multipack snack bags. They blithely drop empty bags by their sides and let the breeze have them. Or they stand simultaneously and walk away, leaving a circle of tetra packs, orange peel, half eaten apples and sandwiches.
"Girls! Pop your rubbish in the bin, thanks!" I have to shout over school yard noise but my tone is polite.
"That's not ours. It was there when we got here." They're all stunned by my rude accusation. "Is she serious?? Oh my god!! Get a life!!"
"Put it in the bin! Now!"
They sullenly comply, casting me filthy looks, muttering.
How dare I demand that they put their own rubbish in the bin? Clearly I'm deranged and a Big Bitch to boot.
If I have somehow communicated that this school yard interaction is benign, it's not. You have to really stand your ground. Doesn't affect everyone like this, but my little heart will be thudding in my chest. It's a battle of wills. Yes, I know. I could just ignore it, and often I do. But yesterday I was stuck there.
That was when a portly boy strolled down the steps. He threw the lid of his icecream cup vaguely towards the bin. Suppose I should have just given him credit for trying and picked it up myself. But I didn't.
"You missed," I say. Well, he's had eye contact with the hapless teacher on fruit watch. What could I do? "Go back and put it in the bin."
He keeps swaggering towards his group of mates, all the time, eye-balling me.
I step towards him to block his path. "You can either pick up your own rubbish, or you can clean up this whole area."
Reluctantly he backs up. leans down and hurls the lid into bin, snarling at me now. He stomps to his group who've been watching the show, which unfortunately must go on. He scoops a huge spoonful of icecream and plops it onto the fake lawn.
"Clean it up."
"No." He's huge; towers over me. The crowd closes around me and Mr Plop, who continues to defy me.
My hackles rise as I'm taunted by twelve year olds, none of whom I can put a name to. My arms are out now, clearing a space around me. I order them off.
"Coordinator's office. Now." Mr Plop stands his ground. I reach behind him and steer him in the appropriate direction.
"Get your hands off me!" this gruff giant threatens.
"Yeah, what are you going to do?"
Without further physical contact I barrel the kid along the gauntlet of year 7s who part in front of him, with his melting strawberry swirl in one hand and his plastic spoon in the other.
He sits outside the coordinator's office and I feel ridiculous explaining the situation to the twenty-something male coordinator - who's in his second year of teaching, BTW, but, you know, he's the Year 7 coordinator; he has power - and a shitload of work that he's welcome to.
Mr Plop, true to form, denies any transgression.
"So you're calling me a liar?" I demand.
"Yes," he sneers.
"Leave it with me," says my young champion.
I trail off back to fruit watch, dragging my dignity behind me. Definitely didn't win that one.
Bet Mr Plop is in my class next year.
First world problems.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
PD workshop worked; Edmodo, Wallwisher and Changing the Paradigms
Even though the business of education is teaching kids, I find it a relief when they aren't actually in the school.
Not that I don't generally enjoy teaching. It's just that one never knows how much stress - ie. shit - one is likely to incur in each 75 minute period. So Thursday, the day before a pupil free day, felt like a Friday, and Friday, Curriculum Day, felt like a gift; a junket.
First mid-year curriculum day we've had for a while, like most Victorian state schools. For the last four years, under a different state government, the curriculum days had all been bunched up at the start of the school year. I've found that arrangement wanting. Lots of time wasting for various reasons. And I'm quite cynical too, in case you hadn't noticed. Most of the PD offerings at school have seemed to me to be 'under-graduate' and I'm too long in the tooth for that. There have been exceptions, of course.
BTW, I hadn't heard of the brilliant Sir Ken Robinson. It was worth going to school yesterday for that pleasure alone.
Not that I don't generally enjoy teaching. It's just that one never knows how much stress - ie. shit - one is likely to incur in each 75 minute period. So Thursday, the day before a pupil free day, felt like a Friday, and Friday, Curriculum Day, felt like a gift; a junket.
First mid-year curriculum day we've had for a while, like most Victorian state schools. For the last four years, under a different state government, the curriculum days had all been bunched up at the start of the school year. I've found that arrangement wanting. Lots of time wasting for various reasons. And I'm quite cynical too, in case you hadn't noticed. Most of the PD offerings at school have seemed to me to be 'under-graduate' and I'm too long in the tooth for that. There have been exceptions, of course.
Today's focus was ICT. Given all our year 9s and 10s have been issued with notebook computers, this was timely. As I've said, I'm keen to use the computers with my year 10s more effectively, even if it does mean assessing student work on-line.
The day began inauspiciously when 80 plus of us crammed into the learning centre. The principal had made a powerpoint. The screen was so low as to prevent all bar those in its immediate vicinity from being able to see it. I struggle with my eyesight at the best of times so that first half hour was literally a blur with me twisting, squinting and craning to see between the heads and shoulders of my colleagues. Something about how we're no longer preparing students for one life-long career; things have changed. To be honest, I don't remember much other than writing a note to my mate asking her if she thought I'd had my hair cut too short. I did notice a student teacher opposite earnestly taking notes with a fountain pen. Or perhaps she's already learned my trick of 'journaling' whilst feigning interest in the proceedings. Just keep that brow furrowed, nod occasionally and incline your head in the direction of the speaker.
Next hour for me was a KLA - Key Learning Area, ie. Faculty - meeting. More of the same, but not too bad now I'm not the coordinator. Time to 'booklist' texts for next year. Same old discussion. Basically, the sixteen or so members of the English KLA have divergent tastes for various reasons. What some want to teach others want to drop and vice versa. I no longer care. I can 'teach' anything unlike some of my colleagues who fear setting a new text that may not have a prepared assignment. Sheesh.
During the next part of the program we'd elected to attend one of three ICT sessions. Unfortunately, before we could get started we all had to herd into the learning centre again for a useless ten minutes of the curriculum coordinator needlessly providing a summary of the contents of all three workshops. Why? Why not just send us our separate ways so we can get on with it? Power trip?
Next hour for me was a KLA - Key Learning Area, ie. Faculty - meeting. More of the same, but not too bad now I'm not the coordinator. Time to 'booklist' texts for next year. Same old discussion. Basically, the sixteen or so members of the English KLA have divergent tastes for various reasons. What some want to teach others want to drop and vice versa. I no longer care. I can 'teach' anything unlike some of my colleagues who fear setting a new text that may not have a prepared assignment. Sheesh.
During the next part of the program we'd elected to attend one of three ICT sessions. Unfortunately, before we could get started we all had to herd into the learning centre again for a useless ten minutes of the curriculum coordinator needlessly providing a summary of the contents of all three workshops. Why? Why not just send us our separate ways so we can get on with it? Power trip?
Happily, after this my day picked up. My workshop was led by three male science teachers, two of whom don't ordinarily lead. That was refreshing; different. One is my vintage and one of my friends on staff. So good to see someone who's seen it all, with 30 years of teaching experience, rolling creatively with the changes. The second speaker is probably in his forties but is still a 'beginning' teacher. (I could be doing this guy a disservice. I'm estimating his age based on his bald head and a five o' clock shadow that developed into a full beard during a two hour session. Yes, I know. Irrelevant, but nonetheless remarkable.) The third presenter is probably around 30 with perhaps four years teaching under his belt.
Basically, the three of them prompted in me a storm of emotions and ideas concerning the way I teach. I felt variously like an absolute beginner, an anachronism, borderline redundant and, happily, capable of changing and improving the way I teach some of my students. (Not all.)
They began their session with a short film, Changing the Paradigms. (Perhaps you've seen this RSA Animate film already. Perhaps I'm the only teacher in Australia that hasn't seen it. Highly recommended.) It made a lot of sense. Based on a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson, it's one of those powerful, assertive pieces that seduces the viewer with its matter-of-fact confident tone. We didn't discuss the assertions in the film; it wasn't that sort of a workshop. But it's something I wouldn't mind doing in the future.
One thing posited in the film was the alleged 'epidemic' of ADHD and the consequential anaesthetising, with Ritalin and the like, of so many kids. Robinson suggested, I think, a link between the hyper-stimulation of the 21st century and the phenomenon of ADHD. Not so sure. Those hyper-active easily distracted disruptive boys - usually - were certainly around, unmedicated, when I began teaching in the late 1970s. I also remember how savagely they were beaten back in primary school in the 1960s, subduing all but the most extreme by my high school days in the late 60s and early 70s. Those boys continued to get 'the cuts' regularly, administered by the principal, who strode around our western suburbs school in his academic gown. Think it's more a case of some parents these days needing to 'pathologise' their kids' unorthodox behaviour and having the means to do so, given the willingness of medicos to prescribe Ritalin etc. (I say this knowing my own son would have been beaten to a pulp by those strap and cane wielding school masters of my youth had he been born a generation earlier.)
The point? This film made me think about things, rather than sitting cynically feeling my time was being wasted, and it led appropriately into learning about what seem to be potentially more effective ways of teaching my year 10s.
I'd chosen this particular workshop because it was about using Edmodo, an educational Facebook of sorts. But I also learned about Wallwisher, a web program that could enhance the way note-making occurs during discussions with year 10s.
Love it when I learn something new, but I especially love it when presenters recognise that we're all teachers already and they take it to the next level. All three presenters spoke efficiently - I could learn something there! They didn't jaw on for the love of the sounds of their own voices; no time wasting. They showed us the programs and got started. It was easy to access the on-line tutorials and videos they'd prepared to explore the media. Meanwhile, they modelled effective teaching by roving and assisting as required.
It was very good, so much so that I, and many of my colleagues, turned up early after lunch for the second part of the workshop so we could get on with it.
Now to develop a bit of expertise and put it all into practice. That just might help my year 10s. My year 8s? Na-ah. That's a whole nother blog.
BTW, I hadn't heard of the brilliant Sir Ken Robinson. It was worth going to school yesterday for that pleasure alone.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Fahrenheit 451? Welcome to my year 10 English class.
Ray Bradbury's imagined future is happening now, in 2012, in my school, and more especially in my Year 10 classroom. Last week, Guy Montag and his crew of firemen would have had to burn just four paperback copies of Bradbury's book. Irony.
Recently, every Victorian student in years 9 and 10 was issued with a small notebook computer. They all had their computers in class that morning, but do you think they could manage to bring the set text, Fahrenheit 451? Why did I even expect they would?
I had repeatedly reminded them to bring the text, all to no avail. Just about every kid in the class has got a mobile phone. Many of them have new iPhones. Most have the white headphones, plugged into at least one ear under a wadge of hair, or swinging around their necks. But many of them still haven't acquired, so they say, this book-listed text.
If I want to chat to them about The Shire, or Masterchef or their mums reading about sex in Fifty Shades of Grey, I'm on. But trying to get them to engage with something that uses figurative language - huh? - or complex ideas? Apologies to the writer of Fifty Shades if he/she uses figurative language. Don't know. Haven't read it. I'm currently getting my gratuitous sex courtesy of Boardwalk Empire. (BTW, the teacher's aide was keeping quite a poker face as she read Fifty Shades during Year 8 sustained silent reading recently.)
Re those free issue computers: Good that I'm getting lots of typed essays handed in - takes me twice as long to assess on line so I'm not going there again. Bad that plagiarism's on the increase. You have to be really limited to hand in something brilliant and not think the teacher is going to do a Google search. Tip to sad plagiarist students: at least put it into your own words. You never know, you might learn something.
And another thing. Students who've never done any work before are now eagerly flipping open their computers and concentrating furiously and quietly while I try to teach them the finer points of using language to persuade. Must be making tons of notes; all those intense, furrowed brows. As if. They're checking their uploaded weekend photos or browsing pictures of 'muscle cars' on line. And the rest.
So, taxpayers' hard-earned money at work. Well, at least in my class.
Yes, I know, I know. Computers are here to stay and I certainly love my gadgets and social media. These kids were born into this world and I'm an immigrant.
The task is for me to get the kids to use their computers to do some complex learning. I'm working on it.
Suggestions gratefully received.
Recently, every Victorian student in years 9 and 10 was issued with a small notebook computer. They all had their computers in class that morning, but do you think they could manage to bring the set text, Fahrenheit 451? Why did I even expect they would?
I had repeatedly reminded them to bring the text, all to no avail. Just about every kid in the class has got a mobile phone. Many of them have new iPhones. Most have the white headphones, plugged into at least one ear under a wadge of hair, or swinging around their necks. But many of them still haven't acquired, so they say, this book-listed text.
If I want to chat to them about The Shire, or Masterchef or their mums reading about sex in Fifty Shades of Grey, I'm on. But trying to get them to engage with something that uses figurative language - huh? - or complex ideas? Apologies to the writer of Fifty Shades if he/she uses figurative language. Don't know. Haven't read it. I'm currently getting my gratuitous sex courtesy of Boardwalk Empire. (BTW, the teacher's aide was keeping quite a poker face as she read Fifty Shades during Year 8 sustained silent reading recently.)
Re those free issue computers: Good that I'm getting lots of typed essays handed in - takes me twice as long to assess on line so I'm not going there again. Bad that plagiarism's on the increase. You have to be really limited to hand in something brilliant and not think the teacher is going to do a Google search. Tip to sad plagiarist students: at least put it into your own words. You never know, you might learn something.
And another thing. Students who've never done any work before are now eagerly flipping open their computers and concentrating furiously and quietly while I try to teach them the finer points of using language to persuade. Must be making tons of notes; all those intense, furrowed brows. As if. They're checking their uploaded weekend photos or browsing pictures of 'muscle cars' on line. And the rest.
So, taxpayers' hard-earned money at work. Well, at least in my class.
Yes, I know, I know. Computers are here to stay and I certainly love my gadgets and social media. These kids were born into this world and I'm an immigrant.
The task is for me to get the kids to use their computers to do some complex learning. I'm working on it.
Suggestions gratefully received.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Ab Circle Pro Obsession
Here's proof that I really am strange. Read about my OCD and my Ab Circle Pro experimentation at Fraudster's Musings
Happy holidays to all those teachers out there who have just started their two week break. Commiserations to those who haven't.
I'm celebrating no longer teaching VCE Year 12 English. First term holiday and NO marking. Hurrah!
Cheers.
Happy holidays to all those teachers out there who have just started their two week break. Commiserations to those who haven't.
I'm celebrating no longer teaching VCE Year 12 English. First term holiday and NO marking. Hurrah!
Cheers.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Me, Evernote and parent-teacher interviews
Note: ditched Evernote some time in 2016. They changed the conditions of use. Non-premium users were limited to use on two devices only, if memory serves, and the price for a premium subscription went up. Was good while it lasted. Changed to OneNote. It's free.
Yesterday was part one of the biannual torture: parent-teacher interviews. I've blogged about this before. Let's just say it was a four paracetamol gig; a variation on a theme that won't end until I leave secondary English teaching. Just need to remember: it's not about me.
What was different was my use of the Evernote app on my iPhone 3 - a tad slow, but functional all the same. (I've just paid off my iPhone and I don't feel inclined to upgrade it just because the newer model is available. Could be tempted by an iPad though.)
Heaps of tech-savvy teachers are already using the Evernote app. You can read about it in some detail on Richard Lambert's blog.
But as a new user, my experience is thus:
Having decided to give the Evernote app a try, I photographed at least one piece of all my students' written work. This added thirty seconds per piece of work to assessment time. Yes, in my anally retentive way, I counted out the seconds.
You can get Evernote as a free app for your phone or iPad. However, half way through my piles of marking I exceeded my monthly data upload allowance. I bought the premium upgrade for $46.99 for a year. Suppose it's cheap if you use it.
All the students' work is stored alphabetically on my iPhone and on the web, so I can access it anywhere. It's easier to view the students' work on a computer monitor than on the iPhone, of course. So without any other records, apart from the VELS grade in my chronicle, I can see at a glance the quality of each student's work, including their typical errors. I also photographed my final comments.
Unfortunately, I couldn't use my laptop during the interviews because I was sitting in the centre of the indoor basketball court. My laptop battery is on the wane and only lasts for 90 minutes. But I could use my iPhone.
At the first round of parent-teacher interviews there's always the concern that one won't be able to provide accurate assessments for parents - given it's week eight of the school year and secondary teachers on a full load teach perhaps 125 students.
I teach 75 kids this year. Yesterday, during seven hours, I saw the parent/s of 45 of them. Mostly, I was able to recall student details accurately. However, for a number of students, or when parents wanted more specific information, it was Evernote to the rescue. Had to do a bit of 'finger-spreading' on the screen to enlarge the relevant pieces of work sufficiently to see them, but it worked. Think several parents were impressed with my efforts too.
So thanks Evernote. And thanks Richard Lambert on Twitter for giving me the idea. I expect my Evernote records will be invaluable come report writing time.
Meanwhile, I'm preparing myself to get ticked off tomorrow by the principal for playing on my iPhone during parent-teacher interviews.
Yesterday was part one of the biannual torture: parent-teacher interviews. I've blogged about this before. Let's just say it was a four paracetamol gig; a variation on a theme that won't end until I leave secondary English teaching. Just need to remember: it's not about me.
What was different was my use of the Evernote app on my iPhone 3 - a tad slow, but functional all the same. (I've just paid off my iPhone and I don't feel inclined to upgrade it just because the newer model is available. Could be tempted by an iPad though.)
Heaps of tech-savvy teachers are already using the Evernote app. You can read about it in some detail on Richard Lambert's blog.
But as a new user, my experience is thus:
Having decided to give the Evernote app a try, I photographed at least one piece of all my students' written work. This added thirty seconds per piece of work to assessment time. Yes, in my anally retentive way, I counted out the seconds.
You can get Evernote as a free app for your phone or iPad. However, half way through my piles of marking I exceeded my monthly data upload allowance. I bought the premium upgrade for $46.99 for a year. Suppose it's cheap if you use it.
All the students' work is stored alphabetically on my iPhone and on the web, so I can access it anywhere. It's easier to view the students' work on a computer monitor than on the iPhone, of course. So without any other records, apart from the VELS grade in my chronicle, I can see at a glance the quality of each student's work, including their typical errors. I also photographed my final comments.
Unfortunately, I couldn't use my laptop during the interviews because I was sitting in the centre of the indoor basketball court. My laptop battery is on the wane and only lasts for 90 minutes. But I could use my iPhone.
At the first round of parent-teacher interviews there's always the concern that one won't be able to provide accurate assessments for parents - given it's week eight of the school year and secondary teachers on a full load teach perhaps 125 students.
I teach 75 kids this year. Yesterday, during seven hours, I saw the parent/s of 45 of them. Mostly, I was able to recall student details accurately. However, for a number of students, or when parents wanted more specific information, it was Evernote to the rescue. Had to do a bit of 'finger-spreading' on the screen to enlarge the relevant pieces of work sufficiently to see them, but it worked. Think several parents were impressed with my efforts too.
So thanks Evernote. And thanks Richard Lambert on Twitter for giving me the idea. I expect my Evernote records will be invaluable come report writing time.
Meanwhile, I'm preparing myself to get ticked off tomorrow by the principal for playing on my iPhone during parent-teacher interviews.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Day off.
Day off today. Besides weekends, I have two other days off a week. I'm off work more than I'm on. A good life.
As on every day off, weekends included, I wake up in the morning, full of big ideas of what to do with this brilliant pool of time ahead of me. Start writing a novel - cos the last one was such a big success - not. Write a blog. Maybe. Do a twenty k bike ride. Too windy. Such are my thoughts.
Could have rolled on my back all day in bed, reading. Currently, I'm reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help. If I was going to read anything all day, that would be it. Great book set in Mississippi in 1962, so far, written from the perspectives of a couple of 'colored' maids working for rich white families. Apparently there's a film too. I'll get around to that eventually, I suppose.
But the truth is I can only read all day when I'm away from home on a holiday. If I'm here, there are jobs to do, even though there are only me and my husband living here full time. My son's in and out. Tidying around the kitchen - ten minutes, max. Make bed - three minutes. Washing: four minutes sorting and loading then Asko takes over. Ten minutes hanging it out; five to bring it in; ten to fold and put away. Gives the day a bit of structure. Don't know why I felt I had to prune the agapanthus today, but there you go.
Could have spent a few units of time blogging about my feral year eights, but it's the same old. The fourteen year old kid daubing ink all over the desk, chair and the kid next to him yesterday was a newie, but I'm hoping if I don't detail it, it will recede into my vacuous head. In that group, it's all about four domineering boys and one domineering girl. Me standing up the front trying to teach and these five kids keeping me too busy to do it effectively. Still, it's a breeze compared to all that prep, marking and stress incurred teaching Year 12s for the past thirty years. Middle school classes are busy at the time, but I've done no homework so far this year, apart from endlessly analysing it all and planning how to do things differently tomorrow to make a success of it.
Got a bit panicky trying to get onto the sodding Ultranet - the DEECT website - at about ten this morning. Couldn't log on. Tried the virtual help-desk and went around in circles. Did a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on emails to colleagues for advice. Nothing was useful. Finally decided to start again by re-registering. Got into the system to discover that not only am I already registered - derr - but I'm a 'designated administrator'. Well, really, ROFL. Couldn't do anything on that page so logged out and started from scratch. Logged in successfully this time, using exactly the same user ID and password that had failed several times earlier. But you know what? I had no idea what to do once I got onto the Ultranet. And clicking around left me no wiser.
It was about 11 am by this stage and the possibilities of my day off were drying up and my anxiety levels were rising.
Seemed like a good idea to ride that bike. But only a few k. And how did the wind manage to turn around while I was in the supermarket so that I was cycling into it on the way home as well?
So what's my point? Too much time on my hands. And loving it.
As on every day off, weekends included, I wake up in the morning, full of big ideas of what to do with this brilliant pool of time ahead of me. Start writing a novel - cos the last one was such a big success - not. Write a blog. Maybe. Do a twenty k bike ride. Too windy. Such are my thoughts.
Could have rolled on my back all day in bed, reading. Currently, I'm reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help. If I was going to read anything all day, that would be it. Great book set in Mississippi in 1962, so far, written from the perspectives of a couple of 'colored' maids working for rich white families. Apparently there's a film too. I'll get around to that eventually, I suppose.
But the truth is I can only read all day when I'm away from home on a holiday. If I'm here, there are jobs to do, even though there are only me and my husband living here full time. My son's in and out. Tidying around the kitchen - ten minutes, max. Make bed - three minutes. Washing: four minutes sorting and loading then Asko takes over. Ten minutes hanging it out; five to bring it in; ten to fold and put away. Gives the day a bit of structure. Don't know why I felt I had to prune the agapanthus today, but there you go.
Could have spent a few units of time blogging about my feral year eights, but it's the same old. The fourteen year old kid daubing ink all over the desk, chair and the kid next to him yesterday was a newie, but I'm hoping if I don't detail it, it will recede into my vacuous head. In that group, it's all about four domineering boys and one domineering girl. Me standing up the front trying to teach and these five kids keeping me too busy to do it effectively. Still, it's a breeze compared to all that prep, marking and stress incurred teaching Year 12s for the past thirty years. Middle school classes are busy at the time, but I've done no homework so far this year, apart from endlessly analysing it all and planning how to do things differently tomorrow to make a success of it.
Got a bit panicky trying to get onto the sodding Ultranet - the DEECT website - at about ten this morning. Couldn't log on. Tried the virtual help-desk and went around in circles. Did a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on emails to colleagues for advice. Nothing was useful. Finally decided to start again by re-registering. Got into the system to discover that not only am I already registered - derr - but I'm a 'designated administrator'. Well, really, ROFL. Couldn't do anything on that page so logged out and started from scratch. Logged in successfully this time, using exactly the same user ID and password that had failed several times earlier. But you know what? I had no idea what to do once I got onto the Ultranet. And clicking around left me no wiser.
It was about 11 am by this stage and the possibilities of my day off were drying up and my anxiety levels were rising.
Seemed like a good idea to ride that bike. But only a few k. And how did the wind manage to turn around while I was in the supermarket so that I was cycling into it on the way home as well?
So what's my point? Too much time on my hands. And loving it.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Stranded in Saigon
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.
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.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Last gasp pre Christmas
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
A Glut of Junior Students
Making a big production number of it, I walk to the
whiteboard. Detention, I write on the top right hand corner. The ruckus continues. Raising my eyebrows in mock surprise at the
foolishness 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 to
stop 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 a
raspberry’. Raucous laughter. I wait.
I return to the whiteboard with my marker. 2 mins, I write under Detention. To no effect.
‘I will keep
certain people in at recess for fifteen minutes,’ I pronounce.
Brief silence. Then
dramatic nose-covering. Girls have
pulled the fronts of their dresses over their noses and mouths. Boys roar with laughter; fall off their
chairs.
‘P-PHWAWWW!’ Don’t
know how to spell that sound people make when they’re exaggerating how they
feel because someone’s farted.
And someone had. It
was snaking its tendrils right out to me at the front. Hard to quell that sort of disruption when
you don’t know any of the students.
Giving up on settling the class, I turn to write the absent teacher’s
instructions on the board. Some girls
start mocking my name. Can’t tell
who. Try not to emotionally engage with
them. If I follow my ‘discipline plan’, I’ll
cope. Five minutes later I evict a
belligerent girl who’s screaming at me. Fifteen
attempts at the ‘broken record’ technique – acknowledge the kid’s grievance
then repeat assertive statement – failed to achieve anything. Clearly, she hadn’t read the book
For the next sixty minutes, the first fifteen having been
wasted, I pace the room, assisting here and there – it’s a science lesson on light
- and putting out ‘spot fires’. I have a
heightened sense of anxiety for the duration.
At recess, I detain four students. I release one because she’s threatening to
physically assault one of the other detainees, who’s called her a lesbian.
Twice each day since early November, this has been my
reality..
A glut of junior school students. Not a bad collective noun for thirteen year
olds one doesn’t know with whom one must interact. What I’ve failed to capture in the above
scenario 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 so
many teenagers these days.
Why the glut? I
taught two year 12 classes. When they
finished in November, the reward for all that extra-curricular preparation and
marking is that one takes replacement classes.
Fair enough. Junior and middle
school teachers are still teaching and I’m swanning off.
When I tell non-teachers about replacements/extras/supply
teaching they say things like ‘they wouldn’t do that to me’ or, ‘if you don’t
like 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 twistingly
boring – that’s meetings – and joyous. A
bit Ground Hog Day. I hope I’m still
learning what I need to know.
Next year I’ve swapped my two year 12s for two year 8s.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Dropping the C bomb
Don’t know much about Mireille, a girl in my year 7 Creative
Writing class, but thirteen years ago, someone thought to give her a pretty
name. 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 kinkily
around her face and shoulders. There’s a
darker row at the parting where the roots are growing out. Her facial features are regular, and could be
considered 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 where
the ‘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 in
the obligatory discipline report.) She
said 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 school
because she’s just this side of expulsion.
Very serious. Not my fault that
she’s now at the expulsion stage. Swearing
at me was just the last straw.
Mireille arrived late to class, ‘announcing’ herself by
wearing a livid red cardigan, against the strict uniform rules of the school.
‘But it’s co-old!’ she declaimed, for the benefit of the
other twenty-four students, when I asked her to remove it. School rules require a note, or a detention
for uniform transgressions. ‘I didn’t
have anything else to we-ar.’ A loud
affronted whine. ‘I stayed at my friend’s last night, orright!’
It wasn’t cold, but I didn’t want to have that centre stage
fight over something I didn’t really care about. I decided to let it go and didn’t issue a
detention. She wouldn’t have cared
anyway and probably already had one with a different teacher.
Mireille is fearless, confrontational and powerful. She has no respect for my teaching
status. ‘I hate all teachers,’ she
brags. It's as if she has no decent, ‘better’
nature to appeal to. I’ve goaded her
into working occasionally but it’s been a waste of time praising or encouraging
her. She wants to be bad; she thrives on
disrupting.
Once she wrote a terrific piece. She’s a natural. Surprisingly neat – beautiful, careful
handwriting, 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 like
a seagull on a chip. Great writing; terrific details, I wrote
on her work. Can’t wait to read what
happens next!
‘Nothing happens. It’s
finished. Why should I bother writing
more? I know how to write already. I’m really clever.’ This is yelled in my face, in response to my
exhortations that she should keep writing because she’s good at it. And watching her while she wrote it, it was
obvious that she enjoyed writing.
‘I don’t want to learn.
Why would I want to be a goody-goody like them?’ She waves a hand
towards a row of neat, enthusiastic, well-behaved students. ‘It’s more fun being bad.’ She’s unafraid of
offending them, or anyone
Once she turned up to school with her school skirt hitched
up under her large breasts, her school shirt splayed open and knotted at the
midriff 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 students
these days.
But yesterday, this late in the year, I was under pressure
to get the students to complete their ‘Individual Learning Plans’; to reflect
on their personal learning goals – what a joke, but that’s another story. The kids were a bit loud and unfocused as I
moved around the room trying to get the job done.
‘I haven’t got any goals.’ Mireille was loud and
ostentatious, 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 her
report? Move on. There were books she could read but she was
happily drawing love hearts and silly pictures with a felt pen. As long as she wasn’t drawing on the desk I
was happy to let it slide. Twenty-four
other students needed my attention, including several other ‘discipline
problems’.
Towards the end of the 75 minute period, Mireille was
flagrantly breaking rules. Sharing
headphones with another student, she was doing some exaggerated dancing
motions, hands in the air, fingers twirling.
Treating me like a fool.
Challenging. I walked up behind
her and her hapless, half-asleep side-kick and plucked the headphones out of
their 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’s
an ipod.’ One to Mireille, but stand back, for I am an
expert 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 third
request, 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.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Muck-up
“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 for
which people either love me or hate me.
Don’t mean to be nasty. I blame
my 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 miss
her. But thirty two years of teaching
has 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 be
heading 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 my
response. I keep it brief, and it’s
along the lines of 'as one class leaves, another one begins'. Started to ask her if she was familiar with
To 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 the
school together and she’s happy to explain that she’d bought her costume ages
ago, just for this occasion, on Ebay for $20.
Wish they’d put as much forethought into preparing for SACs and exams as
they have into preparing for this “muck up week”. It’s not one day of mayhem at our
school. 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 at
it. Shaving cream, eggs, flour, silly
string, 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 almost
nudie ‘run through’ at assembly. A
skinny arsed, athletic young man donned a mankini and ski mask and at Monday
morning assembly, charged past the principal on the podium, down the steps and
out 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 the
student had gone too far.
Good old days. This
ritual has grown. Yesterday, as I headed
for assembly, I passed the First Aid room where the principal, grinning, had corralled
about ten oiled, buff, near naked young men.
During assembly, on cue it seemed, they charged past the principal on
the podium, down the steps and out into the unconcerned mass of students. No one gave chase. The boys raced one way, then they sauntered
back in their g-strings, and stood in their groups, affording the year 7s a
cracking view.
Today, I genuinely flinched when a black-hooded, bare –
waxed – chested marauder barged into my classroom, where I was reminiscing with
a group of students, and held a gun – imitation – in my face. Tad intimidating, until he handed me his exit
form to sign. It’s the first class he’s
attended all term. “I’m going to get a B
for English, Miss,” he says. Hope he
does. Hmm.
Mixed feelings about this time of year.
Anger. Hate some of
the punitive vandalism that occurs at this time.
Frustration. GAT
scores indicate many of our kids could achieve higher marks than they do. If they’d work harder.
Nostalgia. Wheels go
round and round.
Loss. Because I am
very attached to many of this year’s students, some of whom I’ve taught for
four of their six years of high school.
Freedom. Because
having taught year 12 for all but two years since 1981, I’m not doing it next
year. And, depending on how it feels on
the other side focusing on middle school – and whether I can live without the masses
of extra marking incurred with year 12 – I may never teach year 12 again.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
On The Waterfront and Family Loyalty
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.
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.
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