A full day of teaching. No frees. Just small noisy kids for hour after hour.
And a colleague was absent, so we two remaining Year 3&4 teachers had to split her class and take an extra contingent into our own classes.
At one point I ran out of chairs and, as the day progresses I swore that the little buggers were actually reproducing themselves. They certainly seemed to expand in numbers as the hours ticked by.
The only thing which keeps my sanity is that we are teaching sixteenth century Spanish history and have centred out attention on The Spanish Armada.
I am very much taking the ‘plucky little Protestant Britain takes on the overwhelming might of the arrogantly Roman Catholic repressive autocratic Empire ruled by the megalomaniac Philip II’ sort of unbiased approach to the teaching of this sensitive subject. As I have a class comprising Spanish, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, British, Turkish and Argentinean children with relatives which take in a variety of other nationalities, it ensures that it is impossible not to offend someone in however a professionally non partisan way you attempt to teach the subject!
Added to this is the incessant refrain of my name as twenty or more little voices vie for my undivided attention and then the almost unbearable tension as I listen to fractured English attempts to add some completely irrelevant contribution to whatever ‘discussion’ we happen to be having.
My wrong headed encouragement of my English class to use dictionaries more means that as I introduce some subject or other little hands will go up. And believe me primary school children have hands up staying power. You can ignore the waving appendages for what seems like hours and, undaunted they will maintain their dogged stance seemingly knowing that they will outlast your callous indifference to their arms’ suffering. And, of course they are right. You do always give in.
And when you give in and ask them for their contribution they inform you with glee that they have found the dictionary definition of a word that you used fifteen minutes earlier! In spite of your incredulous dismissal of this pointless interjection, it encourages everyone else to start looking for their own words and soon a rash of hands is waving about like a nightmare crop of human limbs. It is at this point that an overwhelming desire for a large scythe comes unbidden to the mind of the caring teacher.
On the lunacy front, The Owner has instituted a locked door policy. Ostensibly this is to ‘protect the children’ from outsiders gaining access to the main school. Its actual raison d’etre is to separate teaching staff from the administration.
At the end of school today, one of my kids was complaining that her sprained ankle was hurting her and she wanted to call her mother and go home rather than stay on and participate in our of the ‘clubs’ that members of staff are forced to run after the kids have finished school. The normal way for primary school kids to leave the premises from my room is along a corridor, down a double flight of stairs, across a playground, up a steep slope and out to the exit gate. Alternatively they can walk along the same corridor then walk through a doorway and out into the entrance foyer. For a child with an injured foot, the second way is obviously the better.
But not with a locked door. Phoning from the head teacher’s room on the other side of he locked door was futile as one phone in administration was constantly engaged and the other only led to the voice mail! The situation was eventually solved: not by the door being opened but by a member of staff carrying her the first way on her back! I felt a momentary pang of macho guilt at a foreign colleague usurping my duty of care, but my thoughts were still operating on the British level where the piggybacking of a child up and down stairs would be health and safety professional suicide!
While we were waiting on one side of the locked door we joined a tots’ teacher with her little brood. They were stranded on the wrong side too and were unable to get to the buses that were supposed to take them home!
Situation normal – again!
On a more positive note I have drunk all the cough mixture, towards the end of the bottle upending it and draining it with gusto. And I haven’t coughed as much! I trust that this bout of illness is at last fading away to mere inconvenience.
And the weekend is only two days away.
And a colleague was absent, so we two remaining Year 3&4 teachers had to split her class and take an extra contingent into our own classes.
At one point I ran out of chairs and, as the day progresses I swore that the little buggers were actually reproducing themselves. They certainly seemed to expand in numbers as the hours ticked by.
The only thing which keeps my sanity is that we are teaching sixteenth century Spanish history and have centred out attention on The Spanish Armada.
I am very much taking the ‘plucky little Protestant Britain takes on the overwhelming might of the arrogantly Roman Catholic repressive autocratic Empire ruled by the megalomaniac Philip II’ sort of unbiased approach to the teaching of this sensitive subject. As I have a class comprising Spanish, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, British, Turkish and Argentinean children with relatives which take in a variety of other nationalities, it ensures that it is impossible not to offend someone in however a professionally non partisan way you attempt to teach the subject!Added to this is the incessant refrain of my name as twenty or more little voices vie for my undivided attention and then the almost unbearable tension as I listen to fractured English attempts to add some completely irrelevant contribution to whatever ‘discussion’ we happen to be having.
My wrong headed encouragement of my English class to use dictionaries more means that as I introduce some subject or other little hands will go up. And believe me primary school children have hands up staying power. You can ignore the waving appendages for what seems like hours and, undaunted they will maintain their dogged stance seemingly knowing that they will outlast your callous indifference to their arms’ suffering. And, of course they are right. You do always give in.
And when you give in and ask them for their contribution they inform you with glee that they have found the dictionary definition of a word that you used fifteen minutes earlier! In spite of your incredulous dismissal of this pointless interjection, it encourages everyone else to start looking for their own words and soon a rash of hands is waving about like a nightmare crop of human limbs. It is at this point that an overwhelming desire for a large scythe comes unbidden to the mind of the caring teacher.
On the lunacy front, The Owner has instituted a locked door policy. Ostensibly this is to ‘protect the children’ from outsiders gaining access to the main school. Its actual raison d’etre is to separate teaching staff from the administration.
At the end of school today, one of my kids was complaining that her sprained ankle was hurting her and she wanted to call her mother and go home rather than stay on and participate in our of the ‘clubs’ that members of staff are forced to run after the kids have finished school. The normal way for primary school kids to leave the premises from my room is along a corridor, down a double flight of stairs, across a playground, up a steep slope and out to the exit gate. Alternatively they can walk along the same corridor then walk through a doorway and out into the entrance foyer. For a child with an injured foot, the second way is obviously the better.
But not with a locked door. Phoning from the head teacher’s room on the other side of he locked door was futile as one phone in administration was constantly engaged and the other only led to the voice mail! The situation was eventually solved: not by the door being opened but by a member of staff carrying her the first way on her back! I felt a momentary pang of macho guilt at a foreign colleague usurping my duty of care, but my thoughts were still operating on the British level where the piggybacking of a child up and down stairs would be health and safety professional suicide!
While we were waiting on one side of the locked door we joined a tots’ teacher with her little brood. They were stranded on the wrong side too and were unable to get to the buses that were supposed to take them home!
Situation normal – again!
On a more positive note I have drunk all the cough mixture, towards the end of the bottle upending it and draining it with gusto. And I haven’t coughed as much! I trust that this bout of illness is at last fading away to mere inconvenience.
And the weekend is only two days away.
Roll on
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