It Shouldn't Happen to a Teacher

One of my colleagues came into my classroom to ask me for some protractors. I found some for her and by way of thanks she told me I looked tired.

Cheers.

I wonder if Senior Leadership are so called because of the number of stereotypically 'senior' traits they portray. The Deputy Head came into my year eight lesson this morning and started on a mass ramble, spoken at a rate of about three words a minute:

'On the register there is a pupil who was marked absent in registration and period two, but was marked present for your lesson period one. Right now they should be with Mr Sander in Tech but they aren't and he was wondering where they were. Was Mickey Mouse definitely in your lesson?'

'Yes.'

'Definitely, definitely?'

'Yes, definitely, definitely.'

Clearly she's been watching too much Who Wants to be a Millionaire, I thought she was going to ask if I wanted to phone a friend to check. Seeing as I was in the middle of teaching a class you'd have thought it would have made more sense to simply ask 'was Mickey Mouse in your lesson this morning?' I think she'd assumed that I'd messed up and taken my register incorrectly, in this case it would have been difficult to do seeing as Mickey was being a bit of a nuisance ('nuisance' being a euphemism for something rhyming with clucking banker). It adds to my paranoia that our Deputy Head thinks I'm useless.

I must feel more secure in the valuation the Head has of me as I had a dream this week where she awarded me first prize in the cat version of One Man and his Dog. Read into that what you will. Also in the dream she didn't take half an hour to hand me a medal.

I stabbed one of my year elevens this afternoon. It was only with a compass and it wasn't like I meant to. She hadn't wound me up to such an extent that I felt like murdering her, though she has pushed it pretty close before. I just accidentally caught her when handing it to her. The bizarre thing was that after that she did some really good work so I might do it again next lesson.

'Sir you haven't noticed my hair.'

'Yes I have, I just haven't commented on it yet. It looks nice.'

'You haven't noticed really. What's different about it?'

Shorter? Longer? In the style of Leo Sayer? Unless someone dyes it pink I'm not going to notice. 'It's darker' I say with as much confidence as I can muster.

'Yeah, well spotted sir'

Phew.

Teenagers are famed for being tricky to deal with and generally being a bit of a psychological nightmare, but my year tens were really easy to please this morning. They have an exam next week and I was offering them extra revision sessions after school for the next few days before the test. This was ill-received by one pupil who couldn't imagine anyone would want to stay after school to do more maths, and I guess it is difficult to grasp, but mostly they were keen for any extra help. I told them that I'd do anything I could to help them get good grades. When one of them asked 'will you do my exam for me sir?' they were bizarrely impressed when I said I would if I could. To be blunt it's a fairly meaningless platitude. I might as well have said I'd go to the South Pole if I thought it'd help - it's not a scenario I expect to arise. Actually it might help because then they'd have another teacher. Haha. It's a stark contrast to preparing my year elevens for the same test last year when they nearly drove me to a nervous breakdown.

I've had my half-term ruined by someone showing me a new maths-based puzzle (www.kenken.com) just before we broke up. Because I'm an uber-geek (and I think the use of the word 'uber' proves my point there) I have to complete these things. Last summer I spent half my time playing on a tetris-esque game (www.koozac.com) and I was seeing falling blocks whenever I shut my eyes.

Help me!

Life is better when you say yes. Apparently. It certainly seemed to work for Danny Wallace in his book and for Jim Carey in the subsequent film. The notion is that being positive leads to a better job and falling in love. I love my job anyway so maybe I don't really need to start saying yes to every opportunity or invitation that comes my way.

It would make life interesting though. I have a friend who for a while said 'yes' to all work related opportunities, going to meetings, extra training and so on and... he still doesn't like his job, but it doesn't mean it was a bad idea.

I'm tempted to try it at school. I already try to be fairly positive. I've volunteered to go to a meeting about Gifted and Talented after half term with the Head of Department. Last December I took part in the staff panto, which was both terrifying and brilliant all in one. I regularly attend Teaching and Learning meetings, which are rarely terrifying or brilliant.

Some things are very easy to say yes to. It's a bit of a no-brainer thinking of an answer to 'do you want to go to Scotland?' Sometimes it's harder, like extra-meetings. 'Do you want to sit in the Dining Hall and listen to someone waffling on for half an hour?' isn't quite so appealing as 'do you want a bacon sandwich?'

Saying yes does make you look like a positive and energetic individual, but there are drawbacks. When someone in staff-briefings invites any staff to watch a dance show and you say yes with too much enthusiasm it's just going to make you look like a paedophile. Perhaps I'm exagerating but I wouldn't feel totally comfortable. It's starting to make more sense for me to go along to things like exhibitions of pupils' art work because I know so many of the kids now.

I might try it and say yes whenever I get asked to do something or whenever there's a general invitation to things mentioned in briefings. It'd make life that bit more exciting and unpredictable.

I'm desperate for my form to win the interform challenge this year. I even have a bet with one of my colleagues that my form will beat her's in the overall standings. It's going well so far, I've really instilled a will to win with my pupils and we're top with a healthy lead. However I think I may have done too good a job. On Thursday two of my boys were taking part in a scrabble competition. They were losing so resorted to cheating by accepting help from some of their friends near by. They were disqualified and got zero points.

I'm not even going to defend them by saying they were pushing the envelope of word-based gaming. You've got to say it's pretty low cheating at scrabble. Next they'll be simulating when we have the football competition or tieing the opposition's shoelaces toegther for the running.

Oh the shame!

On Thursday some of my year tens were doing some filming for an English project. They spotted me and told me to say hello to the camera.

'Hello camera' I said.

My friends are having babies and becoming lawyers and other serious people and there I am saying 'hi' to electronic equipment. Honestly, I need to grow up.

If you're single on the approach to Valentine's Day you can't help but notice any eligible members of the opposite sex. Suddenly there seems to be far more attractive female teachers in the staffroom. It's like they've risen from the floor. It's taken me two years to notice that the dance teacher at our school is really gorgeous, though that shouldn't be such a surprise. I can't imagine there are many clinically obese dance teachers around, just like I can't imagine there are many really cool and hip maths teachers.

It's a Bad Idea to fall for any of your colleagues, from a purely statistical perspective it's bound to end in chronic awakwardness and you'll end up wanting to hide behind a bookshelf in the library when we have our morning briefings there. Even if you ignored such advice it still wouldn't really work out because of fellow teachers having the unfortunate condition of being married, being slightly too old, not being that nice, or being a really good mate thus making any romantic ideas thoroughly gross.

It's even worse from a female teacher's perspective. Men at our school would either be too married, too old or in the case of a certain young maths teacher far too geeky.

When your pupils leave school you lose contact with them. It's sad in a way because when you've taught a class for two years you do get to know them quite well. Some of my year elevens from last year have stayed on to do A-Levels so I know how they're doing, some of my current year elevens have shown me pictures of a former pupil blind drunk and I teach the sister of one of them who has managed to get his girlfriend pregnant. I use that phrase rather than 'is expecting a baby with his girlfriend' as I don't think it was planned.

On Tuesday one of my ex-pupils came in to school to tell me how they'd got on with their resit at college. She'd ended up with a D after struggling with attendance towards the end of year eleven. In her resit she'd managed to improve to a B, so obviously I was delighted for her, especially as she'd come in the day before her exam and I'd given her some extra help with a past paper. Though it doesn't speak wonders for my teaching that two years of being in my class resulted in a D, but in a couple of months at college she was able to get a B. I think I might try teaching them less - it seems to do the trick.

It's an arduous task to sift through books on teaching trying to find ways to inspire and motivate your pupils, it's much easier if you just ask them what they do and don't like about your subject. When someone politely says they find maths boring I'll happily engage with them and ask what they think would make it more interesting. Though if someone rather rudely says everything's crap then I'm less open to their opinions.

So when one of my (ever so bright) year tens told me they found maths dull I was keen to get to the bottom of it. They politely said it's not my fault, they just don't like the subject. I disagree with that because I'd hate to be doing a job where I have no control whatsoever over how interesting it is and I must take some responsibility. I've also had pupils saying that they didn't used to like maths before I started teaching them, and unfortunately the other way around too, so there must be something I can do.

Sometimes my pupils make significant comments like saying they like it when we do work on mini-whiteboards, however the suggestion that I dance more might not be of much use, though I suppose you could twist it into a request for more kinaesthetic activities.

Apparently History's more interesting. The reason being that the teacher's tall and got a good body. I'm not sure that working out and putting myself on a rack would be good professional development so I might have to accept defeat on that one.

It's no secret that people respond better to praise than to criticism. So when the Head was asking me yesterday if I taught a particular pupil I wondered which it was to be. I'm always paranoid that I'm doing a terrible job and that parents are constantly ringing the head to tell her that. I don't think they are but you can never be sure.

Anyway the Head just wanted to tell me that she's been looking at this girl's maths book and it was full of nice comments from me. It's like a great cycle of good karma, hippy praise. I praise the pupil, she says nice things about me to the Head, the Head praises me, I praise the pupil even more and so on until everyone feels like a million pounds.

I have an unfortunate habit of falling over. In fact it has become something of a reputation with my pupils. On a camp with the year nines last year I had two comical falls and once again I lived up to my billing by sliding on an icey patch of snow yesterday.

In attendance were a number of year eleven boys so I got a predictable chorus of 'she fell over'. I gave them a wave of acknowledgement.

Since then it's amazing how many pupils have come up to me and said they saw me fall. I was sure only a handful of them were in sight, but if you add everyone up who claims they were spectators to it you'd have to conclude that half the school was there.

One of my year nines says she'd seen me walking along and had said to a friend that it'd be funny if I slipped, moments later I made her day by fulfilling the prophecy. I think she must have put a jinx on me.

I was telling one of the pupils who'd seen me falling over before about it and they greatly enjoyed the anecdote. They'd only seen me have a pathetic little stumble into a ditch, this time it was a full-on, cliched, feet in the air, crashing down on your arse affair. It bloody hurt too, not least my pride.

I'm nothing if not entertaining.

In the true British fashion of views on weather being that the grass is alwasy greener on the other side I'm really hoping we've seen the last of the snow. I'd kill for a few days of dreary drizzle.

On Monday and Tuesday our Head took the decision to close the school. Today she didn't, which was probably the right move, except for a lack of teachers to go round. I arrived at around quarter past seven, only slightly later than usual due to what I'd at worst describe as tricky conditions. Unfortunately not everyone enjoys arriving at the crack of dawn or takes a peverse pleasure from driving in difficult conditions.

Our maths department normally consists of eight teachers, today we were down to three, which technically would have made me third in the department for the day. I felt big and important, rather than my usual stature of diminutive and insignificant.

We had a staff briefing in the morning with Late Start Procedures being announced. This meant doubling up forms and tutors whilst the powers that be figured out which staff were available to teach which pupils. Half way into period one it was decided the pupils should follow their normal timetables with staff covering lessons as appropriate.

This was my big chance to shine as I would have been free first. The Deputy Head had been assigned to cover a maths class until I stepped into the breach with worksheets and volunteered to take over, thus allowing her to get on with more important things. This was without even being forced into the room with a cattle prod. This was after I was begging our Second in Department for a class to teach. I just wanted to get in on the action. It was a remarkably easy cover as half the lesson had gone and only half the class remained.

While I managed to gain Brownie points by being willing and able to take a class of year nines at zero-notice I don't think I'd have impressed anyone with my actual teaching lessons two and three. The pupils were in no mood for working or behaving so it was rather stressful. One year seven ended up in tears over a row over who a pen belonged to. I wanted to scream at the protagonists that it was just a fucking pen, but resisted.

The decision was taken to send them home at dinner, by which time the snow had cleared anyway. It was even more stressful making sure the right pupils were leaving: did they have preagreed permission to go home immediately if the school shut? Had they rung their parents if not? It wasn't helped by pupils leaving before being told they could and a general sense of confusion. One girl got upset because I needed her to hang on so I could check everyone off the list. It would only have taken ten seconds but she marched off and her mum rang in later to moan about it.

I was very glad to get home afterwards. Here's hoping tomorrow is a nice snow-free day.

There are some pupils at our school who are just far too wet. Our computerised register software allows us to see texts parents have sent in excusing their pupils from being at school. As normal after a snow day attendance takes a bit of a hit, here are two reasons for pupils being absent:

'**** has a bit of a headache.'
'**** is at the end of a cold, will be back tomorrow.'

End of cold? If I was feeling generous I'd accept 'in the middle of a cold', but 'end of cold' is a bit pathetic. If these pupils want to see what being ill looks like they should have seen me on Tuesday. I almost felt obliged to offer my hand in marriage to my toilet as I was hugging it so much. It's my own fault for tempting fate by quipping about receiving a memo about staff being unable to work on a snow day filling in a form*. I should have seen that one coming.

The pupils who had been bothered enough to come in weren't much interested in doing any work. I couldn't really blame them as I kind of felt the same. It's not good missing Monday and Tuesday. They kept asking if we'd be shut again tomorrow. It's reassuring to know that we're doing such a good job that all they can think of is having another day off.

*No I'm not going to waste the paper.

Rather predictably we've ended up with the day off due to the snow. I think schools take the Bookies' White Christmas approach to shutting. If one snow flake falls then the gates stay closed. I'd actually set off this time on perfectly clear roads when my mobile rang and I was informed that we were shut. In all fairness my journey would have involved rising to a rather cold and wintry elevation of around four hundred metres so I was slightly relieved as I'm not sure my brilliant skills on Colin McRae Rally would transfer to the real world. I'd also only managed a few hours sleep because I spent most of the night wondering if we would be off, and whether I should risk setting off at my normal time. I kept having visions of ending up backwards in a hedge. It's also very useful as I don't feel at a hundred percent health and neither is my car. In fact it's just what the doctor, or to be precise the mechanic, ordered.

I set off quite early in the morning but before I'd reached my car there had still been time for someone to write 'tit' in the snow on the windscreen. Given that there were only two sets of footprints going past it doesn't speak volumes for my area. From an admittedly small sample the ratio of people who write rude words on cars to those who don't is one to one.

We were recently given an edict from the Head that we must attempt to work on Snow Days. Anyone unable to do so would have to fill in a form explaining why not, however the memo didn't actually mention anyone who just couldn't be arsed so that might be allowed. I can be arsed so I'm now planning my lessons for next week, with the added bonus that I gain five extra lesson plans from those I would have taught today. Snow Days: the gift that keeps on giving.