It is rapidly becoming apparent that there is sort of fraternity which is composed of those hapless souls who have had dealings with The School That Sacked Me. We recognize each other by a certain look in the eye and the involuntary twitch when the name of the place is mentioned. There must be hundreds of us scattered all across the globe – and it’s time the disaffected walking wounded of that dreadful place made their voices heard. And heard in the right places so that the authorities will have to act.
As usual, my innate sense of optimism triumphs over the hard reality of the last fifteen years – the years that the place has been open. Court cases come and go, but the essential components of a dysfunctional institution remain in place and The Owner endures. But time must have a stop and god knows it’s time for a stop to be put to that place; or at least to the way that it is run.
Grumbles grow and it’s time to put the inarticulate on a more literate level and give voice to justified objection.
Meanwhile back in the real world of my present school, examinations loom and the whole place is convulsed in a collective act of bowed headed adoration of various text books and photocopies.
I am beginning to understand the way the English department here works. This is a school where the vast majority of the pupils are English language learners. Their first languages are overwhelmingly Spanish and Catalan though there is a significant minority with another first language. The teaching of English as a foreign language is fairly rigidly text book based which is a strange form of release from the bondage of virtual text-book free learning which is the norm back in the UK. But using a text book which is closely linked to the external examinations means that when the pupils are tested with what look like fairly ‘open’ questions there is a specific text based answer that the pupils have to get to gain the mark. The ‘answers’ in the teacher’s book are the revealed word of god and must reign supreme over any cavils that individual teachers may have about what might be acceptable in the sight of the examiners.
The lore of the place is being revealed to me bit by bit: I am beginning to understand how the exercises are supposed to work; how much you should tell the pupils about English usage; how far to deviate from The Way of the text book and, most importantly, how much latitude you are supposed to give in the way that pupils express themselves in English.
One sentence that the equivalent of the first year sixth had today in their examination asked them to know that in English a wall is given ‘a coat of paint.’ They had obviously never come across (phrasal verb) this use of the word. Their suggestions ranged from ‘layer’ through ‘carpet’ (one of my favourites) to ‘hand.’ The latter seemingly lunatic suggestion is actually a direct translation of the Spanish phrase, so at least I learned something from the experience!
My first examination marking came after a meeting where I discovered that we mark in quarters of a point, with .25 of a mark being subtracted for the misuse of a pronoun! Strict but fair!
Today has been marked by loss and theft.
The loss was my keys. I have been given a substantial bunch of the things which, as far as I can tell, opens everything lockable in the place. The loss of such a bunch of keys was, potentially, giving anyone finding them access everywhere!
A frantic search of all the rooms that I had been in revealed nothing. No sets of keys had been handed in to the office staff. I was thinking to myself that I had been there barely a week and already I had compromised the whole security of the school.
The keys were, of course, found. They were on the table in the staff room. Clearly in sight and only slightly obscured by the edge of a pencil case. The secretary smiled slightly and nodding her head sighed, “A senior moment!”
The theft was a set of examination papers. Now I do have an excuse. And I didn’t do it deliberately. I blame a third party.
The ‘third party’ in questions is a colleague who with considerable consideration had written out the answers for the examination and then photocopied her original for our use. When I collected all my papers at the end of the day I gathered in all those which looked like mine and the other examination papers looked like mine. That’s my excuse. Luckily another colleague asked about one of my students and I was able to give the result of his recently marked examination. My efforts to locate his paper in my brief case brought to light another set of examination papers which I soon realized were not of my kids.
My telephone call to the other staff room brought a frantic teacher to the phone whose relief that I had taken the papers outweighed (just) her anger that they had been taken in the first place!
Having done enough damage for one day, I decided to go home.
I shall now read ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar and refresh my memory about the book that one of my classes is reading.
Keeps me out of trouble at least!
As usual, my innate sense of optimism triumphs over the hard reality of the last fifteen years – the years that the place has been open. Court cases come and go, but the essential components of a dysfunctional institution remain in place and The Owner endures. But time must have a stop and god knows it’s time for a stop to be put to that place; or at least to the way that it is run.
Grumbles grow and it’s time to put the inarticulate on a more literate level and give voice to justified objection.
Meanwhile back in the real world of my present school, examinations loom and the whole place is convulsed in a collective act of bowed headed adoration of various text books and photocopies.
I am beginning to understand the way the English department here works. This is a school where the vast majority of the pupils are English language learners. Their first languages are overwhelmingly Spanish and Catalan though there is a significant minority with another first language. The teaching of English as a foreign language is fairly rigidly text book based which is a strange form of release from the bondage of virtual text-book free learning which is the norm back in the UK. But using a text book which is closely linked to the external examinations means that when the pupils are tested with what look like fairly ‘open’ questions there is a specific text based answer that the pupils have to get to gain the mark. The ‘answers’ in the teacher’s book are the revealed word of god and must reign supreme over any cavils that individual teachers may have about what might be acceptable in the sight of the examiners.
The lore of the place is being revealed to me bit by bit: I am beginning to understand how the exercises are supposed to work; how much you should tell the pupils about English usage; how far to deviate from The Way of the text book and, most importantly, how much latitude you are supposed to give in the way that pupils express themselves in English.
One sentence that the equivalent of the first year sixth had today in their examination asked them to know that in English a wall is given ‘a coat of paint.’ They had obviously never come across (phrasal verb) this use of the word. Their suggestions ranged from ‘layer’ through ‘carpet’ (one of my favourites) to ‘hand.’ The latter seemingly lunatic suggestion is actually a direct translation of the Spanish phrase, so at least I learned something from the experience!
My first examination marking came after a meeting where I discovered that we mark in quarters of a point, with .25 of a mark being subtracted for the misuse of a pronoun! Strict but fair!
Today has been marked by loss and theft.
The loss was my keys. I have been given a substantial bunch of the things which, as far as I can tell, opens everything lockable in the place. The loss of such a bunch of keys was, potentially, giving anyone finding them access everywhere!
A frantic search of all the rooms that I had been in revealed nothing. No sets of keys had been handed in to the office staff. I was thinking to myself that I had been there barely a week and already I had compromised the whole security of the school.
The keys were, of course, found. They were on the table in the staff room. Clearly in sight and only slightly obscured by the edge of a pencil case. The secretary smiled slightly and nodding her head sighed, “A senior moment!”
The theft was a set of examination papers. Now I do have an excuse. And I didn’t do it deliberately. I blame a third party.
The ‘third party’ in questions is a colleague who with considerable consideration had written out the answers for the examination and then photocopied her original for our use. When I collected all my papers at the end of the day I gathered in all those which looked like mine and the other examination papers looked like mine. That’s my excuse. Luckily another colleague asked about one of my students and I was able to give the result of his recently marked examination. My efforts to locate his paper in my brief case brought to light another set of examination papers which I soon realized were not of my kids.
My telephone call to the other staff room brought a frantic teacher to the phone whose relief that I had taken the papers outweighed (just) her anger that they had been taken in the first place!
Having done enough damage for one day, I decided to go home.
I shall now read ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar and refresh my memory about the book that one of my classes is reading.
Keeps me out of trouble at least!
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