This Blog is kinda like a Pensieve

I am too busy. Almost to the point where if I think of all the things I have to do, I get dizzy. Thus I have decided it is therapeutic to blog for ten minutes so that I can get rid of lots of things from my head and so give me more space to process new things.

Firstly then, lots of drama in my classes. Have had three girls who, in separate incidents, absolutely lost their marbles with me. I'm coping well with all the negative emotion, phew, deep breath, let it go. At least they may have felt better just raging at me. Anyway, today I had one face-to-face apology, one written letter of apology, and one girl who tried so damn hard in the lesson to make up for it that I let some of it go. Not sure what's been happening with the kids, maybe they're just testing the boundaries?

Last night I went to a TF event on personal presentation. The woman hosting it was a wee bit odd, but I liked that. It was at Freshfields, but since there were no coaches or external "adult" contact type people there, the drinks and nibbles were noticeably absent. Boo. Anyway, the woman made lots of interesting and excellent points on first impressions, self reflection, values, strengths, weaknesses, and something called The Life Balance Wheel (I didn't really get this bit). I gave my tutor group the highlights of it today during an impromptu tutor time - they were quick off the mark, suggesting that people judge on appearance and how they are acting. One of them even pointed out that what you say isn't that important, it's more about how you say it. I was pleased with their thinking.

The woman also mentioned a coupla psychological concepts. The first was leakage whereby your body language gives away what you're really thinking and feeling regardless of what your mouth is saying. The second was the Reticular Activation System (RAS), which sounds like gobbledygook to me, but anyway...it's this thing whereby once you're thinking about something, you notice it more and more because your brain filters out lots of irrelevant things so you focus more on what you're interested in. For example, my father is always thinking about some car or other, and in the weeks leading up to when he actually buys the car, he will see the desired car everywhere, and will remark upon this very point. Similarly then, if you focus on the positives, you become a more positive person.

The last thing that interested me was the work values survey. Very important values to me: creativity, recognition, helping others and society, time freedom, competition, persuading people. Important values to me: learning new things, making decisions, risk, being an expert, pressure, communication, independence, challenge, variety, fast pace, community. Lots of things there. Upon reflection, it seems that teaching can offer me most of these things. Strange that!

What else? Well, my right hamstring is still sore, which means no physical activity, boo. Have SO MUCH marking to do. BITC business-education presentation tomorrow night, minor panic there since I can't view the presentation or remember the case studies, so no idea what I'm supposed to be saying! Have a full day of lessons to plan tomorrow, not sure what I'm teaching there either. Great.

And finally, in the tiny spare bit of thought I have left, well, it's full of people. No, not people, just one person. Ever had it when you've got someone in your head and you just can't get them out? In your head, under your skin, whatever you want to call it. I don't even know how they got there, they just kinda sneaked (snuck?) in and now I am all whirlwindy. This is alarming, I never thought I'd get distracted in this way again. I can't even do anything about it, it's very frustrating. Although now I have written all of this, I have more space in my head to contemplate.

Haha, what a good vague ramble, my favourite type! I'll leave you with two quotes from the presentation woman that I used with my kids today...

None of us is smarter than all of us.

Attitude is infectious - is yours worth catching?

Winding up the kids!

I feel a bit weird. Kinda tired but wired at the same time. Just been playing the piano, I think it drained my brain. On the plus side, have marked all my Y10 books :) But I have pulled my hamstring, which is no good.

Want an early night tonight, have a busy day tomorrow...excitement includes a department meeting and a TF event on "Personal Presentation", Obviously my personal presentation is awesome, but there'll be snacks there, so it'll be worth it.

Today I wound up my Y12 sociology group big time, it was lots of fun. We're studying theories of class and educational achievement. They all get deeply offended whenever anyone suggests anything negative about the working class, or about ethnic minorities. This happens all the time in the Education module, so we have regular riots.

In the lesson we looked at theories of material deprivation and cultural capital. Lots of outrage ensued when I suggested that working class families had fewer resources for their children, which may lead to lower initial ability and motivation. It got worse when I suggested that middle class families cared more about education and wanted to keep their children within middle class social groups, and also that schools are middle-class institutions based on the values, principles and methods of the middle classes, making it easier for them to succeed. Cue lots of angry outbursts such as "just cos my family are working class doesn't mean they don't care about education - I'm here now aren't I?" and then sullen looks. Heehee. Just to push them a little further, I brought up Herrnstein and Murray's Bell Curve - the idea that certain groups fare better in society because of their intelligence, which itself is fundamentally genetically determined i.e. some groups are more affluent because the genes of their race promote superior intelligence. They loved this theory, in that it was so ridiculous to them that it sealed the idea that sociological theories of class and educational achievement are all a load of bull.

Good, I am glad I am conveying the learning well.

And finally, my little brother is back from Tanzania. He brought me this back from Zanzibar. If only I was that revolutionary.

Saturday night update

It's pretty late, I should be in bed. I need the sleep for all the work I have to do tomorrow. Work doesn't always mean bad things. For example, I think of piano lessons and gym sessions as work, and I have to do both of those tomorrow, but I like them. However, there is some work that I definitely don't like that I also have to do tomorrow. Lesson planning, yuck. GS Leadership Log, double yuck. Education - Business presentation, triple yuck. If I didn't have to do all the extra work that is associated with the whole TF experience, I'd only be on one yuck, instead of six. Some nice algebra there.

Still, mustn't complain, currently I feel like I can battle all this work, complete it all, tick it off the list, and then spend time gloating and being satisfied that my "to do" list is done. I like this feeling.

In other news then, the inspection, well, terrible. Was 10 mins late for the lesson with my mad Y7s. The groups hadn't been set yet and so it was entirely mixed ability, except by mixed I mean on the one hand kids that can add 7 to a number, and on the other, kids that can barely count or spell the word number. Inspector went to hell and back with his post-lesson chatter. Essentially I think I flopped because I just don't know the kids yet, I don't know where to pitch the level, I don't know who is capable of what, or where to provide extra support. I'd only taught that class four times previously, there were 31 kids in the group anyway, and as a final excuse, well, I had no information on them and we hadn't had a formal maths lesson yet, so of course it wasn't going to be perfect. Still, it felt bad not to have a good opportunity to show off my potential.

Crazy H in my tutor group is being excluded for 3 days next week. His latest offences include kicking other students, threatening to burgle the house of an LSA, and bringing hardcore pornography into lessons. Bless him. I just want to hug him since he's an angel with me and cares about how Spurs are doing. He's really messed up and there's no-one really there to help him. Sad as it sounds, I can't see him lasting to Y11 at this rate.

This morning I woke up with a cracking hangover. The older I get the worse they are. Even if I don't drink that much. Last night was great, lots of good times with various TFers over the night, plus bumped into two old friends too, what are the chances? Obviously today was written off, except I did manage to get some tat for the kids as prizes for next week. Scented highlighters, glitter pens, and lollipops...surely that is incentive enough to try and stay off report all week?

And finally, I missed most of a dinner party tonight, naughty naughty. Was out drinking with the Furies, which I loved for the most part. It's not the same though, there's just too many rocks beneath the waves for it all to flow smoothly. I dunno, I don't want to waste too much emotion on it all, it's time to cut lose and leave it to mend itself. It's weird though, I can feel myself actively pulling away, it's sad, these people were my good friends, but now I find it hard to imagine ever having again what we had had.

So, to bed I guess. To ponder. To ponder is to dream, right? Or have I got that wrong...

Tanaka and Institute of Education Knowledge Days

I've learned a lot in the last three days at Tanaka Business School. Our mini-mini-mini-mini MBA is actually rather interesting.

Thursday was all about strategy - lots of chatter about vision and missions and objectives and internal analysis and external analysis and resources and capabilities and core competencies and gaining a competitive advantage. After 5 hours of intense lecturing and applying the theory to an education case study I am still confused by a lot of it. Nevertheless I got 100% in the multiple-choice test (perhaps evidence that certain assessment strategies aren't always that useful).

Friday was all about marketing. More jargon again. This time it was about creating a marketing strategy based on segmentation, targeting and positioning. There were the three Cs and the four Ps and various other random words here and there. Again a steep learning curve but I found the education case study today a lot easier to get my teeth into. I think this was because I was still enjoying the positive reception my PitPads had received.

Yes, that's right, the PitPads are back. We had to create a marketing strategy for a product and I managed to persuade my group to use PitPads. Lots of excellent marketing ideas and possibilities for the product led me to thinking that perhaps there's hope for the idea after all. However, this has rapidly been dashed since I got home and found out that another name for what I thought was my unique idea is "dress shields", which lots of companies seem to already make. Bugger.

Saturday was all about Finance. A bit of a cheat for me really since it was all about balance sheets, P&Ls, and cash flow statements - stuff I've done at Deloitte already. Very funny lecturer, who complained about his wife's spending habits. When trying to persuade him to buy her a £600 Gucci bag, apparently she said to him that it was "very strong". "So are two Tesco carrier bags put together. And they're free," was his reply. Anyway, enjoyed that quite a lot, and also the afternoon case study on trying to sort out the budget deficit for a fictional school. It was good to see the kinds of ways schools make and spend their money, and how teachers are such a huge expense. Good thing TF is out there providing all these cheap teachers!

All in all, Tanaka was really useful and engaging, at least for me anyway. Shame I don't have thirty grand to spare - an MBA could have been the way forward!

Tomorrow I start my three week summer project with Business in the Community. Just when I was getting used to a holiday!