This close to murder!

If I suddenly walk out of my school never to return it will be because of the meetings.

Last night, after starting school at 8.15 am, and well into the second hour of a meeting which started at 5.00 pm I seriously considered walking out and never coming back.  Not only was the discussion of the pupils of mind-bending vacuity but also there were “other points” which were thrown into the discussion after 120 minutes of tedium.

To my utter horror one of the heads of school started talking about “appropriate” clothing for pupils.  I know, from bitter, bitter experience that such “discussions” are deathly.  As it is nothing to do with the curriculum or anything else important everybody in the meeting has something to say.  They all have opinions – after all who can resist giving their modicum of wisdom about the precise degree of gaudiness that shorts can possess before they become unacceptable!

A remarkable proportion of my professional life has been spent in meetings where such teeth-gnashingly irrelevant topics have been enthusiastically embraced by small minded colleagues as an opportunity to show the Jesuitical complexity of their “educational” thought as they wrestle with length of skirt, or how many buttons of a shirt may be left undone, or what form of earrings are most in accord with Health and Safety Regulations, or what shade is the most acceptable black for trousers or . . . to go on is to court madness.

I could feel my eyes gradually being filled by a red mist and my vocal chords lubricating themselves for a primal scream when, mercifully, this idiot discussion was brought to an end.

But not an end to my sufferings.

We were then (135 minutes into the bloody meeting) given a “paper” about Attention Deficit Syndrome.  Was I the only person in that mini hell who instantly noticed the vicious irony of the situation?  And then, to cap it all, one of my most loathed techniques for destroying brain cells was adopted by the distributor of the paper.  She read it to us!

I sat, very pointedly, with the paper closed; my glasses on the handout and the knuckles of my thumbs pressed either side of my eyes at the top of my nose.  I felt the thrill of cold, hard hatred mixed with the steely fury from which the consequences can be fatal.

I had determined that 150 minutes was my absolute limit and I would walk.

They finished just in time and I was the first out, in my car and calming myself on the drive to Castelldefels.

My tolerance for the absurdity of the way that the school operates is getting less and less.  They get away with absolute murder which in Britain would trigger an immediate strike of the teachers.  But the managers in our school are not vicious, they are not vindictive – they are merely working in an environment in which such things are allowed because no one has told them that they are intolerable.

Another example is that three people are absent in school today and we work on such narrow margins that this causes chaos.  There is no “slack” in the system to provide adequate cover.  The concept of a “supply” teacher is something which is known but not applied.  Because no one makes them apply it.  So far this week (starting last Wednesday) I have lost 2 free periods; have had two classes collapsed into one; will lose another free period and more for a meeting in school time; have spent 2 and a half hours on a meeting after school; have spent 4 and a half hours after school for a prize giving – and the week isn’t over! 

And the pay is truly crap! 

But we are in crisis and people are grateful in my school that they have a job and are in no mood to start agitating for changes to their conditions of employment – especially as my school has “made up” the government imposed reduction in wages as part of their response to the crisis.

One crisis which has passed is the qualification of Barça for the final of the Champions League in London.  A 1-1 draw was enough to send Barça to Wembley with a winning margin on aggregate of 3-1.  Thank God!

To accompany this match we have had thunder and lightning and lashing rain.  My hope is that it will wash away all the remaining pollen and leave my respiratory system uncluttered by yellow particles!

We have now completed a week back in school – and if the remaining weeks are as taxing as this one has been then I am going to need the months of July and August to recover.

My lunchtime and half a free period disappeared in a meeting with a colleague from another school in Barcelona who has been to a whole series of student United Nations meetings in Lisbon, Milan and The Hague.  He was able to give us much needed practical information about what actually happens in these student gatherings.  This is a good thing as the school is sending a dozen pupils to Lisbon to take part in the model United Nations meeting there.

The preparation for these students is supposed to take place in a number of different classes from June to November.  I am going to be part of the preparation and I fear there is a misguided assumption on the part of the school that I will be part of the team accompanying the students to Lisbon.  I have gone out of my way to let as many people as possible know that going on foreign trips with students is Something I Do Not Do, I Have Not Done and Will Not Do.  I am sure that Management have managed to persuade themselves that such a trip is a rather large “perk” – I am Not Convinced.  Still, it will be fun to see how things turn out.

The summer term is the time when the Directora has a meeting with each member staff to find out their intentions for the next academic year and to confirm them in place.

It is likely that there will be no increase in wages this year.  It will be interesting to see if the teaching load is increased.  Each extra period added to an already full timetable is the equivalent to teaching at least one extra week over the year.  I shall wait and see what is offered.  Last year it was only during the shortened introductory week at the beginning of September that we found out what our timetables were.

I thought that the end of last term was a low point for teachers and pupils who felt worn out by the inordinate length of the stretch of weeks that encompassed January, February, March and most of April.  However, the Easter break does not seem to have refreshed people very much and the number of absences is an indication of the low morale which characterises our staff at the moment.

Perhaps we need another weekend for the realization that there are a limited number of weeks left before we can relax properly to sink in.  Hopefully.

We are entering into a season of Birthdays and Name Days which means a frantic succession of trips to town and our related hypermarkets in an increasingly desperate search for appropriate gifts.  Then there is the even more despairing search for the carefully put away wrapping paper which constantly seems to migrate from a sensible place where one would be expected to find it to a quirky hiding place.  And don’t get me started on the sellotape!

Thursday is Terrassa and Saturday Barcelona; Sunday may well be another descent of The Family to celebrate another birthday. 

And then it’s Monday again. 

Sigh!