A tough day

Today was quite a stressful day. Luckily I am calm again now, and also the stress was pretty well managed I would say. Kinda anyway.

The general poor management of my school is really annoying and puts loads of stress and pressure on the staff. Things keep changing all the time and the systems don't work and so we, the people on the ground, have to deal with loads of rubbish every day. It gets really tedious and starts to grind you down. On a daily basis we get a lot of abuse from the kids on the one side, and on the other side the teaching itself becomes difficult because of poor management from above. An example of this is how the internal exams this week in maths were simply postponed till after half-term, except we weren't told until Monday (in fact, I only found out accidentally from a colleague when I went to ask her where the exam papers were) and so now I am teaching loads of lessons that haven't been planned. Even more annoying though, tomorrow we have interviews for maths posts in school, and part of the interview process is watching a teacher teach and giving them feedback. However, due to all kinds of inconvenient issues, I have to be observed, which is ok, except I have to be observed teaching a lesson I don't teach on a normal Wednesday just to fit into the the observation schedule. How stupid and unnecessarily stressful is that?

My Y10s made me really mad today. I have lost the battle with that class I think. They have no respect for me and we don't do any work any more, I just spend all my time trying to get them to behave. Again this is tedious and stressful, I dread my four hours a week with them. It's almost similar to being bullied I'd imagine, having to face a group of people who just cause you hassle for no apparent reason. Anyway, today lots of them were rude and defiant. One of them was trying to get other students to poke me so that I would lose my temper. Another one just outright ignored me when I told her to spit out her gum, then shouted in my face, and then refused to leave the room until her head of year came to drag her out. It's got so that even the good kids have become bad because that's the general negative horrible atmosphere in the classroom. I don't know, when I was filling in all the pointless incident reports after the lesson, at the bottom there is a section where you tick the sanction you have given the pupil, and you can choose reprimand or detention or extra work or accepted apology etc. and there is one called other and I wanted to tick that and then describe the sanction as simply giving up on that student. Hmmm.

The thing that worried me the most today is that for a minute or two in that classroom I was close to really losing my temper. Some of you know that I have a shocking temper when it is unleashed, of which I am thoroughly ashamed and regretful. I have been known to completely lose the plot, to the point of blind white rage entirely masking my actions, and it's not until afterwards that I come to again and realise the devastation I have caused. Once I think I could even have been expelled from school for one incident, which to this day I still can't explain where it really came from, I just switched and hit another student, I couldn't control myself. I'm so angry with myself for even letting someone get to me like that. It shouldn't have happened.

Anyway, obviously I am much older and wiser and better in control of myself now, but today scared me because I could see that I could lose it, I mean really lose it if I was pushed too far. I spoke to my mentor, which I now think may have been an error, but she told me if I ever felt like I may snap then I should just leave the classroom. Hopefully this would never have to happen, I'd hate myself so much if I ever let these stupid kids enrage me to that point. Anyway, after half-term for the first week another teacher is taking that class, then there's two weeks of work experience, and then we will see how it goes. From today though, I feel like simply refusing to teach them, we are done, they don't want me, I don't want them, so let's just move on.

I have no imminent work, but looooooads of upcoming work. I could do it to be organised and take it off my head. But I can't be bothered. Idleness beckons. I think I deserve the chill time.

Virgo this week

Also my horoscope this week. From The Observer. For a change. And because it's true.

Mercury's about to turn backwards, meaning your chances of getting straight answers are twice as good this week as next. At least your chances of finding someone cute to lean on are high - just your luck you have to fall for a rebel or oddball, leaving you to play it straight.

The album's done.

Pink Vision

I have been intending to have a shower for about 30 minutes. But I have Shine on my stereo, and I keep meaning to get upstairs, but then end up staying for just one more track. I love Estelle, this is such an awesome banging album full of proper soaring vocals and beats and stuff, I love it.

I had a super busy but good weekend. My legs are achey achey from an epic squash session on Saturday morning, two days of achey, but it feels good. Totally burned off all the indian food from our maths department social on Friday night (if not all the booze). Last night I had an amazing night's sleep. I swear the world is just that bit brighter after a good kip. In true me style I don't think I slept much on Thurs or Fri or Sat night (I guess maybe about 7 hours over the three nights), plus on Saturday I had lunch at 1pm and then didn't eat again until 2pm on Sunday, which is treating my body quite harshly. So I think it is feeling good today after food and rest to remind me that if I treat it well it will be well.

My vision is entirely rose-tinted at the moment. I mean, forget just the spectacles, it feels like my actual eyes themselves have pinked up (not in a gross infection type way). Things feel good, like my soul is singing. It's lovely. School-based dramas rolled off me today. I want the feeling to last. And I think I now how to do that. I will just keep the source; keep you.

I'm going back to Oxford in the autumn, I can't wait, I'm really looking forward to getting back into education and figuring out a way to make a difference to our disadvantaged kids. If I couldn't do it enough in the classroom, maybe I can do it from the outside. I like it when I have plans.

Man, I can't get over this album. Oh, but also the Juno album, beautiful beautiful stuff. My absolute favourite lines are from the closing song: #I kiss you all starry-eyed, my body's swinging from side to side#. I just googled that for laughs and there's about a million sites quoting it. The first blog quoting it is just full of lyrics. It's weird to read lyrics without hearing the songs, I guess then it's just poetry rather than song. I dunno, maybe everyone's souls are singing too.

Minimum effort

Just finished marking my Y8 books. A lovely procrastinated jobbie. My new strategy of getting the kids to mark in class, and me just do the comments in my frees, is working a treat - I almost have some time back in my life. Combined with my 50% effort as a teacher, well, school life is going pretty well. I am just either stamping down on things straight away and being super efficient, or just ignoring them entirely.

It's time to start counting days to half-term. Six more teaching days, plus one training day. Annoyingly I can't go to the HSBC maths day this Friday due to stupid bureaucracy in my school, and the megalomaniac tendencies of the one ultimately in charge, meaning I was led on a silly wild goose chase, and thus my kids have to miss out on the trip. Boo. On the plus side, this means I'll be around for our PGCE student's last day in school, and the maths' department curry in the evening, which will be good fun, despite all the DRAMA of our department (both in and out of school) recently.

What else is new? I'm being a hermit this week, returning to relaxing, which is wonderful. It's good to spend some time by myself, thinking a bit about some things. Not too much thinking, obviously, this will only lead to worrying and then stressing. Some gentle pondering and daydreaming is ok though. I am also addicted to Radio 4 now that we have no TV. It's ace, I feel like I am just accidentally passively absorbing all this stuff on American law while typing this, weird. I started listening simply for a news fix at 6pm, then kept listening for the 6:30pm sitcom, and now I've taken to leaving the radio on.

I had peanut butter on toast for dinner. I'm not sure this counts as a proper dinner, and I can smell chicken and mushrooms downstairs, so I shall go investigate.

Living in Dust

Our house is a SERIOUS BUILDING SITE. It's full of dust and making me sneezy. And other dwarves too. I wish I could move out while all this was taking place. I also wish I had a huge storeroom for all my tat so I could just store it away and be happy with my hoarding, rather than having to sort through it and throw some of it away. I hate throwing things away. I do like sorting though.

Today was a good school day. Mondays are getting better, mainly because I am still on a high from the weekend. That said, this was the first Monday I've actually taught this term (one training day, one bank holiday, one sick day) so perhaps it was novelty value.

I spent the whole weekend doing fun stuff, and also the whole weekend with X, which makes me smile tremendously. I am now plotting ways to make the weekdays as good as the weekends. This is going well with regards to this half of term, but patently next half will be far busier, what with report writing and exam paper marking and not having any lessons planned etc. Still, that's the final push, so it'll be ok. This is despite the fact that teachers seem to be leaving the school in waves. Poor kids, no teachers want to stay there, but that's what happens when your school is nuts.

This week's word of the week is METICULOUS, which I like. Last week's was EMANCIPATE and the student sentence that won the prize was "Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves, but why did he wear that ridiculous hat?" Hahaha.

I'm off to shower now after playing with all that dust. Then I am going to sit and chill now that most of the ground floor is completely uninhabitable. Woo.

School and Sun and Books

School was school, and it was ok. We did some work on religion and prejudice in PSHE - again my kids surprised me with their deep and insightful comments. I can't believe how perceptive some of them are, or even how well they can justify their opinions. They were stars - if only they could be that way all the time. The rest of the day was pretty much normal, and then the Year 8 incentives (good behaviour) club session in afternoon tutor time ran again, and I took sports again, and it was out in the sun and all the kids were running around, and it was just lovely to be a teacher right there and then. Obviously taking the Y7 girls' football club after school kept the high going.

That said, our school is a greenhouse at the moment. The company that installed the ventilation has apparently gone bust, and so the bits that are broken can't be fixed yet. Given the massive glass roof and the number of rooms without external windows, well, parts of the school are unbearable. AND it's only May. Luckily I have windows that don't get too much sun, and I can prop open my classroom door to get a breeze going. Still though, it's going to be a long term heat-wise.

The builders are back and seem to be digging a trench round the front of the house. Exciting times, especially when it comes to having to practically vault across said trench to get home. Fun.

I looked up some good info today about cyclones, tornadoes and hurricanes, what with all the drama and sadness in Burma/Myanmar. Here it is for you, courtesy of Yahoo Answers:

All areas of low pressure are cyclones. So technically a tornado and hurricane are both cyclones. The terms hurricane, typhoon and cyclone are all used to describe the same type of weather system. In the Atlantic and East Pacific they are hurricanes, in the West Pacific they are typhoons and in the Indian ocean and Australia they are called cyclones or more specifically tropical cyclones.

It is also true that some people in the midwest will call tornadoes cyclones, which they are.

I finished reading Inheritance of Loss. It's a sad book, but wonderfully written. I wish I could capture moments and create visions like Kiran Desai has - there are parts where you can't escape, that's how vivid it is. I felt the same kind of apprehension reading this book as I have only mostly felt with films/tv before, that's how into the story you can get. But, like I said, despite a little glimmer of positivity and hope at the end, really, there's too much turmoil and unsolved difficulties for me to be happy about it. Anyway, I am done with that and by chance in the library I found The Stone Diaries, which the guy in our photocopying room recommended to me. Given my recent criticisms of Pulitzer prize winners, I have decided to re-open my mind and give it a go. An easy place to start - this book was short-listed for a Booker as well, so I don't have to leap too far in my first few steps. I love the opening quote:

nothing she did
or said

was quite
what she meant

but still her life
could be called a monument

shaped in a slant
of available light

and set to the movement
of possible music

(From "The Grandmother Cycle" by Judith Downing, Converse Quarterly, Autumn)

A Ramble From School

I have 48 more teaching days left. This seems like a lot. I prefer to think in smaller goals – 18 days to Malta for example, yay!

Actually I am having a stellar day today. It’s lunchtime at school and the sun is shining and the report writing software isn’t quite working so I can’t write the 150 odd reports I have to do, so instead I am enjoying myself. I taught a good lesson with my Y8s – dividing with decimals, something I thought was difficult, but which they really jumped on. My Y10s too were good, mainly because loads were absent, and because I changed the seating plan, and because I was stricter and they just decided to work today. That was all good.

The best thing about today though is how I just woke up on the right side of the bed, and it was sunny, and so I am happy and smiling and feeling cheery. I think it is also to do with my new found ideas of survival and sufficiency and “taking it back to the old school”, in that so much of what modern society does seems pointless to me, so I am eventually going to just rid my life of it, and instead live on a nice tropical island by the sea and spend my days doing productive things like growing my own food and securing my own water and energy, and reading and writing and playing, just working on living rather than doing some pointless employment to get money so that I can live in our modern society. Sure, there are things in modern society that I value, like medicine and education and welfare etc. but there are lots of things that I would change, but seemingly can’t, so I guess I will just escape from them.

Anyway so I decided I would spread my good cheer and vision around the staffroom, which has genuinely worked wonders, if only with regards to making people smile. Loads of people shared their own visions with me, like moving to the Caribbean, living in the country, breeding dogs, not being hungover(!) etc. which was really cool since just on the news this morning they were saying how fewer than 50% of people meet and speak with at least one neighbour in a week – we are all just too busy rushing around to be involved in the neighbourhood. Thus I have decided that today I will reach out to my school community and plant little seeds of peaceful rustic life in them.

What else? I had an awesome weekend in Oxford and London, making me realise there is loads more to life that the daily stress and strain. I realised though that I have been bailing on things, like drinks and socials and stuff like that, mainly because other things have more priority. I think that perhaps I will have to stop the bailing and return to trying to do more things, since I know time is limited, but so are friends and so I should try and do more of their things with them. Just a bit more, but more all the same, I’m sure I can fit it all in. Besides, it’s only polite J

Right, it’s almost time for afternoon lessons. We are going to watch a maths video and do worksheets since the Y9s have had SATs all day. Plus it’s sunny outside, why work too hard?

Yay I made the weekend!

Phew, it's been a looong week, but woo, it's the weekend! I made it through :)
Am off for fun and games in Oxford tonight, but before that, some things I've learnt:

1. Taking the piss out of students is a risky strategy, but occasionally works a treat when it comes to managing behaviour
2. If I was hyper all the time, no learning would ever get done
3. Staff seem to like me bouncy
4. Doing good deeds for other people makes me feel really good, so I can always try and do things for other people when I feel bad myself
5. Shopping and tidying and exercise always make me feel good

I went to bhangra with my mother this morning, that was hilarious fun, I really enjoyed it, and I love how keen my mum is about her dancing. Also, I got ID'ed in Waitrose trying to buy Pimm's and beer, which is also hilarious since in 4 months time I will be a full SEVEN YEARS over the legal drinking age, hahaha, and yet I still can't pass for 18.

Nothing else major to report except that I'm feeling good. Oh, and as a sign of my positive commitment to trying to pass this year after all, when I had my knee appointment on Friday and they offered me potential orthoscopy dates in June, I told them I couldn't have two weeks off until July 20th - check me out! Turning down two weeks of paid medical leave AND messing up my summer travel plans all to try and do my best to pass this NQT year. Keep them crossed for me, as always. Have a good weekend!

PS LOVE Adele's Cold Shoulder, it's a tuuuuune!