On Sunshine

The spring is now officially here. We’ve changed the time, the sun is shining, the birds are singing – although none of them are coming to my brand new bird feeder Paul got me cause the goldfinches in his parents’ garden kept stubbornly refusing to feed when I was watching.
Last weekend we’ve spent a few glorious hours in the garden playing Scrabble – the initial plan had been to go fly our kite, but Paul’s foot does not yet allow for him running.
And in just 5 days I will be in Aix, sipping Pastis on Papi’s balcony warming my bones in the Provencal sun.

In the meantime, however, it’s the last week of school and last week of school means that try as you might, they will not co-operate. My lovely year 7s today were totally appalling when all I wanted them to do was a brief exercise summing up the most frequent mistakes I found in their books, which was supposed to be followed by a film. Yeah right. The film didn’t happen, cause the exercise didn’t either. I ended up going with them to their registration after school and having the Head of Year give them a proper bollocking. To my lovely year 7s. Seriously.

But then in my Year 9 Spanish group I have this boy with ADHD, whom I used to be sending with work to the Behaviour Manager every lesson, cause he made it absolutely impossible for me to teach. And lately he’s been just lovely. Yes, still fidgeting and still problematic but doing all his work and nothing compared to what it had been before. The Behaviour Manager would not believe me when I told him how good he’d been. And today they were doing posters about Spain using words of their choice and he came up with this absolutely amazing piece of work that I’m definitely going to laminate and put up on my wall. When I told the Behaviour Manager, he said that I must be doing something right, cause he gets just complaints from all his other teachers. That’s a lovely thought and it made me feel really good about myself for a while. But then I realised that Spanish being their second language, I have 15 of them, not 30, so I have time to give the boy all the attention he needs. But then again – it’s probably also because it’s the right kind of attention. So it could be not only about the group size. Maybe I am doing something right!

Hell has officially frozen

I had fun with my vile year 9. Actual fun. I’m not being sarcastic.
I had a game prepared for them, not for the first time, but for the first time I actually had an alternative worksheet in case they wouldn’t let me go through with the game like before.
But they did.
And we had fun.
They had fun.
I had fun.
The lad who assaulted me and is a pain in each and every lesson had his hand up all the time.
The lad who has learning difficulties and can never be bothered had his hand up all the time.
The girl who thinks that a lesson is where she can socialise with her friends squeaking and squirming and being all over the place stayed put and had her hand up all the time.
The girl who never says one word, always sits alone and doesn’t like being talked to had her hand up all the time.
Some of them came up to me and said ‘Miss, I didn’t win’. To which I invariably replied – ‘You did. You’re a bigger winner than the ones who actually got the prizes.’
Cause they did.
And I did.
And we had fun.
Together.
After the lesson, I went to the staffroom and sat there staring blankly at the wall for good ten minutes in a genuine state of shock.
I had fun with my vile year 9.
Miracles officially happen.

The 'Spring Weakness'

The weather is nice, you have a loving boyfriend, a good even if difficult job, you’re learning new things, making plans and putting them into motion, you just made a new friend you get to see on a regular basis and are finally feeling less lonely, you name it, life is great and the future looks bright and sunny too. Yet, for some reason, you don’t enjoy it, worse, your eyes tear up constantly without any warning and without any apparent reason.
You think it must be cause you’re exhausted. After all the job is difficult and your chest is still rather painful as you have not yet fully recovered from your accident and recovering itself is a process needing more energy then you have given that you’re working.
Yes, sure, but it doesn’t explain it.
Ok, then it’s because, due to the said accident and the said chest, you haven’t been to the gym in a month – hence, instead of sweating the frustration out, you’re crying it out.
Yes, sure, but it still doesn’t really explain it.
Oh bollocks, you think, maybe you’re actually not that happy, maybe there’s something really wrong but you don’t see it yet if not subconsciously hence crying without apparent reason?
Oh boy. What is it then? What is it? Have you chosen a wrong career? Is the relationship not as good as you think? No? Maybe? What is it? You think about it, you talk about it, you make tiny inconveniences into huge problems, you start crying even more, vicious circle really.

And then your mother calls you. ‘Dear’ she says ‘I’m calling to check on you cause you must be in full spring weakness. Are you eating properly?’.

Right.
Apparently, according to Mother (but I’m sure she’s learnt from some serious and reliable source), in winter many vitamins and minerals get washed out of your body because they need sunlight to be absorbed properly. It gets worse if you’re not eating properly (and Mother being Mother knows that when I’m overworked I don’t eat properly). Some of these vitamins and minerals (can’t remember which ones, but I can ask Mother if you care to know) are apparently really important for mental and emotional processes in your system.

So I went and bought loads of veg and fruit and juices, vitamins and high-protein foods for an extra kick. And made a point of exposing self to sunlight.

And guess what – I’m happy. Yes, I’m still in pain, I’m still frustrated by the whole work situation, still in a desperate need of physical exercise, but happy.

To think I was worried I was getting clinically depressed!

It’s all in the fruit people. Take my word for it.

Wherever I end up in September, it will be a holiday

When a visit to the dentist’s is the highlight of your day, something’s definitely wrong.
I’ve had two unusually nice days at work, probably because of the training on Monday that made me miss out on one of my year 9s. But yesterday and today were just dreadful, year 9s, year8s, year 10s, you name it. If it wasn’t for year 7s I would seriously start questioning myself as a teacher.
At lunch break, I was sitting in Tabitha’s car, smoking a cigarette and ranting, feeling that I don’t want to go back to school, I can’t go back to school, please don’t make me go back to school.
My mentor meeting was all about me not being able to keep it together.
And everyone says it’s not me, it’s them. According to Ute, my mentor, I’m actually doing really good (sic!). And I know it is them, but I can’t help thinking that I’m failing. Cause I’m fighting and fighting and nothing changes. Cause when you have a group of 30 and 25 of them are playing up, there’s not much you can do really.
Every day, after school, my classroom looks like a battlefield.
First thing I do every morning is put my display into some order all over again and sort kids’ books into neat piles all over again.
And yes, this is a rough school and the kids are more difficult then elsewhere. But then, I have the same kids in my Spanish lessons, and those are all right, not perfect, not easy, but not dreadful to a point when all you want to do is sit down and cry.
The difference?
Well, there’s 30 of them in my German classes, and 15 in Spanish. There’s your difference. So maybe the important people up in London, who came up with the wonderful yet unrealistic policies of Every Child Matters and Personalised Learning, should go back into a classroom and see for themselves. How the f*** do you want me to cater for the needs of each of my students if I have 200 of them? How the f*** am I supposed to give attention to each and every one of them when I have 30 of them in a classroom? Maybe instead of putting shitloads of money into rebuilding schools, you should just build new ones, create more teaching posts, and reduce the number of kids in each class? Cause as it is, I am not teaching. As it is, I’m just growing more frustrated each day. And I seriously would not mind working in an old building with smaller classrooms with less modern equipment if that meant I had less kids in each lesson and could teach each and every one of them instead of hoping that the good ones learn something inadvertently while I waste my energy on shouting at the rest of them just to keep them in their seats.

Common courtesy

While I was planning my lessons for tomorrow, GG (which is a Polish chat programme) informed me that my sister was online. I had not spoken to her in ages so I promptly sent a message. The conversation went as follows:
‘Hi there Fatty!’ (It’s a pet name, the whole family calls her that, probably because she’s always been skin on bones)
‘Hello Skinny’ - that surprised me a bit, but I didn’t think much of it.
‘How are you?’
‘Depends what you’re asking about’
‘Am asking in general’
‘And who are you? I don’t talk to unknown Skinnies’ - I thought that my contact info had disappeared from her GG while she reinstalled it or something, so I replied:
‘Your sister, dummy, how many people call you Fatty?’
‘Who?’
‘Your older sister. The one who lives on the other side of the Channel.’ - how many sisters did my sister think she had?
‘Should I whack you or fuck your face up?’ – WHAT?
I proceeded to apologising politely to the apparently unknown person I had messaged thinking they were my sister but insisted that the language was uncalled for. The apology was accepted, the person apologised for the language and explained that they always reacted like that to unknown contacts.
Ah, common courtesy.
Needless to say, I’ve deleted what I thought was my sister’s contact info from my GG…

Back to school

I went back to work this week – not that I felt particularly ready to, but being paid through a supply agency means mainly that if you don’t work, you don’t earn. No sick pay for me. So I went back.
I should I have probably taken a few more days off but, in the same time, I think that I’m recovering faster now that I can’t lick my wounds at ease and have to suck it up and do what I have to do.
I decided to tell the kids the truth about my absence, simply because I needed them to understand why I ask them to move things that are within my reach for me or lean forward to cough (‘Oh, miss, you can bend over whenever you want, you know!’ – ‘Have I made it clear that I can’t laugh either, dear?’).
(But the worst bit is sneezing. If you ever suffer from a seat belt injury, whatever you do, do not sneeze. I did. It took me around 10 minutes to get over it.)
The general reactions to my return were heart warming – ‘Oh, miss, good you’re back, it was boring!’, ‘Miss, I missed you!’, ‘Miss, miss, where have you been?’. But, unfortunately, even if I do not doubt that the intentions were sincere, the reality of my come back to the classroom did not reflect all those warm feelings with the exception of my Vile Year 9 who were unusually good and cooperative. I have however no illusions that they will be back to their ‘best behaviour’ in no time. Like today.