Intellectual Bohemian

Over the course of the last few weeks my socks have become the source of much interest and amusement. As has become tradition I was given socks for Christmas from my Hazel’s parents, Hazel also bought me a pair of very loud stripy socks from Marks and Spencer, and I have a pair which Hazel hand knitted for me.

In the first week back in school after Christmas, I did the usual thing of wearing my new socks. The pair I had gotten from Hazel’s parents, a lovely green pair with subbuteo players on the, were worn on the Monday, sadly they were not noticed by anyone, although this is not a reflection of the quality of socks. The next day, Tuesday, I wore the red stripy ones I had gotten from Hazel, these were noticed, by numerous staff and loads of pupils. The general comments were that although they were loud, they were very cool.

So the next day I wore the pair Hazel had knitted for me, these are variagated colours of reds and browns. The pupils were now on the look out and spotted these socks, which I had worn numerous times before, but now they were extra cool. So much so one of them wanted to know where I had got them from, I told him that my wife had made them for me as a gift. He was awestruck, I am so lucky, he proclaimed, he wishes he had a wife that would make him socks like that.

At first I took this to be him being polite and kinda inquisitive, but in every lesson since he has been begging me to get Hazel to knit him socks like that, and has been singing the praises of my socks to other pupils. For the last two weeks all my lessons with his year group have begun with pupils asking what socks I am wearing! Ah, I have always wanted to be a man in demand … I just never thought I would get that quality for my socks!

I’m back! and it’s now 2008.

I am setting my self a new resolution for this new term and new year, to blog at least twice a week from now on. This is for my own good and also at the request of a couple of my students who have also asked me when I will be starting again.

Term started today, the teachers look bleary eyed and the pupils are keen and eager. It seems to be a general mixture of excitement of seeing friends again and tiredness of having to get up early.

At the school Christmas service I was down one reader due to the Sixth Form being dismissed early, and it was proving difficult for me to get another one. During one breaktime I approached a few pupils in the playground to find someone to read, most said no. Then whilst I was asking a “good” pupil to read, one of his friends, a less reputable friend at that, said he wanted to read. I explained that he would have to read in front of the whole school and that he had to read well but none of this put him off. I, however, was still rather apprehensive about giving the reading of Jesus’ birth to this unreputable disorganised pupil at the school Christmas Service. So I told him that the first practice would be in my room at 8.15am the next morning, then again after school. I fully expected him to forgot and not bother, so I then proceeded to try and find another reader.

Low and behold, 8.15am arrives and he come running through the door to my classroom. He apparently had forgotten but had sprinted from home to get here on time. I was still unconvinced about giving him a reading. So I gave him a practice sheet and told him we would practice properly after school. Thinking that that would put him off. But once again I was proved wrong, he turned up prompt and practiced, having apparently practiced by himself through lunch.

The penny finally dropped for me at this point, I decided I would give him a try, he was obviously dedicated and keen. The service came on, and he did really well, he read clearly and meaningfully, so much so that he was even praised by his friends, he was beaming ear to ear as he left school.

I realise now that I was really slow to grasp his potential, but in my defence, before the service started he was actually asked to move from the reader’s seat by two different teachers who were certain he was sitting in the wrong place or trying to cause trouble.

This morning I processed is commendation certificate on the school computer system and noticed that it was the first positive entry on his record for two years, I was feeling warm inside, I felt even better when he came and saw me later on to thank me for letting him read.

I have slipped out of the habit of blogging again, and it became harder and harder to start again. So I am taking this opportunity to write a post whilst waiting in school.

Tonight is the school open evening, where prospective parents come round the school to see if they would like to send their son here next September. The idea is that they look round the potential schools in the area to see which ones they like and then state their preference on their application for secondary school. In principle it seems like a good idea, but we are likely to receive 500 applications for 120 places, so in the end it may not make a great deal of difference.

The evening starts at 6pm, with staff needing to be here early, so I have chosen not to go home in between school and the open evening. This way I maximise my rest rather than sit in traffic, but what that does mean is that I left for school before 7am and won’t get home till about 9.15pm. It will be a really long day!

But at least I have nothing planned this weekend so should be able to spend it with Hazel and the cats.

I am pledging online to try and blog three times a week. Please tell me off if I fail.

I have been marking some exams recently and some of the answers have made me laugh out loud so I thought I’d share them with you.

Question: How can you support pacifism?

Pacifism is really bad and no one can support it. Pacifism is the cause of terrorism, torture and all the bad things in the world …

Question: What do Christians think about Euthanasia?

Christians are completely opposed to euthanasia. This is because the bible says “Do not commit adultery.” If we allow euthanasia to happen we will be allowing people to commit adultery. It is very bad.

All I can say is at least they are trying, but I’m glad i’m not their teacher.

I recently had a rather weird incident occur where a group of students got rather passionate about RE.

I had been teaching a group of Year 7’s about Old Testament Prophecy. The previous lesson we had looked at the personal qualities that some of the Major Prophets had shown through their lives. The students then had to take this information and turn it into a job advert for a prophet focussing particularly on what qualities the prophets would need to have.

Unfortunately, the pupils’ homework were very lacking in both thought and effort. As a result I turned the lesson into a recap of that homework, to make sure they but both thought and effort into it. I really berated a few of them who put limited effort into the work. I left it at that and thought that the matter was closed.

I then had to teach another class before lunch. On the way to lunch I walked passed the office of the Deputy Head, and found one of the pupils from my class sitting there, looking very sheepish. I asked him what had happened:

• Me: What you doing here then?
• Pupil: Got into a bit of a fight sir.
• Me: Why and with whom?
• Pupil: Well after we left your lesson sir, we were lining up outside our next lesson, when M turned round told me that my RE homework was “S**T!”, so I punched him.
• Me: You punched him!
• Pupil: Yeah, I punched him in the face … he’s got a black eye now.
• Me: But why did you hit him?
• Pupil: He called my work eh eh crap sir!
• Me: But it was … wasn’t it?
• Pupil: Well yeah, but I didn’t like hearing it.
• Me: I am glad that you care so much about RE, but next time try not punching someone over it please.

See my pupils do really care about their RE! or is it that they don’t coz the work wasn’t good in the first place? … I all confused!

On a separate note Simon and myself were interviewed by Chris via Skype for the Virtual Staffroom Podcast on the success of our recent wiki. The praise for it and the students is still coming in daily and we have both been taken aback by how much praise there has been. I would like to thank Simon for his help and taking the initiative in making contact, and all the pupils involved for the hard work and high achievement.

Things on the Flat Planet are going really well. The first week was a little slow, the previously mentioned web problems didn’t help, but is going and growing fast now. The first week was spent mostly with the pupils getting to know each other and learning how to use it. It seems that we really underestimated the time this would take as according to the schedule the groups should be a little further along by now, but we have allowed an extra week at the end for consolidation and formatting. The pupils are really growing in enthusiasm and time put into the project and keen to excel.

Running in parallel to this I have set up a sister wiki for a lower ability class to measure the difficulties in doing the project with mixed ability and lower ability teaching. The main issue seems to be breaking the task down enough and keeping the pupils on task enough to do enough work. The pupils’ enthusiasm is growing more and more, they are in teams and as such seem to be moving each other along. Their academic styles and ability isn’t there as much as with the higher ability class, but they are definitely learning and exploring the topic thoroughly.

On a separate note a pupil of mine offered a favour to me. A gaming shop near his house was closing down and they were selling all games for £10 and he offered to get me any game I wanted. I felt really proud of being thought of an asked. Mind you this is the same pupil who thought of me when David Prowse, (Darth Vader), was coming to visit his Youth Club, and managed to get by 1977 first edition paperback of “A New Hope” signed by him for me.

I have also received some potentially good news, but I will post more about that in about two weeks time.

All in all, it’s been a very good day … and it’s only Monday.

The Flatplanet Wiki is now running, several discussions have commenced and there have been numerous posts on the blog. The pupils seem enthusiastic and energetic towards the project and it all seems to be in place now.

BUT there is a problem. As I may have mentioned before there were issues in getting the urls unblocked on our school network, (It took the IT guys about a month to get it finally unblocked), well now it turns out that the sign in pages and help pages are all blocked. So whilst pupils can view the pages they can’t log in to edit them at all.

Aargghhh! I was trying really hard to make sure that the IT problems didn’t get in the way. And it looks like some sort of update over the holidays as spoilt things, temporarily at least.

But as I said one step back, but two forward. The enthusiasm and energy of the pupils more than make up for the problems and fingers crossed the problems get sorted out soon so it all works well from school and from home.

Coming soon to an MP3 player near you …

Intellectual Bohemian, the Podcast, called “Intellectual Bohemian Speaks”

The aim is to deliver a weekly show on things happening in my life. These should cover:

• My adventures and encounters whilst teaching,
• My views on “life, the universe and everything”,
• Things happening in my life and family,
• Christianity, specifically, related to homilies, services and assemblies that I give in school, and other issues and reflections relating to Christianity.

I hope the first show should be up and running in the next week. This should also coincide with the start of a new term in school, and the launch of the FlatPlanet Wiki and Project.

Hope to be “speaking” to you soon