triangular socks

Sometimes, in an effort of conform to those around me, I often find that I am a triangular peg. A peg that fits neither the round nor the square hole. My liberal friends see me as spawn of Thatcher while my more conservative friends think I am political correctness gone mad.
I am a climate change fearing environmentalist who loves nothing better than emitting CO2 on a pointless drive (skudging)

As a local business (cough) person – of sorts – I am acutely aware of the importance of supporting local business and industry. But as a webaphilic geek I am all to aware of the huge benefits of ecommerce. I bemoan the likes of Amazon and Play.com for killing the independent book and music industries – then I use them to do almost the entirety of my Christmas shopping. They may be putting our high streets at risk – but they also preserve my sanity in a world of crazy high streets.

I am a contradiction; and a hypocritical one at that.

Honestly I’d love to be the saviour of the local high street. I’d love to live in a world where I teach the children of the butcher from whom I buy my meat, the farmer who grew the grain in my bread, the editor of the newspaper on my desk… I’d love to live in a world where I can buy my clothes, my meat, my fish, my newspaper, and have a (fair-trade) coffee all in separate shops on my walk home from work… I’d love to live in a world where I access my finances through a human being, someone with whom I am on first name terms, rather than a screen, a mouse and the name of my first pet.

I’d love that. I think technology is both filling the future with excitement, and the past with nostalgic regret. Who doesn’t look back at historical community spirit with a sigh?

Lets be realistic. I am huge. The clothes shops in my local town are fine so long as I don’t mind having a three inch gap at my ankles and the top three buttons undone. Much as it pains me to say it, why would I settle for that when the huge impersonal faceless national chain supermarket at the bottom of the town sells everything in sizes up to mine and beyond; as well as my paper, my humus, my nail clippers, and everything in between.

A few months ago I heard of an amazing new type of socks. Socks that would make the cold snap we’re having a pleasurable experience - a dream. And where could I find them? I checked Ballymena, Coleraine, Londonderry. This was December - i told people I was Christmas shopping when really I was on a quest for socks. I check the Internet, Catalogues, Classified Ads; I checked everywhere. They were nowhere to be seen. I was distraught.

And then one day I had a breakthrough - Someone listed a pair on ebay.

I big high. No one was going to hold me from my socks. No one! I won the auction and then had to wait while they made their way from the US (apparently on a coal ship going by the length of time it took.) But they were worth he wait.

They were amazing. They were everything I was told to expect and more - the kind of socks you could wear with any outfit and feel well dressed. The kind of socks that just make your feet feel - happy.

The kind of socks you could wearing lounging round the house, walking along the beach, or even walking to the little convenience shop down the hill - where I found an entire shelf full of my elusive wonder socks. A mile away! In five different styles and a range of colours!

The moral of the story? You haven’t checked everywhere until you’ve checked the little convenience store down the street.

exit persued by cynicism

Are you really going? Where to? Is it true that this is your last day? Is it? Is it? Is it?

Actually, sweet as their concern is, I’ve grown a little tired of hearing these questions today. Yes I am moving on. The regular teacher has recovered. I have another job in another town. Winter is being replaced by Spring. Snowdrops are fading, daffodils are sprouting.

I didn’t meant to sound so flippant but I really have had it up to my neck and eventually even I begin to get tetchy sometimes. As it happens every time I spend a length of time in a school I do grow attached; it is a wrench when I move on - but I have become used to it and perhaps a little desensitised.
Tonight I will file away my literature resources and clear my room of all traces of one school and start preparing space for another. It’s a routine I’ve grown accustomed to. To be perfectly honest the toughest part is retraining my car to go South rather than East in the mornings when I am still half asleep. I try not to let it affect me too much.

But this time it is slightly different. For one thing I have to be careful what I write. Never before have I taught in a school where so many pupils actually track down my blog. And worse still, several of them actually read it. I know of some who inform me that they are working their way through the older posts - I even had one girl who complained that my standard was slipping. I was taken aback - I agree with her but I was still taken aback.

Does it worry me that they are reading this blog? Indeed it does. Greatly. The last time that happened (coincidentally at the same school) I ended up closing the blog down for a while until they lost interest. This time I reckon I’ll just watch my words and avoid all controversy - until they lose interest.

In the meantime my sixth years will be upset if I don’t mention them. I think they taught me more about the confusing modern teen ecosystem than I taught them about Street Car or Kite Runner. An entertaining bunch indeed. I won’t admit it but secretly I’ll miss them a little. The dramas caused by errant yoghurt, the random sidetracks, the torrent of abuse they shared - the pupil of the week badge is on its way and never let anyone say you’re sad for reading this.

My year 12s. Poetry buddies. I eventually got round to reading your blogs - and saw your kind comments. I was both a little embarrassed and a little touched - that was kind of you. Thank you. I’ll miss the power walks round the park, the highly competitive badminton matches, the posh Eastern European accents (who knew Shakespeare was polish?) and all the arguments in class. If poetry wasn’t mean’t to cause arguments it wouldn’t be worth studying.

Right, now I’ve had a chance to keep them all happy I’ll assure both my regular readers that normal service will be resumed. Just maybe with a touch less cynicism. For a week or two.

old man beyes

sometimes my mind wanders between lessons and I think about what I will be teaching in half an hour - or I draw strange figures. This one I call Old Mr Beyes.

spinning pins

Pupils are very perceptive - nothing get past past them. Whichever school I go to my pupils very quickly suss out my various quirks.

1) I hate having the top button of my shirt done - it’s not a fashion thing; I just don’t like the constrictive sensation of something round my neck. The pupils have to have theirs buttoned as part of their uniform so I do make the effort to set an example - but if it’s still in place come 11:15 I’ve done well. I’ve heard of pupils actually taking sweepstakes on when I reach for that button.

2) I have to bend down to get through doors. For some reason this causes them great mirth. Especially in the corridors where there is a fire door every 15 yards or so. On particularly long stretches they get to see me bend four or five times - and it never fails to amuse them.

3) I’m a fiddler. I don’t mean I play violin. I hate having nothing to do with my hands. Even when I’m teaching I’ll invariably reach for something to move around in my fingers. One class decided they wanted to see how far this would go and began placing different objects on my desk each morning. They started off small with pens and rulers, then they went a bit stranger with lipstick tubes, and then it got gradually bigger. I was standing at the front of a classroom unravelling a wire coat hanger before I finally caught on.

4) This may be related to number three - but I am the teacher who spins drawing pins (thumb tacks) on their point. Now, when I’m bored, if there’s a pin or two around, I’ll wind it up and let it go. The younger kids appear fascinated by this - especially when I get one spinning so well that it stands upright and appears to be almost motionless, balancing magically on its tip. I claim it’s educational - all about centrifugal forces etc etc. They always want to know how to do it. At one school I had about twelve pupils spending their breaktime in the playground seeing who could spin a pin the longest (my record is six minutes)

When I say they all appear fascinated that may be a little misleading. A lot of them appear fascinated - the rest all, probably accurately, see it as a sign of a misspent youth.

I sentence you to five years hard reading

There is something a bit odd about setting reading as a punishment.

I was covering a class today when another teacher poked her head round the door and asked if she could dump a disruptive pupil on me. The class I had was particularly small and deeply engrossed in what they were doing so I said it would be ok.
She brought him in, set him at a desk, gave him a novel and a sheet of questions and said “Read that chapter and answer those!”

I don’t get it - in much the same way I don’t get it anytime a teacher sets reading a story or writing something as a punishment for bad behavior.
Surely, as people trying to encourage enjoyment through reading and writing, we are being a little self defeating if we then use reading and writing as a punishment.

I love both - always have done. Perhaps that’s why I allowed myself to get detention so often when I was a school kid. But I know not everyone does. I know there are people for whom R&W is a necessity rather than a luxury. Personally I think it’s hard enough encouraging reading for enjoyment without throwing in reading for pain at the same time.

mobile?

I'm teaching in a mobile classroom today. Mobile 5. I'm never quite sure why they're called that - they're not very mobile. In my opinion anything that requires a plumber, an electrician, a crane, several labourers, a fleet of HGVs and a cement truck to install cannot be called portable, handipack, funsize, or mobile. If it came with its own wheels, steering wheel, and wasn't the width of three buses then maybe, just maybe, I would be happy to call it a mobile - but it doesn't. This one is much bigger than most of the classrooms inside the actual school building, is wired into the phone system, electricity, computer network, water pipes, and has been here longer than four generations of pupils have; and it's not going anywhere anytime soon... Mobile?!

So where was I? Today I'm teaching in a hut, a prefab, a portakabin, a (relatively) temporary, an outdoor, a cardboard classroom. And I must say that I quite like the experience. Yes it goes through temperature extremes with frightening speed; yes there is a weird musty smell; yes you have to stumble over snow banks to get to and from it - but I can forgive all of that.

There is a wonderful sense of isolation out here. It's like a tiny school on its own rather than just another little brick in a big pile of bricks. And the fact that I don't share a wall with anyone means that my classes can be as noisy as I like without worrying about distracting someone else's lesson. I can have pupils shout and stamp and sing and clap without that nagging feeling that my next door neighbour disapproves of my teaching methods.
I should probably have the confidence to teach the way I feel is right whether people can hear me or not - it's just easier this way. But it's much bigger than that.
It's the sense that civilisation ends at the doorway - beyond only wilderness, long stretches of uneducated wilderness - unknowns. But here, in our little cardboard oasis of culture we are safe - safe and civilised. This little island of learning with extreme temperatures and a musty smell becomes the last outpost for true education of the soul.

Is that roof leaking?

word of the day (part 5 in a 73 part series)

Somniloquy (som’nılǝ,kwı) [sŏm-nĭl'ə-kwē] n. plural -quies. the act of talking in one’s sleep [from Latin, somnus sleep + loqui to speak] somnniloquest n somnioloquous adj

To be honest I think I personally prefer the sound of somnioloquous. It has a pleasing finish. However it is a lot easier to describe sleeptalking than something with an air of sleeptalking-ishness.

I heard both these words, along with Somnambulate (sleep walking) on a rather odd radio show a few weeks back. Since then I've been trying to decide between somnioloquous or somnambulation. Both, I think you'll agree pleasant sounds. The sleeptalking won simply because I gives me a chance to link to a blog imaginatively called Sleep Talkin' Man - where a woman records the words her husband says while sleeping. Be warned - most of it is hilarious, some of it disturbing, occasionally offensive, (he swears a lot in his sleep) all of it just plain daft.

"Squid wrestling: all tentacles and no substance."

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