Chopping block

It’s a hot day, and I’m cooped up inside babysitting the detention kids. The classroom is stuffy, and there’s a lot of noise drifting in through the windows. There are two students in detention, one boy I taught last year, and a friend of his. They’re unhappy about being in detention, understandably, and are grumbling quietly.
“This sucks. It’s totally stupid, all I did was leave my essay at home…”

Their tone is the usual surly resignation of the bitter guilty, resenting the fact that they got caught, and are receiving a punishment they know they deserve. There is a kind of false bravado in their attempts to tar their punishment with an unfair brush. You can hear, somewhere in their voices, the knowledge that they are right where they ought to be, but that they know that it’s also their job to complain about it.

The noise from outside grows momentarily louder – frantic drum beats, a roar of applause from a crowd. I lean over and pull back the curtain, curious about what’s going on outside.

There is a small stage erected in the quad, an unpolished wooden construction that would have been quite at home centuries ago. On the stage, the Principal is standing over the body of a detention student, a satisfied look on his face. One of the Deputy Principals is holding a leash of sorts, which is connected to a chain gang of about six students, all boys. In front of the Principal is a wooden block, about waist height, with a groove in one side wide enough for a person’s neck. There is a uniformed body slumped on top of this, and a pile of student heads in a basket beneath it. The Principal wears a leather mask, and stands shirtless holding a large executioners axe. Behind them, indistinct in the noise and heat, is a crowd of onlookers.

The Deputy Principal rolls the corpse of the student off the block, unlocks the closest member of the chain gang. The student stumbles forward a little, rubbing his wrists and neck, sore from the chains and collar that he has just been released from. The Deputy Principal pushes him by the elbow, and he steps up onto the platform. He kneels with his head hanging off the block, places his hands behind his back. His hands are not tied. He has the same resigned guilty expression as the boys inside.

The drum beat starts up again, slow at first but gaining speed. The Principal hoists the axe, raises it high in the air. My breath is reflected back at me off the window, hot and close, as the axe begins to fall in slow motion. Droplets of blood from the previous student fly off and are caught by the sun, held bright red and motionless for a moment.

There is a thunk. A head rolls into a basket. The audience cheers. I feel ill, and turn away from the scene.

Behind me, the two students are looking though the window. I can see in their faces that they know that they are to be next, that as soon as the chain gang outside has been dealt with, they will be marched out of detention and onto the stage.

“This sucks. It’s totally stupid, all I did was leave my essay at home…”

There is no outrage, no fear. There is no reaction beyond the normal, the routine for these students who pass through detention on a regular basis. They complain because that is their role in life, not because they are genuinely offended, or because they expect it will change anything.

They return to their seats and continue copying out the dictionary. They know that they will be dead in a few minutes, and they copy out the dictionary. Because that’s what they do.

A Loverly Weekend

I have had a very relaxing few days off, and am looking forward to this weekend’s festivities (a trip to Christchurch for a wedding celebration). There were lots of nice things about the weekend, several of which I blogged about in a lost post that the new network settings ate. I didn’t even get a chance to save it, as it was a rushed effort during interval.
Wah.

So, to be brief (having saved a back-up copy of this post in case of emergencies):

Giffy’s party was excellent. The venue was great, the pool was muchos fun, and Giffy looked and sounded lovely on stage. A most enjoyable evening. I should point out that I wasn’t trying to hit the band with the white ball from the pool table, I am just a master of the off-the-table shot. Impressive really that the ball could go quite so far, past quite so many people.

Friday night’s festivities with family were fabulously relaxing, and it was noted by Debbie and myself that Green Wing certainly loses none of its hilarity when preceded by several glasses of delicious wine.

Saturday saw visiting with Jenni and Lee, cardgames, then a swift return to Kapiti for yummy Thai food and Aliens vs Predator with Luke and Sam. I quite enjoyed AvP – it was exactly the sort of movie I had anticipated when I first heard about the project, which was substantially better than what I had been expecting based on a few reviews that I’d heard. It did feel like parts of the movie were rushed, but it was good nonetheless. I also enjoyed the anime we watched – first episodes of Rurouni Kenshin and Gundam Seed (or Gundam Apple Seed Evangelion Xephon as I called it, as I couldn’t get Apple Seed and Gundam Seed’s names right, and thought I’d spice up the name to make it more memorably wrong). I like watching anime shows.

Sunday was fun too, with the visit from Svendlemaus, with rum liquor and many books on British history and folklore. Plots were discussed, characters added, and much fun had. Debbie and I dipped into a little Ravenous in the evening, a great cannibal movie. Having seen Cannibal the Musical only a couple of months earlier only enhanced my enjoyment of Ravenous.

Monday was largely taken up with cleaning up the house in preparation for our houseguest, and a visit from Debbie’s Ma (to look at a house in Kapiti). The evening time featured much fun, cocktails, and eye-toy PS2 games with houseguest + Giffy. Very enjoyable.

Cool People’s Tuesday was also good, with the getting up late, and going out to look at furniture shops, and the having delicious lunch at Wave café, and visiting Giffy’s cool new house, and acquiring a projector from Lee (which I must pay for today). Very cool, and much better than working.

And now I’m back at school, and the students are all here, and it’s busy and worky and there are lots of things I should be doing.

I’m really looking forward to the holidays ;)

T-shirt design Phase One Complete

Actually, Phase Two is now complete also. And maybe Phase Three, depending on how you cut it up.

Phase One: Conceptual Phase
Phase Two: Drawing of the picture (Matt does most of this)
Phase Three: Scanning and Colourising (Debbie does most of this)

Phases still to come:
Phase Four: Buy a t-shirt to put the transfer on
Phase Five: Print out the transfer
Phase Six: Iron on the transfer
Phase Seven: Delivery
Phase Eight: T-shirt deployment on the Giffy

Pom Poko was Tanuki-tastie

I was a little worried that it might get too Watership Down for me to take, but it wasn't too traumatic. There were a number of Tanuki deaths however, which was very sad, but obviously in keeping with a (somewhat silly and lighhearted in places) exploration of the effect of building development on animals.
I really enjoyed the film, and am very glad that I saw it (even though I'm damn tired today). There was a lot of humour, a lot of cuteness, and some rather odd moments. The use by male tanuki of their magic expanding scrotums was unexpected, but was used to good effect at times. The whole tone of the film was interesting, with a voice-over that ran througout and gave it quite a story-book feel. The knowledge that things pretty much couldn't go well for the Tanuki had me very worried from about half way through the film, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. That said, if there'd been a song like bright eyes playing through a couple of the scenes, I can't say I wouldn't have been majorly upset.

So, all in all an excellent film with some really funny moments, some great visuals, some awesome characters (the three masters from Shikoku were fantastic), and a sad, poignant message about the consequences of human activity on the environment.

Lovely.

They Gots the Mad Style

Today is mufti day, and to my great pleasure there are a number of Year 12 (sixth form) students wandering about in costumes of various descriptions. It's awesome. My Y12 English class featured:
* a guy in black pants, white shirt, black tie and black fedora
* another guy in bathrobe and huge fluffy animal slippers
* a girl in a hawaiin skirt, lei (sp?), and face paint

There are students in stubbies, fake moustaches, and aviator sunglasses, students dressed in camo jackets, shorts, and camo-material leggings (male students). It's all very light-hearted and very cool.

My form class asked me to wear a school uniform today, since they were in mufti, but I refused. As an alternative, one of them asked me to wear a 'full-on business type suit'. So I'm wearing a black suit, black shirt with satin pinstripes, maroon tie, and big shiny shoes. I have received many compliments (including one from a student who knew my name, who I didn't recognise). It's all been muchos fun.

On top of that, I was able to reward my form class with chocolate, as they were excellently behaved in Maths yesterday afternoon, after I asked them to make an effort. And then there was a spare reliever Period 2, so I got to get the class set up with their essay writing, then swan out and go write up speech results. This was very timely, as I had to give the speech results back today. And the class was incredibly focussed, quiet and productive while I was there, and maintained it for the reliever. So I gave them chocolate too. It's handy having a 1kg bag of little Easter eggs to give out.

So, I have to cover a class of Henry's this afternoon, then it's home to scrub up and head out to Pom Poko, a studio Ghibli film featuring Tanuki. Should be excellent fun.

Huzzah!

Trouble Brewing

My form class really don't like one of their teachers. They got quite a bad grade in their form book yesterday (a book they take to Science, English, Maths, PE and Health), and I kept them in at interval writing letters of apology. There was a general theme of 'rights' and 'abuse', because the teacher in question told them to 'shut up', and that they were 'acting like clowns'.
I'm not sure that this violates the precious rights of children, so I didn't have a whole bunch of sympathy. It's certainly not the way I talk to my classes, and I don't think it's a good thing, but as I said to those most directly responsible, they are clearly failing to meet the standards for that teacher, and are suffering the consequences.

I'm delivering the apology letters uncensored, with references to the teacher's choice of language intact. I'll also be putting pressure on my class to act in a manner which would make me proud, to try to reduce any view of it as them vs. their teacher, and make it more about them controlling or modifying their behaviour to maintain a positive relationship with me.

It'll be interesting to see where this all goes...

It was all worth it Yesterday's lecture wasn't so bad - I produced this sketch between speakers:

It was all worth it
Yesterday's lecture wasn't so bad - I produced this sketch between speakers:





It also sparked a couple of interesting conversations between Debbie and I. I think I throw around the terms 'social engineering' and 'moral instruction' pretty liberally, when what I really mean is 'reducing negative behaviours' and 'modelling critical participation in society'. I believe that schools and teachers do help kids to build their view of the world, and can help teach kids how to interact with one another. The idea of getting a teenage boy to realise that other people have feelings, and that their actions have consequences, is not a terribly likely proposition, but if it can be done it's something that I approve of.

Moral instruction is a pretty loaded term, but at its core I think that it's a good thing, and that we do it in schools every day, just not overtly or with much impact. The kids do tend to get pretty Lord of the Flies if they're left to their own devices. We are helping to show kids that there's a standard of behaviour that is 'acceptable', and one that is not. There's quite an emphasis at times on saying - "your behaviour is having a negative impact on other students' learning", not just "you broke rule X, now you have punishment Y".

I fully understand that using terms like moral instruction and social engineering makes people worry, and that they are potentially dangerous practices, but they aren't ones I impicitly disapprove of.

I am sure that there are more articulute and intelligent things said about this over on Morgue's blog (and in the comments thereof).

Life Long Learners

I just had to sit through an hour long presentation on students' needs and making life-long learners from a visiting NCER person. It was a lot like being back at TCOL for an hour - a horror that my mind had largely blocked out.
It wasn't really that bad, and it was only an hour long, but listening to someone talk about research that showed that really, it was only a small number of students who chose to skip credits or were happy to get just enough to pass wasn't exactly thrilling. Of course, one student in a classroom who'd rather set fire to other students than do work is not statistically worrying, but isn't exactly a problem to be swept under the carpet or ignored...

The tone of the whole thing was 'academic waffle', supported by focus groups and surveys and anecdotes about students who had a clear idea of their 'learning pathway'. All true enough, but of precisely no practical use to me.

The main thing that was actually useful was the question of what the purpose of teaching is, whether it's to get credits and jump through assessment hoops or to turn people into decent human beings. I actually quite like the idea of schools as places of moral and personal instruction. The moral qualities being praised included humility, stillness, concentration and so on - some pretty contentious criteria for being 'future ready'. I particularly raised an eyebrow at the idea that 'still' people are better prepared to succeed and drive the economy ahead. I've often observed the opposite - people who blob succeed less than people who do.

Anyways, I got some good sketching done, and it's better than teaching a class (though I would have had a non-contact first up anyway). Back to the grindstone - a couple of colleagues reporting back on a course they attended.

Most Erotic Sketchery

Debz has covered much of the weekend's shenanigan's over on her blog. The Shakespeare was fun, though there were a few members of the cast who really weren't projecting their voices, and thus we couldn't hear anything they said. Still, the leads were all pretty good, and the music was very well done, and it was a koha rather than tickets entry, so all was well. It has made me keen to see more theatre, but inside theatres, with heating and seats and acoustics and all that good stuff...

Svend's housewarming on Friday was fun, with some old familiar faces and many unfamiliar ones. I felt a little guilty about the comments we made about heightliness being next to Godliness, and thus cleanliness. The barbed end about shortliness being connected with filthiness was not kind, and the ameliorating effects of claiming that those sitting down were the dirtiest seemed none too strong, as the less lefty of our group was not well pleased with the conversation.

I stood in a decidedly average position heigth-wise.

Sunday featured family visits and way too much marking. 'Twas sad, really. There was a visit to the equine family member, and this was where the sketching came into play. I've never really tried to draw horses much before, so I took up pencil and paper and asked a kindly old gentleman horse to pose for me whilst I drew a portrait of him, from the neck up. He was a most obliging artist's model, but as Debbie pointed out, he got quite... excited by the whole process. Luckily it was not a 'glamour portrait', and I wasn't drawing the horse's body at all. It might have been quite a different picture if I had.

And now I am back at school, procrastinating. I should really be sorting out the alternate unit of work for the student who is not allowed to read fantasy novels. I've given him Oliver Twist, but don't have any specific work to go with it. Comprehension questions would be good, for him to work through as he reads, but a brief googlage has not turned any up yet.

I had best get my nose back to the grindstone. Just 3 more lessons today, plus 3 tomorrow, then workday. Then 3 lessons on Friday, and it'll be the weekend. Huzzah!

Matt tired, need chocolate...

It's the middle of the week. I have to cover a class this afternoon, and thus cannot slack as much as I'd like (or go home, as I did last week, though given that I went home because I had a beastly headache I'd prefer this week's offering). I guess I can hope that one of the Year 13s is fundraising, and has delicious chocolatables to sell me. Chances are slim - there's seldom snackage about when I really crave it.
I guess there is a snack machine in the staff room, but it doesn't raise funds for anyone and thus doesn't have the awesome guilt-assuaging power of fundraising chocolate. Fundraising chocolate is a noble sacrifice, not an indulgence. Oh no, not an indulgence at all ;0

PR2 is better than PR1

Being a second year teacher is better than being a first year teacher in quite a few ways. There is more of the moneys (though you have to pay a higher union subscription too, which more or less cancels this out), you've been through it before so you know how to pace yourself, the work itself feels easier, and you have way fewer observed lessons.
I had my Junior HOD watch a class of mine this morning, and it was fairly unstressful. I don't really freak out over observations, but I'd give them a miss if the choice was mine. The feedback is always positive, and some handy tips have arisen from lesson observations, but it is an oddly awkward thing.

Teaching a class of 20 - 30 students is relatively easy once you've done it a few times. You really don't care what they think of you, so you're willing to make a fool of yourself, be mean to them, confuse them for your own amusement, whatever. It's all in a day's work. But when another teacher comes in, it's suddenly your professional reputation on the line, and there's an adult there who can fairly easily follow / guess your thought processes, and know where you're being slack, cutting corners, or doing things for your own amusement rather than the education of your young charges.

But, like I say, the feedback is always positive. I think a little bit of indulgence to do things that are fun for the teacher is fine - in fact I suspect it is necessary to keep us interested and enjoying work enough not to quit. Today's minor indulgence was in fact entirely in keeping with the work we were doing. I had my class imagine and then write a detailed description of a character, to be used in a story later in the week. I had them record name, age, occupation, physical description, goals, mannerisms, important relationships and so on. It's a very valid and potentially valuable exercise. The example I gave them was rather Call of Cthulhu - a terribly formal lawyer by the name of Sebastian Bookwright, who carries a cane and wears leather gloves all the time. Well in keeping with the exercise, but also pretty much a character for CoC, just without the stats.

Yesterday's example was a little stranger.

Name: Trogdor the Burninator.
Description: A huge green dragon, with one beefy arm coming out of the back of his neck. Small wing-a-ling wings, consumate V teeth and spinadees, lines of majesty.
Hobbies/Interests: Burninating peasants and thatched roof cottages.

At this point about 5 boys in the class got really excited, and started ranting about how cool Trogdor was, and how much they enjoyed homestarrunner.com . No two people are not on fire.

Crazy Kids

I was accosted in the playground today by some former studnets and some current students who are in Year 12. They wanted to ask me if I was still selling Cow and Dig, and one of them wanted to introduce the 'new woman' of one of the others. It's strangely sweet that my students want me to meet their girlfriends, though I'm not sure that the girl in question was thrilled about it.
It's also a strange thing to be talking to a group of boys who are all considerably taller than me, and don't seem to have stopped growing. One of them is taller than a door frame (6'6"?), and the others are all at least a couple inches taller than me. The thing that is strangest is that they're the most polite and deferential of all my students, way more so than most of the shorties.

So, tomorrow I must remember to bring Dig and Cow, and deliver them to the Y12 study class across the hall that is frequented by a number of my former students. They evidently had a mad game of Cop yesterday...

Inspirational

I spent the first hour of my day today listening to a guest speaker talking to the Year 9 students. It was actually very interesting, the chap being a former boxing champ and 'naughty boy', with dislexia. He was quite a funny speaker, played the guitar and harmonica, and kept the kids well entertained whilst passing on some positive messages (smoking is bad, don't swear, you need to listen carefully, especially if you can't read and write well, have a positive attitude, give it a go..).
He did an interesting demontration of the power of positive/negative thinking. Simple resistance activity, where he asked a student to hold his arm out straight, then proceeded to try to push the student's arm down. The first time, he got the student to say "I'm strong!". THe result was a firm raised arm. The second time, the student had to say "I'm weak." The arm was pushed down with very little effort.

I was very curious as to how effective it really was, and soon had the chance to find out. I was called up onto the stage as the representative member of staff, and had to do the same thing. The difference was this time he got me to say true and untrue things. I was amazed at how easily he pushed my arm down when I had to say "smoking is good for me", and that the third time round (the first one being a silent 'control' test) when I had to say "smoking is bad for me", it was incredibly easy to resist the downward pressure.

Nature's lie detector, evidently.

I was well impressed with the little experiment, and got some props from my classes (especially when I threw my jacket on the ground and incredible-hulked it up the stairs).

So, a fun morning, with some important messages for me. No smoking for Matt, and no swearing either. And I must go learn to play the harmonica... ;)

PS: The Wizard of Earthsea mini-series comes out on DVD next week, and will be around $10 from DVDsoon. I intend to order it (despite the terrible reviews) and see what it's like. I shall report back on whether it's any good.

Threatening to Vomit

Sometimes there are unpleasant things that one has to do as an English teacher. One of those things is pressuring students to deliver speeches in front of the class. 90% of students are fine - they don't exactly enjoy it, but they're fine doing it. Another 8% of students love speeches. At least 2 students in any given class really enjoy writing and delivering speeches, which is fun. It's nice when the students are keen on what they're doing.
Sadly, the remaining 2% of students really don't want to do speeches. They'll happily fail, or get detentions, or be kicked out of class rather than deliver a speech. And it's not really fair to the other students to let these few individuals have special conditions. That said, I don't like yelling at kids who are shaking with fear or convinced that if they are made to stand up in front of the class they will vomit, pass out, and die.

It never helps when these 'shy, wallflower' students are loud-mouths who talk when I'm talking, or create and publish drama around themselves. The kind of attention seeking malcontent who suddenly comes over all shy when it's a formal speech gets little sympathy from me, but at the same time I know that public speaking constitutes a real phobia for some.

And I get to start each year with it! Hooray! Still, all the seniors will be done with speeches by the end of this week, so there's no real stress. Just one or two phobics, and they're more than happy to take their lumps and fail. It just sends a bad message to the kids, where they start to think that the work is optional.

No WARGs for Debbie and I tonight - just a little too knackered and busy to make it. If it wasn't such a drive it'd be all good, but the hour and a half that we lose in the car is the very same hour and a half that could see us well prepared for tomorrow, as opposed to barely coherent.

I'm starting to teach A Wizard of Earthsea next week, which I'm looking forward to. I taught it last year, but the class struggled with it. I have a few new strategies to try out this year, and an extension group, so the basic reading of the book shouldn't be too hard for most of them. It would be very cool to get hold of the TV series that was made recently, though I don't know if it has come out yet? There are lots of pictures from it around the place, but I've yet to see a release date (I performed only a cursory search today, as the end of lunchtime truncated my browsing).