New Baby # 2

Well I don’t know if good things come in threes or not- but at least for us this month has been a veritable treat.After our lovely holiday in the Canaries and my sweet little Piglet (see below) and buying our tickets to Santana’s concert in Juen,  I got another cutie new prezzy – a Hyundai i20 RED! Now I am really spoilt. Just hope it’s not true what the car salesman said that police stop people in red cars more. We shall see. Meantime I feel that everything is a little incongruous what with all the terrible world news from Haiti and all .It makes me feel a bit Oscar Wilde-ish decadent.

Then I feel what the hell- there are plenty of people more well off than me,right? There will always be people better and worse off than you are in this oh so consumer world Here is a pic of new baby #2

new Baby #2

Adorable isn’t it? Thinking of calling it Rudolf except that sounds a bit too Germanic. All suggestions will be seriously considered…

The school year which was plodding ponderously along seems suddenly to have speeded up ,with the Winter Bagrut upon us and the end of the first semester and the Purim holidays not far away.So can I start dreaming/planning for the summer holidays, and Japan? Of course I can !

Observed a lesson for my student Michal this week,for the first time.

I was actually very impressed with her classroom control and her rapport with the kids, despite her having to deal with multiple disruptions and even a pillar punkt in the middle of her classroom. She did pretty well and my impression was the most of the kids were actually with her and willing to participate.

Hope she sticks it out – she will be a good teacher. I again reflect on the necessity for novice teachers to have some kind of support and mentoring,without which our job is impossible, frustrating and soul-destroying to say the very least. And again I think how nice it will be to retire early… dream ,dream,dream… etc

Musings on the classroom experience

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.

Thoughts on education: summer course

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.

The Internet Maze

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?