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...

author-ity

So I have a small problem with authority. Well, not so much authority itself, but people "with" authority who feel that it is their place in the world to speak in condescending tones when approached by "lowlier" peoples. Unfortunately as a supply teacher, I've found that I'm prone to experience this tone frequently. Part of the reason I became a teacher was because I had put up with so much crap as an office bitch while temping my way around the world.

I simply wasn't expecting it as a teacher. I guess people look at supply teachers as people who can't get proper jobs? Or something along those lines...whatever it is, apparently it leads inevitably to them assuming you are somewhat incompetent.

Last week I had mopped up a huge puddle by the water station in a nursery class, but the floor was still dangerously slippery. I asked another teacher for a rag to get the remaining water with, and she responded by picking up the mop and saying "This is what we use to clean up water, dear." Oh really?? Thanks so much, I've never seen one of them contraptions before.

I guess some teachers are so used to ignoring their kids that they also ignore anything the fill-in support people say. Or so it would seem...

i'm a mAkeshift teacher

I tried doing the blog thing a few years ago. I think my livejournal ended up with two entries. However, since I started supply teaching a few weeks back, I've found that I come home and prattle on to my partner for well over an hour without taking a breath. So when every single day is just a wealth of stories waiting to be shared with people over the age of ten, a blog seemed to be the next logical step. We'll see how long this one lasts.

So I guess technically I'm new to this world. I finished teacher's college at home in Toronto in June and moved to London (UK) in September. Since then, I've technically only done - hmmm, let me just count up the time sheets neatly tucked in my brand new file folder - eight days of supply work. I know, two months and only eight days of work, I swear I'm not shit, we just had issues with living arrangements, then I got sick, then it was half term, then we decided to hop on the back of a friend's truck and drove through France for a bit. But now I'm properly committed.

And so we begin.

With so many thoughts swimming through my head, I hardly even know where to start. But I would like to start by being a bit cliched and saying that karma is a fucking bastard. I don't have a fantastic memory for things that happened in the past, in fact many would say I have absolutely no memory what so ever. One thing I do remember however, is that I wasn't a particularly shit-raising child in class during my early years (bar eighth grade...I was a wicked little bitch that year). I'd like to think I was fairly well behaved all the time. Except, (I would say with confidence that this applies to absolutely everyone), when there was a supply teacher in the room.

And things haven't changed much in twenty years. Not that I expected them to. An unfamiliar teacher in the room has meant, and will always mean, through the eyes of a child, that you have a free day. The teacher doesn't know your name, doesn't know how things work and technically can't really do all that much to you if you decide to hold a social party in the middle of mathematics.

Now I have willingly come into this job knowing all of this. What shits me though, is when I arrive at a school and the teacher I am going to cover is in the class, and s/he tells me that her kids are really absolutely fantastic and that there really isn't even one of them that will cause me any trouble. Now this absolutely shits me, not because s/he is talking rubbish, but because for some unknown reason I actually believe them!! I actually fall for it every time, and I think, wow, maybe today will go smoothly. Maybe today, I will leave for home without a sore throat from 'talking' over kids. Maybe today I will have a class full of kids who will beg me to stay because they love me so much. Maybe today...maybe today...and that is when the classroom door flies open, Liam or Kaito or Aaron runs in, and in a matter of minutes, 36 rulers are scattered across the floor, six books have been knocked over, three chairs have been flung around and I've been given the finger.


That happened this morning. Welcome to my world.