‘Plug in and play.’

A simple enough phrase usually marking the start of a whole traumatic episode of self loathing and total frustration as you begin to realise that the phrase has no relationship with truth.

It was with trepidation that I attempted to use a computer projector with my maths class. The bulb on my OHP has blown and there is no replacement. At all. Probably ever.

So no OHP then. Unless I buy a bulb myself and attempt the squaring of the circle by trying to get my school to reimburse me for the cost. This is not how Things Are Done. If you take the initiative by short circuiting the Byzantine processes that have to be completed before anything can be bought. There is also the problem of who will pay, even if I considered getting spare bulbs through the Normal Channels.

In our school there are co-ordinators who have monthly budgets. These have to be spent during the month. I seem to remember viering or vireing (or however it was spelled) money, which meant that you were able to save money from one month and put it together with money from another month to buy something which would have been impossible to buy in one month. This is not allowed here. Budgets are jealously guarded. My OHP exists outside the normal subject allowances. It is a financial orphan with no parent prepared to pay the maintenance. I will, yet again need to find a sneaky way through the logical gates on impenetrable financial obduracy. Or cheat. Is that the same thing?

In desperation I turned to the computer projector. In the best traditions of professional teaching I waited until the class were sitting in front of me before I attempted to make the machine work.

And it did!

I linked it to my laptop and it worked. It was a delight even if the area around my desk looked as though a patient was undergoing major surgery with power cables going everywhere.

In my shocked experience young school kids have a primary urge to ‘touch base’ or get up to check that the person they can see from their seats is actually the same person in reality as their teacher. This can only be achieved by the sceptical pupils getting up from their seats and making a pilgrimage to the front of the class and demanding a close contact response to a question directed to the teacher irrespective of what he might be doing or saying at the time.

With such a flow of pupils (nailing them to their seats being regarded as dated educational thinking) the multiplicity of power lines will lead, inevitably, to expensive disaster.

On the other hand it isn’t my money.

So many things to weigh up!