there was a time...

Time always fascinated me as a young writer...actually as a young person in general. The simplicity of how the second you do something, you can never repeat it in exactly the same way again, absolutely wound my head up. I wrote many a melancholic poem about the passage of time. The inability to go back. I was like an 80 year old reminiscing constantly, but actually living through it.

Now as I sit here on my first official professional summer break, I am wasting copious amounts of time. Although at this point in my life it doesn't feel like 'wasting' time, it feels like I'm enjoying it...because I now know how rare it can be. I'm actually doing a novel study over the summer with a small group of kids. I foolishly picked a book out for them without reading it first, and here I am faced with teaching my old childhood conundrum, understanding time.

My favourite bit from the book so far:

'All of a sudden, I realised that every single minute I've been on this planet since I was born has been just that.'
'What?'
'Time.'
'So?' I said. 'No call to go peculiar, is it?'
'But don't you see? Time isn't anything real. It's only time. So suddenly I saw that all the time that's still to come won't be real either.'

I think the reason I like this so much is because the attitude scares me. And of course because I relate to it. And it reminds me that in September I will have another group of kids to mentor and any one of them could be having thoughts like this. Probably will be having thoughts like this. And it is giving me nightmares.

I don't know if it is because I'm living in London. Where three doors away from me yet another teenager was stabbed to death...for no reason. Where I feel like I have to somehow use everything being shown in the British media to help them grow above that stereotype.

Or if the fear is just that of a new teacher.

Or of someone with too much time to sit around thinking and over thinking.

Or, is it the painkillers I am on after falling down a flight of stairs and severely bruising my tailbone?

Oh....the cliche I could end with here...

the future lOOks bright

I am a temporary entity again!!! I seem to have gotten a little bit side tracked. What with accepting that stupid job and everything. What was I thinking? To be honest, it all came down to the fact that I could WALK to work everyday and avoid the infuriating chaos that is any form of public transport here in Londontown.

I am quite lucky that the school asked me to stay on after my position ended (actually I am lucky that two of the original PPA covers decided to go home to Australia at the exact moment I would have to begin day to day supply work again).

So now I am in search of a position for next year. And to all those people I told I was most definitely going to get a job at my school in September (seeing as 6 people are leaving), I say, please remember that 'assume' makes an ass out of you and me my friends.

Which leads me to the inevitable round of interviews. Or as I like to call it Round 5 in the battle against low self esteem. I went to an interview this week that actually left me physically exhausted (by 11am). You put your whole bloody self out there to get scrutinized and picked apart and then when they call and say 'Sorry you just don't have enough experience', you can't help feel its a form of the 'Its not you, its me' excuse. Rejection is not easy, no matter how it comes at you.

Luckily though I've had plenty to keep myself occupied during the whole process. After pulling my hair out last November participating in a pilot project for marking the national curriculum tests, I decided I enjoyed the pain (money) enough to do it again. I can smile now and talk rationally about it because I only have about 10 left to go (out of 350).

Here are some of my favourite bits...(it can't be illegal if I don't include names, can it??). This is the future of England...(I'm getting out as soon as I can...).

I really, really wanted to give this kid marks. Come on, what a kick ass answer!

Perhaps I should add that these were part of the KS3 tests, that is middle of high school over here. Mmmhhhmm. That's right.

Kit Kat Break

Time off : 2 weeks

(England has school breaks every freaking 6 weeks!!)

Things to do related to school : at least 11

(3 weeks until SATs!!! crazy tests we prepare constantly for, that pretty much mean nothing but that I should nonetheless be preparing lessons for)

Things to do related to myself : at least 8

(all the things I've put off for the past six months to do 'during my break')

Things actually accomplished : 2

(a trip to Sweden and letting Surf the Channel EMPTY MY BRAIN OF ALL RELEVANT MATTER)

Socialising

I have a pretty hard time reading people. I think I'm getting worse with age aswell. This wasn't really a problem when I was just supplying, because, well, I didn't really give a shit about getting to know anybody. Not that I do now, but I feel like I should give a shit for some reason.

I've been in this position for just over a month now. Feels like an absolute LIFE TIME. I've only got 8 weeks left, once you take away all the school holidays they have over here. So...do I really need to make an effort to be friends with the people I work with? I guess technically I don't know anybody over here yet, apart from the people I live with....but that still doesn't convince me that I need to be social.

I haven't felt particularly invited into the teacher clique yet, although, that probably comes down to my shitty ability to read people. And perhaps my lingering teenage afinity to being an outsider. I just don't do groups very well. My goodness, what is it about being a teacher that makes me feel like I'm in high school again? And not in the obvious way...

I spend my lunch hours hidden away in the hole that is my 'classroom', doing work, rather than 'socialising'. Oh! Speaking of my hole, I finally took a picture of it...and of the adjoining classroom so you can get a sense of what I'm really missing out on.

So where do you get to draw the whole work/social line? Is being social a necessity? Especially if you aren't there permanently? Its not like I never talk to people...I'm very friendly and chatty to everyone, when I come out of my den.

Oi....eight weeks and I can get back to supply teaching. I'd like to say the grass is always greener, but then I knew how freaking green it was when I was there.

BOO! ster

So last week I went to sub at a school that was only 20 minutes walk from my house. It was loooOOvely being able to walk to a job for the first time, and not to be crammed on the underground with the rest of London. It was so lovely in fact, that I somehow left the school with a semi-perminent job.

Damn it I love walking!! I'm now cursing that fact though, because I really didn't want a proper job. Not yet anyhow. I had settled quite nicely into the idea of supply teaching all year. At the end of December I was going to a few interviews, feeling around for something that fit, but nothing ever did. Apparently by 'fit' all I meant was close enough to save me a bus fare.

If I'm honest though, it is a pretty sweet job. I am boostering 10 kids in english, math and science. In the UK kids write final exams in those subjects in year 6, and the results of those exams determine what secondary school they go to...sort of. So I am basically working on the same materials as the other year 6 classes, but giving small group support.

Of course after five days there, everything is not so sweet. And this blog wouldn't sound right if I wasn't bitching about something. My classroom is basically a narrow sliver of another much bigger room. They pretty much just stuck a little wall up, and not all the way up, so the giant high ceiling funnels all the sounds from the big class into mine and vise versa.

The teacher in the big room, with her 25 students, popped her head into my nook today and said, "Is it as noisy for you as it is for me?" And for a moment I thought of saying back, "No, no. Your 25 students can barely be heard through that glass wall and empty space above it. Are my ten kids overpowering them so that you can't hear anything??"

I resisted though, smiled sweetly and said something that was only a partial lie.

It's only my first week, after all. There is plenty of time for them to really get to know me...

primary vs secondary

So I have been avoiding supply work in secondary schools, and sticking with the less harmful wee ones in primary (the English apparently don't care what you are actually qualified to teach). I had a feeling, an inkling, a suspicion, a small voice in me, that told me however noisy and shitty primary kids were with substitute teachers, the secondary ones would be ten times worse.

Well, last friday I watched in horror as an interview at a secondary school somehow turned into a 'trial day' which I foolishly allowed to be turned into a 'trial week'. I felt bad for the kids, they'd had fill-in teachers on and off all year, and I hoped that maybe I would be their last. I thought that perhaps going into the class, and letting them know that I would be sticking around for a while might make all the difference in their eyes.

Weeeeeeeeell.......do you think that I could even let the students know who I was? Could I be heard at any point over the mass chatter/screaming/banging/fighting/swearing (and I am not a quiet person myself)? Could I even attempt to introduce a lesson? Could I get a student to turn around and look at me? Or to sit down? Or to get off the tables? Or to turn the lights back on? Or to stop shouting? Turn off the music on their mobile? Stop throwing pencils? Stop punching, pulling, poking, kicking, vandalising? Or at the very least to fuck off out of the damn classroom?

No. Nothing. I was utterly powerless. And even worse off because I was stuck outside the school in a mobile unit with nobody around to help.

Unfortunately it didn't take long for me to resign myself to the fact that this was more of a babysitting mission than teaching.

And I really want to teach secondary. I want to be able to have conversations with students. I want to discuss novels, and interesting characters, and amazing plots. Find out what interests them and who they really are.

Up until now the most interesting conversation I've held with a student in primary went something like this:

Me: Now Kayla, can you tell me why Jeffrey is in the corner crying?
Kayla: No.
Me: He said it had to do with something you did during break time.
Kayla: I didn't do anything.
Me: Can you think really hard for me, just before you came in from break what were you doing?
Kayla: Right before I came in? Oh, well he was standing there with Tosin, and I called Jeffrey Pinky, and I called Tosin the Brain and then I was singing "Pinky and the Brain, Pinky and the Brain, Pinky and the Brain, Pinky and the Brain..." Yeah, you think it was that? Or maybe it was when I called him a poo head.

I thought as the days went on the decisions would be made easier. *sigh*, but they aren't...

decisions, decisions

So I moved to London with the original plan of doing supply work until I felt more settled and familiar with the English school system. Then I was going to look at long term roles, and hopefully get my own class (isn't that what every teacher wants?).

And here in lies Decision #1.

Supply vs Long Term

Supply Pros

1. No planning (HUUUUGE...should count for 5 pros)
2. No serious marking (sometimes I have to check mark completed work...no essays or anything though)
3. No staff meetings
4. No real boss
5. When called in to a school on the morning of (last minute emergency supply), I move as slow as possible, and sometimes miss the whole first hour, but still get paid for the whole day! Should I admit this? Probably not. Will you think less of me? If you do, it will bother me about as much as the secretary who glares at the clock when I finally arrive.
6. New kids everyday...so if one group are shit, it is the last time you will see them and that thought gets you through the day.

Supply Cons

1. New kids everyday...sometimes getting to know them actually helps.
2. Boring lessons left by teachers...I find this is the main reason kids act up with supply teachers. Loooots of teachers are boring. Lots. Or rather, they make their materials as uninteresting as possible. (I suppose they could just be lazy, and end up leaving some last minute easy stuff. Probably what I would do actually...so I can't really knock them)
3. Timesheets. I really hate working through a middle man. That is why I hated office temp work. I hate agencies and I hate getting that bloody timesheet signed every day/week. Pretty weak con I think...
4. Possibility of being stabbed...does this really happen? I've heard lots of stories about kids in London...and to be on the safe side I'm only doing supply work in primary schools. That way if I do get stabbed it will just be in the foot or leg, not any of the major organs.

Long Term Pros

1. Able to do my own creative, fun lessons that students will brag to their friends about so everyone in the school will want to be in my class (don't worry, I'm not that naive, but since I'm not doing it yet, I can dream).
2. Building relationships with students...(and I mean all of them, unlike now, when I learn the names of the five worst behaved students so I can yell at them).
3. Knowing where I am going everyday.
4. Can start getting my QTS (qualified teacher status...which I need if I want to get rid of agencies and still get paid properly!).
5. I'm sure there are more, but I'm getting tired of this post already.

Long Term Cons

1. PLANNING...so I am still naive (yes, in some ways I am), and I like to believe that I will go on and on for years, attempting to create fun and innovative lessons. And this takes alot of time. Alot.
2. Marking.
3. Head Teachers. I really haven't got anything to say against them, I just imagine that one day they will be a pain in the ass for me.
4. Report cards...IEPs...etc

So I'm thinking that if the right long term role came along, I would accept it, but I'm being really picky. And in London, you can afford to be picky. There are more jobs than teachers here. I don't want to travel too far. I don't want to work in a religious school (which for some reason I keep ending up in...and when the kids say "Miss, you have to do prayer now" I laugh, then I catch myself and say "Uh, you can do two tomorrow"). I don't want to work for a dickhead.

And until recently I would have said that I don't want to work in a primary school...but my thoughts are slowly changing....

And here in lies Decision #2

Primary vs Secondary

But I'll leave that for another day...