When you live by the sea you become wise in the ways of knowing the seasons.
We pick up those small details which ‘inlanders’ (as we call those who live away from the elemental forces of nature) would miss. Each day I gaze at the sea and sand with practiced eye and make my prognostications.
Today things were different. Inlanders would notice little different. They would see the long shadows of the morning moving slowly across the beach; they would hear the susurration of the breaking waves; they would hear the staccato chirp of the early birds; they would note the tapestry of texture and colour that forms the surface of the sea – but would they be able to tell that summer is truly here?
Things change slowly at the margin of sea and sand, but we dwellers by the watery wastes read the words of the book of nature rather than gazing at the cover like those who live away.
Summer is here. Look closely and you too will see. Look again, what do you see? Look there! Now you see? Welcome to my way of seeing!
Yes, the sun loungers are back in their neat undulating piles waiting for the pasty bodies to fulfil their destiny.
They are lurking at the end of the boardwalk, where, to my astonishment during one day in early autumn, the substantial beach kiosk was totally deconstructed and carted away. When they start rolling refrigerators down the boardwalk to a newly reconstructed kiosk we will know that the real commercial summer has started!
For me the most testing time in my career in teaching in Catalonia is going to begin. Each fine day I will be leaving the beach to go to a beach resort to go indoors out of the sun. If I move the shades on my windows I can see the sea. When I go outside I can see the sea. And I won’t be there, sunning myself on the beach. My reason for coming to the country will be wilfully denied me while I attempt to teach progressively more dehydrated students in the ochre gloom (the sun blinds again) of my room. With windows on two sides and no air conditioning the height of summer is a season of some dread.
The male teachers are expected to wear long sleeved shirts and formal trousers. I also affect a tie, but that is more a function of the fact that I have liberated my extensive collection from the dungeon of Bluespace rather than a desire for sartorial elegance. I wear short sleeved shirts and loosely tied ties and I haven’t worn a jacket since I have been there.
I fear that by the middle of June I will be a Gollum-like figure squelching my way down corridors and leaving wet foot prints behind me!
What news of our august institution? SATs chaos! Ah, how redolent with piquant memories is such a phrase! I think it is safe to say that my experience of SATs was a continuing horror story. Thank god that they have been condemned to the educational dustbin. But not, of course, in our school.
Not only do we have the ‘real’ SATs for the end of KS3 in Year 9but we also have the optional tests in Years 7 and 8 – all bought in (together with their marking) from the UK. Imagine the horror when the papers for Year 7 were discovered to be those of last year. The same year this had been used for the practice paper in our school. O joy! O happiness!
Margaret (as usual) supplied the answer to the problems by drawing on her experience and explaining the mechanics of the examinations. Her knowledge is what the school lacks as the continuing lack of continuity limits the combined knowledge base of the staff involved. Added to this is what seems to be the active encouragement of staff not to talk to each other and you have a situation in which the faults and ignorance of he past is doomed to see itself repeated ad nauseum.
Not only the SATs occur (or not) next week, but also tests for the rest of the school. In preparation for these momentous events we have had to cover all the displays in our classrooms. Everything. Including art displays. Apart from ‘completeness’ I can see little point in it, but then . . . do I really need to finish that sentence. After all, where I work . . . and I don’t need to finish that one either.
Never mind – Eurovision tomorrow!
We pick up those small details which ‘inlanders’ (as we call those who live away from the elemental forces of nature) would miss. Each day I gaze at the sea and sand with practiced eye and make my prognostications.
Today things were different. Inlanders would notice little different. They would see the long shadows of the morning moving slowly across the beach; they would hear the susurration of the breaking waves; they would hear the staccato chirp of the early birds; they would note the tapestry of texture and colour that forms the surface of the sea – but would they be able to tell that summer is truly here?
Things change slowly at the margin of sea and sand, but we dwellers by the watery wastes read the words of the book of nature rather than gazing at the cover like those who live away.
Summer is here. Look closely and you too will see. Look again, what do you see? Look there! Now you see? Welcome to my way of seeing!
Yes, the sun loungers are back in their neat undulating piles waiting for the pasty bodies to fulfil their destiny.
They are lurking at the end of the boardwalk, where, to my astonishment during one day in early autumn, the substantial beach kiosk was totally deconstructed and carted away. When they start rolling refrigerators down the boardwalk to a newly reconstructed kiosk we will know that the real commercial summer has started!
For me the most testing time in my career in teaching in Catalonia is going to begin. Each fine day I will be leaving the beach to go to a beach resort to go indoors out of the sun. If I move the shades on my windows I can see the sea. When I go outside I can see the sea. And I won’t be there, sunning myself on the beach. My reason for coming to the country will be wilfully denied me while I attempt to teach progressively more dehydrated students in the ochre gloom (the sun blinds again) of my room. With windows on two sides and no air conditioning the height of summer is a season of some dread.
The male teachers are expected to wear long sleeved shirts and formal trousers. I also affect a tie, but that is more a function of the fact that I have liberated my extensive collection from the dungeon of Bluespace rather than a desire for sartorial elegance. I wear short sleeved shirts and loosely tied ties and I haven’t worn a jacket since I have been there.
I fear that by the middle of June I will be a Gollum-like figure squelching my way down corridors and leaving wet foot prints behind me!
What news of our august institution? SATs chaos! Ah, how redolent with piquant memories is such a phrase! I think it is safe to say that my experience of SATs was a continuing horror story. Thank god that they have been condemned to the educational dustbin. But not, of course, in our school.
Not only do we have the ‘real’ SATs for the end of KS3 in Year 9but we also have the optional tests in Years 7 and 8 – all bought in (together with their marking) from the UK. Imagine the horror when the papers for Year 7 were discovered to be those of last year. The same year this had been used for the practice paper in our school. O joy! O happiness!
Margaret (as usual) supplied the answer to the problems by drawing on her experience and explaining the mechanics of the examinations. Her knowledge is what the school lacks as the continuing lack of continuity limits the combined knowledge base of the staff involved. Added to this is what seems to be the active encouragement of staff not to talk to each other and you have a situation in which the faults and ignorance of he past is doomed to see itself repeated ad nauseum.
Not only the SATs occur (or not) next week, but also tests for the rest of the school. In preparation for these momentous events we have had to cover all the displays in our classrooms. Everything. Including art displays. Apart from ‘completeness’ I can see little point in it, but then . . . do I really need to finish that sentence. After all, where I work . . . and I don’t need to finish that one either.
Never mind – Eurovision tomorrow!
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