It is not often that one can walk around a school and be met with admiring glances from one’s colleagues and be regarded as a creature of myth made real.
I have been greeted by teachers who I am prepared to swear that I have never seen before whom have said, “You have been here before: you are The Supply Teacher Who Went Before He Started!”
With a modest smile and demurely downcast eyes I had to admit that I was he. My last visit to the school was extremely brief as the headteacher was overruled by the directora who thundered that no supply teacher was necessary and I was to go. So, before Toni had risen from bed I was back home and out of a job!
This time at least, I have made it through the day and even managed to survive a Year 12 lesson on the development of Germany after 1848. My knowledge of the detail of the development of German after 1848 and before the 1930s is, I must admit a little sketchy - rather like my knowledge of either (or indeed both) of Einstein’s theories of relativity. One has a hazy idea of the general thrust and can quote a few facts but one wouldn’t like to explain them to a perky, questioning group of students!
I have been able to get away with a few light, throwaway references to the recently discovered (for me) Erfut Union of 1849 and the appealingly named (though equally abstruse) Capitulation of Olmütz.
I have survived by leading a very general discussion about the state of the states of Europe at the start of the nineteenth century and I am praying that the text books will give me something in the way of facts to bolster up the unsupported verbiage that I have tried to pass off as teaching!
The staff is very welcoming and supportive and the pupils seem to be lively and ready to learn.
The only real problem is whether I have anything to teach them!
I might also add the fact that I am now the Acting Head of History in the School – because I am the only history teacher there!
Who would have thought it!
I have been greeted by teachers who I am prepared to swear that I have never seen before whom have said, “You have been here before: you are The Supply Teacher Who Went Before He Started!”
With a modest smile and demurely downcast eyes I had to admit that I was he. My last visit to the school was extremely brief as the headteacher was overruled by the directora who thundered that no supply teacher was necessary and I was to go. So, before Toni had risen from bed I was back home and out of a job!
This time at least, I have made it through the day and even managed to survive a Year 12 lesson on the development of Germany after 1848. My knowledge of the detail of the development of German after 1848 and before the 1930s is, I must admit a little sketchy - rather like my knowledge of either (or indeed both) of Einstein’s theories of relativity. One has a hazy idea of the general thrust and can quote a few facts but one wouldn’t like to explain them to a perky, questioning group of students!
I have been able to get away with a few light, throwaway references to the recently discovered (for me) Erfut Union of 1849 and the appealingly named (though equally abstruse) Capitulation of Olmütz.
I have survived by leading a very general discussion about the state of the states of Europe at the start of the nineteenth century and I am praying that the text books will give me something in the way of facts to bolster up the unsupported verbiage that I have tried to pass off as teaching!
The staff is very welcoming and supportive and the pupils seem to be lively and ready to learn.
The only real problem is whether I have anything to teach them!
I might also add the fact that I am now the Acting Head of History in the School – because I am the only history teacher there!
Who would have thought it!
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