Winding, and gearing, up.

I don't believe in Jesus
But I like the good stuff that Christmas brings us
Christmas pudding is delicious
I like granting kids' Santa-wishes
2008 feels auspicious
And thus my poem finishes.




Best wishes to all for a safe and happy festive season.

My gift to you is the promise that I will never write poetry on my blog again.

Big Love,
Zealous xx

Reports are done!

Now that it's over, my week of working an extra four or five hours every day was not actually that bad.

In the week leading up to reports I have:
1. had a weekend away (driving a hot little rental hybrid - those things can go fast! Luckily my passenger could only make out the last digit on the speedo, so I could convince him that the '9' was for '99' km/h, not '119' km/h... foolish non-drivers! Chuck 'em a bit of carspeak and they'll believe anything)
2. helped decorate, and then performed at the staff concert. Decided this required me to write a new cabaret-style song and learn the piano again
3. attended two parties
4. helped host a BBQ
5. danced to a chainsaw-gypsy band
6. spend a day rehearsing in a drama ensemble for a series of educational roleplays about good professional practice. To be performed for the rest of the staff. Includes interpretive dance.
7. continued teaching engaging and educationally relevant lessons
8. marked
9. written 115 reports
10. uploaded aforementioned reports to the network with one hour to spare!


This is me:






Having vanquished Ms Wastingtime-Smythe in a fierce battle of wits, dexterity and all-round efficiency, Ms Zealous began catching up with some old friends: gin and sodas, books and bed.

Report time sucks

Pro/cras/tin/aaaaating/ Sing it wit' me now/
Pro/cras/tin/aaaaating/ la la la/ etc.

So this time around I have five classes of reports to write, after picking up a music class this term. At this point in time I have 55 left. Plus some marking. (a lot of marking, actually). With 51.5 hours left.


So, here's Ms Wastingtime-Smythe to take over for a bit:

I've had my fears about my blog title, and the internet in general, confirmed. Of the four random people (ie. not my mother or friends IRL) that looked at my blog in the last week, two of them were looking for porn.

If you type "kisses in the mouth" and "mouth job" into Google from a far-away Middle Eastern country you eventually get me on your list of hits. Generally I hate to disappoint, but not this time buddy!

A lefty teacher's blog, what a turn-off.



Okay, back to the reports. No-Doze anyone?

A month of not much

The adventures of Ms Lately and her friend Miss Wastingtime-Smythe
Part 1


The stifled hush in the classroom came dangerously close to being ruined.

The students were completing a SAC, carefully crafting their persuasive piece on the sizzling topic of 'arsonists and how best to deal with them.' They know that a single whispered word, a scuffle whilst sharing a rubber, a comical cough, could all result in an instant fail, or at the very least an embarrassing 'shhhh' and 'a look.'

All Ms Zealous' careful work in taming these 23 fifteen year olds to work under exam conditions was almost undone, when this arrived in her inbox:








"Surely not," Ms Zealous thought to herself wildly.
"All that time adding up the set-lists has really paid off? Really?"

But a quick log in to her bank account and there it was, black on calming blue:







Official recognition as a songwriter, with real, tangible intellectual property.


But best of all,



Free money!

Blog Action Day - The Environment

I am a day late for Blog Action Day. So what? I'm a busy woman and the internet waits for no-one, but records for eternity, so I'm going to post anyway.

It has been a pretty crappy day - and I blame Climate Change. I feel guilty every day that I am not doing enough, and despondent that our leaders are not managing very well at all on this one.

At the risk of venting my spleen I am going to try to stay focused on the issue by giving some links to cool stuff Climate Change related.

1. National Ride to Work Day is tomorrow, Wed 17th. Bikes are fun, make you look hot, and are good for the environment. I try to make every day a ride to work day - it helps make sure I don't take home too much marking too.

2. Cate Blanchett cares
and so do I.

3. The Luntz Factor helps explain our preferential voting system



4.



5.



6. And lastly, if your heart isn't broken yet...




My guilt is baby polar bear. Every time I turn on a light, drive my car, or use my hairdryer a little, gruff voice reminds me that it is a long swim between icebergs and I am not helping...

Dirty jobs

Teaching teenagers sometimes involves unpleasantness. It's true.

Today I had to suspend a boy who told me, in no uncertain terms, to, "fuck off, Miss."

But I think the worst job I had to do today was type "John Howard" and "Peter Costello" into google images.
(I'm starting my Year 7s on a unit on Government tomorrow and need some visual aides...)

How is a left-leaning young teacher supposed to create non-biased posters for her classroom when Peter Costello manages to look like a complete jerk in every photo?






















Julia Gillard and Bob Brown however, are a dream...









Meh. What's a girl to do? Bob and Julia are cool. I'm proud they are involved in running my country. And they give good face.

I'll just have to choose one of the many dumbass photos of Peter Costello and let my students make up their own mind...

Success...

Today one of my friends came to speak to my Legal Studies class. She is three months away from completing her articles and agreed to talk to my students about her career, and also give them a run down on the court structure in Victoria and Australia.

I hope I didn't embarrass her; I introduced her as one of my friends who was 'very successful.' She spoke, and taught, like a complete natural and the kids loved her. At one point I caught myself looking up at her so admiringly I worried that my students might think we were lovers.

I'm not sure I have any answers today, but I guess success is something I think a lot about. I am very proud to have such clever friends, and I think I am still concerned about doing the right things with my career (and with every minute of my time in general - but this could be a 'youth' thing). There are people my age who have spent most of their free minutes studying and becoming very good at what they do. Teaching feels like a constant battle to be on top of fifty-seven different things at once, often in little or no depth, while being constantly conscious of being a role model and wanting to give the best opportunities to one's students.

So while I know nothing more about law than what I have gleaned from old textbooks and some quick internet research, I was proud today to be able to offer my students an interesting experience. This is success enough for me today.

So yes, it's the second day back and my alter-Nana is already kicking in. The 'chainsaw gypsy' gig I had planned to go to tonight turned out to be on far too late for a woman of my immense professionalism, and thus, I am going to bed at 9:30. So? What of it?!

School holidays slide show

When people ask what made me decide to be a teacher I often recount the story of having glandular fever in my third year of Uni. I lay in bed for three weeks, too tired and in pain to do anything, but bored out of my brain, so I had a bit of time to think. I knew that I would fail my Psychology statistics subject and didn't really mind as Psychology had started to all sound a bit iffy to me anyway. Too many of our 'normalcy' benchmarks seemed to have involved experiments on animals and prisoners...
Subsequently, I started to rethink my career-trajectory-life-direction-path.... and found myself leaning towards the idea of having lots of time off.

These holidays I attended the National Young Writers' and This is Not Art festivals in Newcastle.

This is what I did:


Swam at Newcastle Beach


Took lots of photos of rocks





and seaweed.



Attended panel discussions:




and performances at the Festival Club:


I did some writing:


and some busking:


and took my life into my own hands by riding the worst piece of dangerous, rusty crap on the streets of Newcastle:



Not sure if it is clear here the degree to which this derailer is not only rusty, but also bent. Makes it hard to keep a chain in the right spot, like on the cogs, for example.

Cursing at a bike in front of strangers aside, Newcastle was generally a pretty inspiring experience. I really enjoyed the anonymity of a new town, staying in a youth hostel again, and meeting some interesting people.
Busking was good fun too - I love playing outdoors, but I wouldn't ever feel comfortable sitting in a park and singing my heart out. Somehow having a few coins on your guitar bag legitimises what, for me, is otherwise overt people watching and being a self-involved outdoor nuisance.

I participated in a morning writing 'playgroup,' which was just five of us sharing some writing exercises and doing some timed freeflow-type writing around dumb topics. I suggested shoes. It was really liberating to introduce myself as a singersongwriter, rather than a teacher. I divulged to these clever strangers something that I have never really articulated to anyone else, that writing songs is so enjoyable for me because I feel like I can get away with a lot, intellectually. My writing is not very high-brow, but is unique, because only I get to sing it. I guess it's just unique to me; in reality it's pretty similar to the masses of folky-acousticos out there, although, in Newcastle there didn't seem to be many of these. From my 3-day-stay-snobby-Melbourne perspective the best approximation of live music seemed to be Kareoke at the pub on Friday night.

From Newcastle I caught the train to Sydney. Sydney offered much less chance for creative contemplation and writing, and much more opportunities for partying and shopping. However, I did get to do some guitar practice in the flat about the shop, and have begun to foster a more amicable relationship with my cheap nylon string Martinez Slim Jim. It is still a piece of shit with annoyingly high action though.

In Sydney I...

played a lot of backgammon:



hung out at Circe:


went to the beach:


found pretty things:







and went for walks on cliffs:



I also bought a new digicamera and think I am very smart... may or may not have been obvious from this very labour intensive post.

Back to school on Monday = lots of rushed marking to do, but a sunny holiday has done the world of good.

Sailors' breasts fury* and humble pie

Thanks to "the cheeky chaps at the Chaser" for alerting us to this.

The choice of grown up people to get their breasts augmented is noone's business but their own, but these two cases of tax-payer funded surgery is the final, feels-like-the-real-thing straw to the back of my already inflated sense of injustice that the defense forces get so much, while Education gets so little...

[Excuse my many mixed metaphors. I'm aware of the bizarre mental picture this makes, but I'm just so flabbergasted with the world right now]

In other news, my student teacher was completely prepared for today's lesson. I guess I have to remember that just because I continue to fly through every day by the skin of my teeth, and am generally lucky to remember what day it is, doesn't mean that everyone else shares my immense sense of self-righteousness for remembering what classes they have to teach.

*officially taken as a potential band name/t-shirt slogan/novel title. So don't even think about stealing it. Gold that it is...

Procrastination and waiting

I like to think there is a difference between procrastination, and waiting. Procrastination is putting a job off with another job, whereas I like to think that the wardrobe reshuffle and clean out of this evening was my way of waiting; filling in the time until I feel inspired to mark essays. So now, after I write a blog post and make a cup of tea, I will be so much better at marking the essays, because I'm ready.

The other thing I'm waiting for is my student teacher to write back to my email acknowledging that she is teaching period one tomorrow. It is a fortnightly single period that she may have forgotten about, and as we didn't see each other all day today, and she didn't come to me with lesson plans to review, I'm assuming she's forgotten.

As I am a control freak, I will go in early to make a back-up-plan lesson. I will also probably make her feel bad without meaning to, and then give her very unfair lesson feedback about needing to be "a bit more prepared." So tight, Miss.

Windy Days

I thought I was so individual and idiosyncratic when I was a teenager.
"I'm misunderstood" I'd lament.
"I'm so incredibly gifted" I'd assure myself.
"I'm crap at everything" I'd persuade myself.
"I'm so in touch with nature because I get cranky on windy days." I'd think as I smugly brushed the hair off my pimpled face and inwardly congratulated myself on my uniqueness.

Now that I am very old I realise that my quirks were, in fact, very common. The last one most so.

And so today, through no fault of her own, my student teacher's English double wasn't that great. The kids were weird. They were unsettled and unfocused, noisy, calling out answers, or talking constantly. She was patient and persevered very impressively, and didn't lose her cool as I most surely would have.

I put it down to the wind. There's always trouble abrewin' on windy days. Also a certain major school dancing competition finals are tomorrow night (which our school will assuredly win...), and Ramadan started today. So kids, how do you feel today? Cranky, excited, hungry or thirsty?

It's hard to fit in being 'respectful of others' rights to learn' and 'using class time effectively' when you are being an individual and idiosyncratic teenager who's uniquely in touch with the weather as well...

Feelin' Fine

Most days are great, but some days the kids shit me. No two-ways about it. They're only human. When I feel misanthropic, this is what I want to do:



Or just watch Bret dancing like a very cute recently fired bandmate... that's also enough.


mmm....

Management in the Politics classroom

As a beginning teacher I am constantly trying out different strategies. Upon learning that my year 10 Politics class had been very far from perfect while I was on excursion I decided to show my student teacher something interesting.

Me: "this is the report from yesterday's class for my Politics kids. I'm going to rip through them next period."

Her: "oh" [worried, trying not to show nervous-excitement]


Next period :

Me to Politics class: "....." [about 15 seconds of silence should do it...]

Politics class:"....." [dull thud of my books onto the table; pins dropping]

Me to Politics class: [even, low tone] "Every time I have to go on excursion it creates at least three extra hours of work for me.
I plan your lesson meticulously.
I make sure that whoever takes your class while I am gone, whoever is there to help you do your work, knows exactly what is expected, and that it is clear to everyone what to do.

[pause]


So, when I get reports back like this [hold up official looking sheet of paper] that three of you got two strikes, and then I look in your folders on the network and see that only 8 of you did the work...

[pause]


that makes me pretty pissed off.


[pause - sinking in that I have sworn, very deliberately. This must be serious.]


I wasn't going to give you homework today. Now I am. Those that did the work yesterday can start their homework, and will probably get it finished. Those that didn't will have a lot of work to do today. Go to the computer room and get started."



I didn't hear a peep out of them for an entire period. Each student sat in terrified silence at their computers and typed quicker than I've ever seen them.

I spoke twice more in the lesson: once to show them where the homework was on the network; once to say "thank you, you may go." It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my teaching career.

I now have their SACs from last week to mark, which I will stay up all night to do if I need too. I will not hold a grudge, and I will be my usual friendly self to them tomorrow morning. I don't know if they learned anything about Voting Systems that lesson, but they sure as hell learned something: teachers are people too, and sometimes it hurts when you let them down.

another excursion day

Today I went to the zoo. I laughed with kids on the way, I drank coffee with my two lovely colleagues, I told kids off; a pretty normal day. And then, at the new Orangutan Sanctuary at the Melbourne Zoo, I cried.

Luckily, there were no students around me (I was taking a detour during a reconnaissance mission). I watched a baby orangutan wake its mother up, play for a bit, then squeeze his head under her arm so that she would cuddle him. It was just about the cutest thing I've seen since my brother taught me how to do armpit farts that make you look like a penguin. (The trick is to keep the armpit-arm pointing straight down.)

Then I remembered that these animals are critically endangered because people kill them to eat, people cut down their habitats, and people take them away from their mothers to be pets.



There is a gallery of photographs in the sanctuary displaying different orangutans. They look like people.


Tomorrow I start my Humanities class on the Endangered Species unit. I will start with Orangutans by using the webpages below, and try not to cry again.

Crispy news - their shtick is about reporting positive news
Time for Kids
Radio National interview with Dr Willie Smits et al

Supervising in second year

As mentioned in my last post I am supervising a student teacher.
It's not uncommon for beginning teachers to get student teachers. Today a colleague of mine was reproaching 'the man', of sorts, for letting second year outs get student teachers, but it does tend to come down to who will accept extra jobs/responsibilities in schools, and generally they are the young, eager and enthusiastic. Beginning teachers. So far it has not been much extra work, and has been very positive for the students' learning because they have a teacher who actually has the time and energy to plan excellent lessons.

She had her first lesson on Wednesday and it was terrific - very calm and confident, and the kids like her. Now that I don't feel nervous for her I am starting to notice some weird insecurities within myself and wonder if it stems from some kind of natural competitiveness that comes out when we meet people who are similar to ourselves, and of like ability, or if it is more teacher specific? I also wonder if what I am feeling is a particularly 'new teacher' kind of insecurity?

I know that I wrote copious notes throughout my observation times, practically shadowed my supervisors, and made sure that I saw as many other teachers as possible. I think I observed about 50 teachers over my Dip. Ed. year. While not everything that I wrote down about these other teachers was complimentary, I felt like a (critically thinking) sponge, collecting tidbits of information, management strategies, good ideas, etc.

My student doesn't seem to do this with me. She comes a couple of minutes late when she comes to watch me teach, does other work, and is all but silent as I ramble on after the lesson. Where are her questions? Where is the awe and wonderment?

I'm clearly craving feedback. I'm probably also worried that she might not think I'm a very good teacher. Just like all those teachers whose lessons I evaluated in my little notebook, am I forming the example of the sort of teacher she will try hard not to be like?

Maybe my colleague is right: it's not fair for beginning teachers to get student teachers. Not because they are not good enough teachers, but because they can't handle the scrutiny and and the competition.

Or maybe they are just sooky la las who are suffering mid-Third-Term-itis and need some warm fuzzies.

Excursion day

Today I took my Politics class on excursion. A few things happened that I am proud of; a few things happened of which I am not proud. (N.B the hedging of the bets here, grammar-wise. I know that consistency should rule, but having a punt is also a good way to learn. I'll wait for the backlash. If there is none, I'll assume I'm perfect)

Not proud: getting out of a $164 fare evasion fine in front of my class by playing up the doe-eyed dumb young woman stereotype. The crime of failing to validate my ticket as my students yelled "the train's coming Miss, don't worry about a ticket!", was also made worse by me emphatically stating, "It's okay, I'm a teacher" to our co-passengers who held been held up by my students forcing the doors open for me. Another hilarious Simpsons reference lost on the hoi polloi.

Although, thankfully, I managed to avoid this, which would have been somewhat more embarrassing. It seemed that my particular ticket inspectors also had a bit more heart than I have previously seen of some of their colleagues.

Proud: showing off my Internship research thesis at the Parliament House Library. It was probably the first time the book had been opened since it was bound and shelved in 2003, but the kids were (mildly) impressed, and humored me very kindly.

I am pleased to report that during Question Time today John Brumby also assured the chamber (and the enthralled public gallery) that we have funding for more 'train sets' to help improve our city's PT.

So, no more of this:







And a lot more of this:




Toot toot!





Apparently 'train sets' is the correct term for the purchase of real trains, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to amuse myself with this image. Apologies Mr Brumby.



I have also accepted a student teacher, who accompanied us on our city jaunt. She is level-headed and eager, and is taking my senior English lessons from tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous for her. I'm also feeling some kind of trepidation/anxiety type feeling that stems from my control-freak tendencies. Handing over carefully crafted extras lessons to a substitute is bad enough; giving my whole class, with two SACs and homework tasks, over to someone else will be very difficult. Wish me, I mean, HER, luck.

On tour in Sydney

I introduced myself as "[Zealous], on tour from Melbourne" to a man in a Coogee Beach fruit shop yesterday. It worked like a charm... I am loving this little working holiday!

This is how I am being kept while I write reports:












This is the view from my 'office' where I write my reports, in between being regularly plied with excellent cups of tea:


And this is the view from my rehearsal space (my Bella's flat above the shop):


Yep, those are HARBOR glimpses there folks...

I wish I could spend longer in this posh Eastern Sydney suburb (the women up here drink weak lattes and organic pomegranate juice, love little dogs, and seem to all have adorably cute babies. They also don't seem to work much).

I am nine kinds of content, and am being relatively productive. I am halfway through my reports, and feeling very relaxed, and warm! It is noticeably warmer here compared with Melbourne. Note BLUE sky in photo above.


I am also doing this:




*All photos taken using inbuilt camera and Photo Booth. I love my macbook.

Napoleon

I feel this proud and pompous. I started writing my reports.

I have 99 to go, and would like to finish them before I go on tour to Sydney. In three days. At my current rate of 1 report: 55 minutes, I'm not sure I'll be completely report-free by Tuesday, 6am, but I'll give it a red-hot go.

Anyway, Napoleon only slept four hours a night, and what's good enough for that little man is good enough for me. I shall be to report writing what Napoleon was to military strategy and ruthless megalomania. Impressively successful and efficient, then a rapid about-face and some humiliating defeats, before spending the end of my teaching days bailed up on an island being looked after by some nice British guards. (Insert lewdly inappropriate accents where you see fit)

So, with my alarm set for some short time from now, I wish you a very good night. Bon soir.

To victory, ha ha! etc.

Reports

Things I am doing/have done this week to put off writing the new VELS reports:

1) Started a blog.

2) Ridden all over Brunswick and Parkville to watch my brother and sister play hockey in Arctic Melbourne conditions.

3) Packed up shop and headed down to the coast. I do this most holidays, as I convince myself that I will be much more productive if I stay in a little house where there is nothing to do but write. In reality, every time I just go op-shopping, brood along the beach and watch movies. Then I lug my bags of untouched marking and my computer back into the car and make the two hour journey back to the city.

4) Planned a trip to Sydney where I will play music in a friend's cafe, brood along the beach and watch movies...

5) Going to put up posters for my housemate's band around Brunswick and Fitzroy.

6) Written a post about procrastination.

First rant for the teachers

This blog will be primarily comprised of my evolving theories on particular issues, some fiction nonsense, and some random verses. Today I have chosen to start my first post on the former.

The issue of performance pay for Australian teachers is particularly close to my heart. A person who is a highly competent, interesting and dynamic teacher should be getting paid a great salary. However, any person who is highly qualified within a competitive academic field, and then enters a profession that helps train and nurture young people, while multi-tasking, doing countless hours of unpaid overtime, completing ever-increasing administration and legal record-keeping tasks, should be getting a great salary. Teaching should be a respected profession, that attracts very intelligent people with specialist academic knowledge, well developed skills in interpersonal interaction, management, research, technology, etc, and with diverse life experience. Australia needs to move more towards Norway's apolitical education system, (where there is an overarching education ministry that is not linked with the government, and where approximately 96% of secondary students attend a public school) and as far as humanely possible from the United States' dire education system, where public school teachers have to take on second jobs during the (unpaid) school holidays.

It is not a particularly profound idea to suggest that some people just make better teachers than others. A second-year out teacher, with curiosity for life still intact, a motivated and professional attitude, and good research skills, could be just as good a teacher as someone who has been in the profession for fifteen years. Just as some people are born leaders, or born performers, or born con-artists, some people are born teachers (please excuse my facetiousness; I do think teaching is a mixture of those three, plus plenty more). But on the other hand, confident and intelligent people can learn to embody all of the features of a great teacher, in which case, for them, the more experience the better.

Teaching needs to be so well regarded, and well paid, that the best-of-the-best compete to get into the profession, and are then supported and funded by the government to do the very best they can for the kids they teach. The competition must end there. The teaching community is, largely, an incredibly generous and supportive one. Where teachers feel secure and supported in their own positions, and have plenty of opportunity and encouragement for professional development, they will naturally strive to improve, and share their knowledge with others. Thus continuing the general support-and-care-and-share love-in that comes with a common, highly noble, goal: in this case, educating young people.

Any performance pay scheme would have to include a huge increase in education funding. The fact that Julie Bishop's plan does not, must mean that some teachers will have their salary reduced. It has also raised many questions about how teachers will be assessed, the most likely being a mixture of students' academic scores, student and staff surveys, and maybe some professional development appraisal. If these surveys are anything like they surveys we know and hate from market researchers (I always do these if I have time by the way: I used to have to do this job so that I could afford to get a degree) they will be tedious and boring, and if the kids doing them are anything like I was, or the students I know now, they will be apathetic smartarses, or irrationally glowing. It should never be a child's responsibility to do an adult's job and expecting student surveys or student results to form the basis for an adult's pay is a ridiculous burden to place on a child.

The AEU have suggested some good compromises - although I completely reject the idea that salary bands should go in order of 1: 'Graduation' 2: 'Competence' and soforth. Someone can be competent at the job they were hired for regardless of their experience.

Well there. That there's some premature cynicism to get the party started. Next stop, Non(sense)Fiction Town I think.

x