Well now we are back from our amazing trip to Cambodia and Vietnam,guess what the crazy piglet is up to? Yes you guessed it ,dreaming of her next destination. It’s called travelmania, itchy feet and various other derogatory terms.

Anyhow, to anybody interested in my trip account, this is not the place; you can drop by  my virtual tourist page where you will find all the details and pictures.

However what I can say is  that I am in love with Asia. This is definitely partly because it is so different from Europe. But it also has to do with the fact that the travelling there is so cheap, and everything we see there makes us gasp with wonder. Even the madhouse that is Saigon was entrancing. Standing trying to cross the busy roads clogged with motorbikes and feeling like a 3 year old when a kindly Vietnamese comes to help you across is great.

Eating Fish Amok in Phnom Penh Russian market was unforgettable. And standing under an umbrella in the pouring monsoon rains in Angkor Wat to gaze up at the apsara carvings on the temple was wonderful.And having a bee fly up my pants as I cling to the guide on the back of a motorbike,as we bounce down a dirt track on the way to Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, I will not forget that in a hurry either.

Can’t even go into all the other amazing experiences we had there. But, as usual, it is like scratching the travel itch for me, it just made me scream out “more more, I’m still not satisfied”!It’s not just the sights ,smells and tastes which intrigue me either. The people are so different at first glance, and then just like us ,when it comes down to one on one experiences.You pant up the steps in a temple in 35 degrees heat and then smile at someone else doing the same thing,and your shared wordless experience gives you a thrill.Or you smile at someone’s baby in a crowded market and you have an instant bond,if only for a fleeting instant.In Europe you tend to hire a car, and then hubby has to deal with the driving and I do the navigation. End result, hubby doesn’t get to see the view, while I am ooh-ing and ah-ing. Food and sleeps in Europe are expensive,and  you are just one of the hoard of other tourists traipsing around Italy, the UK, Greece,wherever. And if it’s France, you are a stupid foreigner…But in Asia, first of all you are a curiosity to be gaped at and photographed,and especially smiled and nodded at.

So where to next? Probably the Canary Island of Gran Canaria for Hanuka break because it’s the only European destination I can find which isn’t going to be freezing cold.I know it’s 2 flights to get there but after 3 flights each way to Cambodia and back that’s a cinch for us. Gran Canaria looks to have varied landscapes and easy to get around by rented car. Hope it won’t be prohibitively expensive (god I hate the Euro!)Beloved Asia will have to wait till next year. No point in going to China,  Japan or Korea for a week, right?

Well yipee I just noticed it’s already mid June and we are finishing off another school year. And best thing about it is that we are flying out of here June 19th bound for Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s like we waited and waited and suddenly the time had flown by and it’s time to leave.And suddenly I have the panic moment that I have forgotten something: tickets, check visas, check vaccinations, check hotel reservations check. Well I guess when we arrive I will remember what I forgot ,but I really hope it won’t be the camera…

Have just come home from a session with my trainee teacher,and,as after each session with him, I thought a lot about how much I discover I have learned as a teacher during my 29 years.It was amusing to read this New York Times article  about what makes a good teacher, and how people making a career move into teaching in mid career often drop out quickly ,despite their previous job experience. We (teachers) all know that NOTHING prepares you for life at the “chalkface”.
I am not sure that I agree with the statement that you either love it or you don’t, because I frequently find myself both loving and hating it simultaneously on the same day in different classes, or in different situations.
However, there is no doubt that no training course can prepare for the shock of 40 pupils all trying to get your attention at the same time, or alternatively, ignoring you totally.
The tiredness one feels after 7 straight classroom hours is like no other that I know, and that doesn’t improve after 29 years.
Add to that the fact that the majority of teachers on the teacher training courses have not set foot in a high school classroom for some years, and it is clear that you can only learn how to teach by just doing it.

Well we are supposed to be on holiday for Hanuka but it is a little weird when the army suddenly attacks in Gaza and catches you on the hop.  Everyone had been arguing “Barak is demonstrating remarkable restraint” or alternatively claiming that he should  “lay into the Palestinians and show them that we are not wimps and will no longer take the endless Kassam missiles lying down”. I fluctuated giddily from one pole to the other.Because we all know that both sides are right….And then “boom’!

Was it a brilliant political spin to boost the Labour Party’s flagging image in the upcoming elections?Whatever.I find it hard to get upset anymore or even to have an opinion. Must have been here too long.I have been left wing and been disapppointed. I have been more centrist when the Lebanon war (which one,though?) was raging, and now I really don’t know what I think any more,except to quote Catweazle the wizard “Nothing works.”

Sometimes I envy the extremists who think everything is so clear cut and obvious.But I know in my heart that, to quote Edward Heath “There are no quick and easy answers”.

Well it’s been six months since I last posted, and that was inevitable once we got into the swing of the academic year with its whirl of quizzes ,tests, grades to give in etc etc. Of course that’s not to say I haven’t been surfing the  Net, Facebooking ,Skyping, and otherwise wasting my time on Cyberspace.However, I sort of lost sight of all those high minded ideals that I had last year on Sabbatical like:

using the Net in the classroom, innovating all kinds of web projects, international collaborative things etc.I knew it would happen ,but now it has ,I am nevertheless a little downcast. All my lofty intentions gone to waste in the miasma of everyday nothingness.

Just read a really interesting discussion on linkedin group,Edubloggers,where the question was posed “who do we blog for?” and even “What is an Edublogger?” so I ask also “Am I an Edublogger because I talk about education? and who am I actually writing for ?

No idea, and don’t care right now…

Anyway I am sure that if logistically it were simpler to take the kids into the computer room I would do it,but they just make innovation so hard that nobody has the strength to do it,especially after teaching 7 hours straight of rowdy 11th graders.It’s as much as I can do to get home in one piece!

signing off to waste more time on Facebook …

Well here I am back in the school year again… and the sabbatical year is rapidly whizzing off back into the dim and distant past.

I knew that after 2 days back at school it would seem like a whole lifetime away.All those wonderful ,lazy mornings getting up at 9am, having endless coffees out with my friends, idling away evenings at the movies .And now here I am back shouting my lungs out to a bunch of gormless adolescents who are totally oblivious of my presence, and certainly with no interest at all in paying me any attention whatsoever.

Well I have decided to keep my cool ,think of the paycheck and a prospective early retirement and,as my dad used to say “do my little best”.

Anyway, at least the Twelfth grade girls seem really sweet and very happy to do Romeo and Juliet,as long as they can watch the Di Caprio movie,and they really responded very well to the Sonnet we did yesterday, so thank goodness for that! And even the weak 10th are quite manageable,especially since there are only 20 or so of them.So I will make it through till the New year and then hopefully the two nasty classes will stop coming and it will be downhill from there on..

Just came back froma move called “Waltz with Bashir” by Ari Folman about his experiences during the First Lebanon war, and his attempts to come to terms with his inability to remember exactly what happened there, especially at Sabra and Shatilla.

The most impressive thing I felt in this movie was the power of the visual imagery ,and especially the way he uses the animation meshed in with the bits of real documentary footage. It was absolutely amazing. And in addition,he uses all kinds of different music in the soundtrack, from classical to heavy rock.It all works perfectly. The problems of combat soldiers having to deal with trauma and repressed memories have been dealt with many times in the movies, but for me this was a really hard-hitting ,gut wrenching experience, and the unease we feel when we see beautiful scenery in the midst of carnage really conjures up the feelings which young soldiers had to cope with.The dialogue is so typically Israeli too,and the gallery of comrades he presents  us with really rings true too. And then suddenly we see Ron Ben Ishai the Army Radio war correspondent, and Arik Sharon and Begin himself.It was absolutely brilliantly done!

Highly recommended,but not easy to watch in parts…

Okay so here’s the thing. You walk into the classroom.It’s sweltering 35 degrees and the fan is pushing the hot air from one side of the room to the other.You look at the new kids, grades 9 and 10 who have shown up for the summer course, to make it into a better class next year, or because the school demands it of them.

Now you know they won’t learn enough in 10 days to make a difference, and you know that it’s a money- spinner for the school .But you can’t do anything about it….

Some of the kids are really trying hard. I mean they don’t know that New York is a city and not a country but they really are prepared to make an effort. However, once they finish the course and are put in the weak group ,their frustrations will begin to come through. And then,when faced with the Bagrut (matric) paper which is really more of an intelligence test than an English test, they will look to cut corners.I have seen it now so many times,but it still frustrates me. I can’t help them .I can’t change the system.

There are a lot of teachers out there trying to change it , but apparently there are too many “powers-that-be” who stand to make revenue from it and so the chances that we will ever be able to get the Bagrut cancelled are minimal.

On the other hand, it was nice to go back to the classroom after my sabbatical and see that I don’t hate it.I was scared I would not be able to make it through the day, especially as the mercury climbed even higher by 3.45 ,the last period.

Now I am back to earth,having delved into wikis, flat classrooms, cooperative classrooms and suchlike in my virtual life this year, I bumped down to the reality of no air condtioning, no laptops and no freedom to do what I would really like with these kids.

Just a little video that tickled my fancy:

but which is her real one?

The main problem seems to be overload. The more sites you find ,the more you get carried further inward.

I constantly come across wonderful people doing incredibly creative things, saying really insightul things about the use of the Web in the classroom,or the trouble with the Web, or introducing me to fascinating new concepts in language learning. So I bookmark them and surf on. And on.

And it’s endless. There is always another page, another site, another brilliant person waiting to be read.

In fact today I found a splendid blog by a gentleman called Tom Hemingway, an American educator resident in Turkey .Now the thing is one needs time to read his blog and THEN to proceed to read all the wonderful references he gives to other people’s blogs. I mean it’s completely endless.And now I am on Sabbatical so I have time to pursue these things at leisure ,but what will I do when September rolls around?

I also joined the Flat  Classroom Project Ning and Wikispaces with the hope that I will incorporate these things into my teaching next year. But on the other hand, how do I know that I won’t sink back into the miasma of mundane book exercises and worksheets, taking the path of least resistance?