C'est quelle couleur?

We're learning about the colours:

Red is rouge, blue is bleu and so on.

I give them 'colour sums':

rouge + bleu = ?

jaune + bleu = ?

blanc + rouge = ?

The activity is engaging and they get all the answers right: violet, vert, and rose.

So far, so good.

The next one pops up onto the slide:

noir + blanc = ?

M's hand shoots up: marron!

Odd. He's got them all right so far. Why does black and white make brown? I don't get it...

It took me a while to understand, but he's not wrong.

Boots. Too. Big. Their. For.

An odd phenomenon's a-rising,

And I have found it most surprising.

It coincides with the creation

Of special 'Learning Conversations'.

For every child, a certain time,

A different day, quarter to nine,

They meet and talk, discuss and chat,

About their lessons, this and that.

Their tutor does not sit and judge,

Their tutor's not to bear a grudge,

But is instead required to ask,

"Why do you think you go off task?

Why do you find this class is bad?

What are successes that you've had?

Do tell me, Bobby, how you feel,

I'm paid to listen to your spiel!"

The child talks, says that and this,

Explains detentions that they've missed,

Thinks up excuses for their work:

"This teacher really is a jerk.

I don't get on with them at all,

So if I fail it's not my fault."

The problem comes with tutors who

Just shrug and say "what can you do?"

And leave the kids with the impression,

That having made a weak confession,

They are absolved of doing work,

For teachers they think are "a jerk".

Then when confronted in a lesson,

The student spits back with aggression,

"Allaaaii! I don't get on with you, you know,

My tutor says you go too slow,

I'm G & T - differentiate!

You gotta challenge me, yeah mate!?"

Losing it

Sometimes you can't rise above it. It's impossible to avoid feeling genuinely angry, disappointed. I swore at my GCSE class today. "I don't feel like fucking teaching this," I said quietly as I sat down in my chair. How was I meant to muster up the energy, the charm, the enthusiasm for something when every time I began to explain the topic, every time I tried to introduce an activity, every time I made the effort, students who are sitting their exams in 6 months time were chatting, throwing paper, out of their seats and shouting out? Not little eleven year olds, but 15 and 16 year-olds. Every time I asked for silence it lasted no more that 30 seconds. I was ill (alright, not ill as such, more 'man-flu'-ill) and tired. I'd spent several hours that week planning the lesson, ordering in the revision books they would need, trying to plan a trip for them...it can be a thankless job!

The proverbial cherry on top was that I was being observed. My 'thinking' self detached from my 'teaching' self and spoke to it: "What the hell are you doing? How could this get any worse? Why don't you just cry and leave the room?"

It's the combination of factors (under the weather, tired, nervous, being observed, losing your voice, no breakfast, rude children in the class...) that can lead to a crisis point such as this.

I wait to find out what my feedback is. I'm sure I'll learn a lot, but it hurts nevertheless that this class, this exam class!!!, is not fully under my control.

***

And Finally,

FS, Year 8, today wondered whether the 'Kinder transport', which saved some 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Europe, had anything to do with the train in Narnia.

Heimlich Heroics

AY was choking. Shit! The classroom has banks of computers and little Year 8s are mostly screened from view. I hear the commotion and look up. He's bent double in his chair, hand clutching at throat, startled friends backing off in surprise, turning to call out to me: "Sir, he's choking! Sir, he's choking!"

"He's choking on his gum!" someone shouts out. I make a split-second decision. Heimlich Manoeuvre. No question. No choice. I grab him from behind, make a fist with one hand and push it into his solar plexus with the other. He coughs in my grip, but carries on choking. I do the same again. The kids are shouting louder now: "SPIT IT OUT!", "COUGH IT OUT!" "Go and get the nurse!" I reply and press my fist once more into his stomach.

Suddenly CA steps forward. "He's not choking, Sir. I think I might have pressed his neck when he grabbed me."
"What?"
"He grabbed me, so I pushed him back, so I put him in a headlock and I pressed his neck when he was in my headlock."
"You mean he's not choking, he's just coughing because you hit his windpipe?"
"Um...yeah."
"So I just performed the Heimlich Manoeuvre for no good reason?"

To add to my embarrassment, it so happened that I was teaching in a room with two glass walls. The staff on reception had a clear view into my classroom and were looking on with bemused and distrustful expressions as I appeared to manhandle a child in my care by violently embracing him and punching him repeatedly in the stomach.

Deez Kidz!

Today SR and XP taught their year 8 Enterprise classmates how to count in German as part of a project whose aim was to encourage pupils' presentation skills. On their introductory PowerPoint slide they kindly gave us a brief summary of the language:

"German is spoken in Germany and nearby areas and countries. It is mainly spoken in the back of the throat."

---

My year 7 French class were thinking of ways to help them memorise the French numbers 1-20. FC put up his hand:

Me: Can you see a pattern? Have you got the hang of it?

FC: I know how to remember eighteen.

Me: Dix-huit? How?

FC: It sounds like These Wheats.

Me: This Week?

FC: These Wheats.

Me: How will that help you remember that dix-huit means eighteen?

FC: Because it sounds like These Wheats.

It reminded me of that great bit in Series 4 of The Wire:

Meet the Parents

Today Form had 'Progress Review Day' - a chance for me to meet their parents and discuss their lessons. From 8am to 8pm. Ugh.

High points included:

• conducting a conversation in Slovakian. (I assumed from his furious nodding that M's father understood me perfectly.)
• slipping into the vernacular in an overt attempt to 'relate' to a kid and his mum while simultaneously covering a lie: "C, the only reason teachers put you into detention is because they give a toss. If you were stupid they wouldn't bother."
• discussing the ins and outs of a day release clause in the contract of a tutee who has just been signed up by a Championship football side's Youth Academy.

Low points mainly included cringing at my own choice of phrase:

• "Hi, welcome, do take a seat. Let me get the paperwork out of the way and then we can have a chat."
• "...you need to buck up your ideas"
• "...you've made a solid start, but you need to maintain it"
• "I'm running just a teeny-weeny bit late, sorry."
• "I'm running just a wee bit late, sorry."
• "I'm running just a tad late, sorry."

I might as well have been wearing my tweed jacket with leather patches and read from the book of Teaching Clichés.

Last lesson on a Friday ain't so bad no more.

Me: (On a roll) Je prends le petit déjeuner. What does petit déjeuner mean?

Year 8: (Enthusiastic, engaged) Lunch

Me: (Happy with their enthusiasm and engagement.) Almost, but petit means little, so what does it mean?

Year 8: (Hands waving, thinking, learning.) Breakfast.

Me: Well done!...incidentally, has anyone wondered why breakfast is called breakfast?

Year 8: (Ramadan has recently finished.) Oh yeah! It's cos you break your fast!

Me: That's right!

Y: (Out of left field. Thinks he's caught me out. Finger raised and eyebrow craftily cocked.) But Sir, isn't it called breakfast because you eat breakfast cereal!

Justice is not blind. She texts with fake nails on.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a teenage girl in possession of a mobile phone, fake orange nails with tan to match, chewing gum and bad attitude must be in want of a sense of injustice.

I find it the hardest nut to crack: a chavette on the warpath.

Me: Time for you to do your coursework. You have to learn your draft off by heart.

Her: I can't be bothered. I'm too cold, Sir open the blinds!

Me: Just learn your coursework - you have half an hour to learn a paragraph off by heart and you will be finished.

Her: Ugh, Sir, you're so moody today. I'm too hot. Someone shut the blinds!

Me: You're in my lesson so you must do some work. What you write today will affect your final grade.

Her: I'm not going to do work if you're so moody. Just cos you got vexed at your last class it's not fair that you take it out on us!

"It's not fair." That easily tripped 'fairness'-alarm. As easily tripped as the fire alarms which seem to get tripped when it's most convenient for a student that they are tripped and least convenient for a teacher. Tripped. It's a powerful retort that seems especially popular among the girls. In their warped minds, they immediately feel wronged, and therefore in the right, and no amount of reasoning/shouting/bribing/ignoring/cajoling etc. can bring them round to just getting on with whatever it is you've got planned in their best interest.

"Could you please go and get some paper, Billy?"

"That's not fair! How comes you always choose Billy!?"

"Could you please go and get some paper, Stacy?"

"That's not fair! How comes you always pick on me!?"

Venn Diagram

Sometimes you realise that a teacher, and school in general, is only one of a series of influences on a child.

AOB came to my class a week ago - last lesson on the Friday. He is the school's most notorious 12 year old. A year ago the school received a phone call that he had been chucked out of a pub down the road. He was found with the keys to a stolen car and a bag full of new mobile phones. One day he'd missed school and when a teacher rang home to check up on him, his mother retorted with something along the lines of "oh yeah, I've not seen him for a couple of days either." He smokes and hangs out with criminals. I was determined that he should not get wind of the fact that I'd heard all about him and that I was wary of him, but instead should have the opportunity for seeing his new French teacher as a fresh start.

I was not hoping for the best, however, when as he came in he announced that "I only went to one French lesson last year, Sir. I'm shit!" Usually when students think they're bad at something they don't bother trying. Others make it their mission to ruin the lessons for everyone else as well. But to my surprise AOB was polite and enthusiastic for the whole 100 minutes. He put his hand up and gave everything a go, gave me the opportunity to reward him, listened to others and moved seat when asked.

What's the problem? This teaching lark is a piece of piss. Even the criminals respond to me now that I'm in my second year and a seasoned pro.

I left a message on his mother's answer-phone praising her son, and wrote an email to the Learning Support teacher who has spent the most time with him and knows him best. She replied asking me to come up and see her.

It turned out that AOB had earlier that day been suspended for five days for threatening to stab a teacher, that it had been presumed that he had run out of school at lunch time and that he had been expressly forbidden by the Principal from attending any lessons. His good behaviour and attendance in my class had not only been against the express instructions of the Principal and her Deputies, but had also been a carefully calculated 100 minutes of excellent behaviour.

Too true.

Am explaining the concept of gender to an eager class of Year 7s. Exceptionally, I switch into English:

Me: Who's heard of 'grammar'? What does 'grammar' mean?

G: It's like your mum's or your dad's mum.

Boom goes the dynamite.

Heard outside the school gates

Little Year 7 boy leaves the school gates.

Met by his older sister (?) in grey, white and gold matching hoodie and tracksuit, big hoop earings, muffin top, Croydon facelift, aged perhaps 17.

Sister: Y'aright!?

Boy: I got a merit today!

Sister: You're a right little geek! Well done! You gonna become a proper bod then?

Boy: (shrugging off her pinch to his cheek) No!

Sister: (to her mate) He makes me laugh!

She takes out a key.

Sister: Now listen, you've gotta take this key and let yourself in yourself today. Don't fucking lose this key cos I'm trusting you with my life. I've gotta go to the pub. When Mum comes home you have to fucking tell her that I brought you home first before I left, but me and Stacy have to go to the pub now so you make sure you go straight home yourself now, OK?

Boy: OK.

Sister: There's a sandwich in the fridge. Oh, and don't open the door to anyone, OK?

Boy: OK.

Sister: Give us a kiss then. (Hands him the key and walks off with her mate.) He makes me laugh!

Etimology

Wedge - adj. strong, well-built, hench, buff...

e.g. Schwarzenegger is wedge.

"Nah man, I'm well wedge now, innit!"

"What does 'wedge' mean?"

"Allaiii, Sir, it means like strong, you know."

"Oh I see, and do you know why you use the word 'wedge'?"

"Um....cos it means hench?"

"No, why 'wedge' in particular?"

"Dunno."

"What is a wedge?"

"Like a doorwedge?"

"Right. What shape is that?"
"Wedge-shaped."

"And what shape is a wedge?"

"Triangle?"

"Yes. Like a strong person with broad shoulders tapering to the waist."

"Oh yeah! I geddit! Sir, you're so clever!"

No I'm not. I'm just being fastidious about irrelevant linguistic quirks.

Lar-di-dar!

Catch-up

Over the last few days:
1) one member of my form was assaulted and threatened with a knife.
2) another member of my form assaulted someone else with a gang and was suspended.
3) lots of kids cried when they watched Michael Jackson's funeral at home.
4) I gave out lots of chocolate because it's the end of term.

Maternal theme continued...

Kid 1: Your mum's so fat, when she turned over in bed her arse got burnt on the light bulb.

Kid 2: Sticks and stones may break my bones....
....and so does your mum when she sits on me.

Mum's the word

Today I achieved a milestone - I finally got called 'Mum' by a child.

Skank

Whenever anyone sneezes the cry goes out: "SWIIIIINE FLUUUU!!!" And that's the rest of the lesson ruined.

Slang-alang-alang

Lots of them like to appear well 'ard. 'Arder than they really are. They do it by talking slang. Often to me -

Me: J, can you be quiet now please? I'm talking.

J: Allaiii, fam! I ain't even talkin'!

Me: Yes you were, now be quiet.

J: [Kisses teeth].

The other day I became rather tired of their slang and decided to spend the day talking back to the classes in their own style. I figure it's a language teacher thing. I would deliver the following instruction in a deliberately posh voice -

"Oi hush now, cuz. I've heard you talking for the last five minutes, blud. Man trying to give some instructions now, you get me? Jam your hype and hush your mouth, fam."

Much hilarity ensued. It probably distracted the adorable little children from the little work they were already doing, but it was funny at least. It also turned out to be an unusual, and therefore non-threatening, way of telling someone off for truanting. I caught RM and CD from my form running around outside of lessons when they shouldn't have been. I grabbed them both and said:

"Listen, bluds. I've clocked you both bunking for this lesson. You are both in bear trouble now fams."

In the corridor

"Sir, who's the prime minister of England?"

"Who do you think? Take a guess."

"Barack Obama?"

"No. Guess again."

"Tony Blair?"

"Closer, but no. His name starts with G then B."

"George Bush?"
"No. His name is Brown."

"Patel?"

"No it actually is 'Brown'."

"Prime Minister Brown."

"Yes. Do you know his first name?"

"No."

"It's Gordon Brown. Heard of him?"

"Oh yeah! I think so..."

A nasty incident

Last week a boy in my class of Nutters took a penny out of his pocket and, in a quiet lull, rolled it across the floor of the room and said aloud: "Let's see if there's any Jews in the room."

The mutterers among the Nutters shut up. Those doing their work looked up and fell silent. I couldn't help but hear him. "That's not acceptable," I said, "Get up, go and stand outside, you cannot stay in my classroom and I need to speak to you." 

The boy stood up and walked out, face flushing red as he realised that he was in trouble. 

But then, as he walked out he pointed at the penny and said to me, "Don't worry, Sir, it's for you. The penny is for you."

His racism is horrible, but unfortunately it is something that he has picked up from his peers. He is an immature boy who does not have many boundaries. I get on well with him outside of lessons, although he can prove a handful at times. In this instance, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'm not sure that he was aware of how insulting his behaviour was. He was probably just trying to be disruptive and funny. But that in itself is a damning indictment of the casual racism, and especially antisemitism, bandied about the school.

He's being made an example of now, but something else needs to be done, something more systemic, to address what is a creeping malaise among the children.