Yesterday more than 80 whole people saw Mr.Chipz. That’s way ahead of my usual figure…and it’s all thanks (no doubt) to Kate Nash, who I have slagged off here and on Watch With Mothers. Fantastic. At last, I’ve found a way to get people to look at my tawdry website. Therefore I intend to review Christ on WWM in a disgustingly negative light (of the world), and after that I will review Islam as a whole and say something beastly. My stats will go through the roof! Hurrah!!
I went into town for a few drinks with some mates on Friday. I only had three pints then headed for home, had an early start on Saturday. Stopped off for a kebab on the corner of my street and waited my turn. It was a bit rowdy outside, a bunch of ‘yoofs’ were busily wooing the young ‘ladies’ who were dressed like a cross between Girls Aloud and a ten-quid whore (o.k. so dressed like Girls Aloud then) by smoothly hurling lit fireworks at them. Ah, romance. There was a bit of a bad vibe generally so I just kept to myself and waited. Some bloke next to me then leaned over, winked, and said something I couldn’t hear. I glared at him and then ignored him. He did it again. I glared at him a bit longer and said ‘what?’ in the way that clearly means ‘talk to me again and I’ll smack you’. He did it again. “Fuck me, the bastard’s trying to chat me up”, I thought. Dirty little git. It didn’t help that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying but the fucker was leering like a nonce and my patience had run out.
“Yew don’t rec-og-nise me?” He said, right in my ear. (Eastern European accent in case you’re wondering).
“No I fucking don’t” I wittily replied, turning to face him and looking not-best-pleased. I knew I’d got my face right because he recoiled in horror.
“I…I am Agnieszka’s father…you taught her last year, yes?”
Oh Christ. Yes, now I did remember, I met him a couple of times but it was usually the child’s mother who came into school. Mortified. He’d been a decent enough bloke too. I made my apologies, looked aghast, grabbed a kebab and legged it, leaving him looking rather distraught. This is why it’s not a good idea to teach at a school quite near where you live. I shall have to apologise when next I see him. Damn and blast.
Here’s something I’ve learnt over the last few years, working in an urban Primary school. A lot of children with African parents are physically punished at home. I know this is true because I’ve heard enough African British children tell me, matter of fact, that if they misbehave at home, mum or dad will “beat me”. This is often done with a belt, stick or coat-hanger. Or just whatever’s to hand. It doesn’t surprise me much, I should think 99.9% of my parent’s generation were at least smacked regularly, and they certainly got hit (at the very least) on the hand with rulers at school. I have once been met first thing in the working day by a howling girl (from Ghana, originally) who was wailing her head off because she’d been, by her own admission, acting the princess while mum was getting ready for school. Mum had enough and got her across the calf with a coat hanger. There was a mark there so I could see it was true. Like a good little teacher I entered it into the file and reported it to the Head. Anyway, we all (us teachers and people who work with children from different parts of the world) know that on the whole, children from African families live under a very strict disciplinary code at home. I know of some children who have to call dad ‘Sir’ at home and I’ve even heard from one lad that he must kneel before his father if he has erred in some way. That’s what you call a patriarch!
This is what bothers me; we know which of our children get corporal punishment at home. We know which ones will get hit with a stick if they’ve been naughty and we have to tell the parents…I have on occasion not brought parents in for a chat when usually I would because of this, the beating with the stick just wouldn’t match the crime frankly. Yet very little is done about these children getting beaten. If a white child came into to school and told the staff he or she would be beaten with a stick when they got home there would be universal horror. I imagine the parents would be called, and the child would be ‘at risk’ in our files. Social workers would probably be notified. Many, many senior management members don’t do much about the African kids. Perversely, it’s not because they don’t care about black kids, it’s just that they’re being hyper sensitive to another ‘culture’. I have heard a Head refer to it as ‘cultural discipline’, which meant that she could do ‘very little’ about the incident in question. Yes she could! This is racism. It’s not racism because black children are deemed less worthy of protection from violence than white children, it’s racism because of a foolish notion that people from cultures other than our own have habits and customs that are ‘valid’ within their own communities. I hate the word community when applied like this; as far as I’m concerned the sooner we all realise we live in the same community the sooner we’ll all get along. I don’t see why I, as someone who cares for children for a living, should respect someone’s belief that hitting their child with a belt or a stick is alright. It’s not alright. We as a society decided that it wasn’t alright quite a while ago. There are debates at present as to whether it’s o.k. just to slap your child gently with an open hand. Children are putting up with corporal punishment which is not deemed fit for the native population because misguided people (who consider themselves to be very right-on and culturally aware) are afraid to tread on a newcomer’s toes and tell them that their behaviour is unacceptable in this country. When the greater part of the population of a country sets a standard of behaviour, then it is only right and just that everybody toes the line. That’s how society works. The parents who arrived from another place and have their children here do not (in my opinion) have the right to demand that their customs be allowed to continue unhindered if the native population deem those practices to be unacceptable in the host community. I have every right to demand that recent arrivals in my country (and it is my country. I suspect my ancestors turned up on these shores as the ice sheets retreated, ask any Australian Aborigine or Native American and he’ll agree with my logic) follow the social practices and customs we feel are acceptable. So there you go, come down hard on parents of whatever creed or colour that beat their children. End this misguided racism that means that some black children must suffer what we would never tolerate for a white child. Oh, by the way, the Head I was talking about earlier…she didn’t do anything about a Ghanaian boy who revealed that as the ultimate sanction is parents would shove raw ginger up his arse. Nice isn’t it.
10.08: I’m going to do work today. I’ve the first week of planning to do, an assembly to think about and there’s some other bits as well. I’ll be amazed if I achieve it all though, I’m guessing not. What I’m going to do is regularly update this post today (bulleted by time of day) to fill you in with all the thrills and spills of a day of planning. New posts will appear underneath the last one. Not above it like on some news websites, which just looks gay. It’s edge of your seat stuff, believe me. Well, I’ve just got up, drunk one cup of tea, had a short chat with my other half on the phone and will be ready to start after another cup of tea. I’ll eat something at shower at some point too. Tune in regularly for hilarious off-duty teacher capers.
10.35: I’ve put the washing machine and the dishwasher on, made another cuppa, posted on Watch With Mothers and am now, finally, ready for work. First I shall plan a week of The Maths. By consulting my Abacus Evolve (Teacher Toolkit, by Ruth Merttens and David Kirkby) I can see that next week I will be educating my charges on 2D shapes and lines of symmetry (unit D1.a and D1.b). I will also be needing to consult the excellent, excellent http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/
I love shapes me. They make my nipplez hard.
10.50: I’m going like shit off a shovel. That’s two whole days of maths in the bag. I’m well hungry man, I needs me a bacon sarnie, else I shall die.
11.30: Sarnie eaten. Back at desk with 3rd cup of tea. Right, heads down for three more days of maths planning, I see to my delight that the objective for Friday is ‘Begin to sketch the reflection of a simple shape in a mirror line’. A few years ago I would have thought that the simplest thing, but having seen time and time again children two years older than my current lot make a fucking arse of it I’m dreading it already. To work! (I see that so far a whopping three people have seen my blog, this running media cast blog pod will hook them in, oh yes…)
13.20: Well, that’s the maths done. I was sidetracked by writing something about Kate Nash for Watch With Mothers, please do read it. It’s now time for a bath, but I don’t think I’ll listen to a music station in case la Nash is on it, so it will be Radio 4 instead…probably women’s menstruation hour or something at this time of day. Or Gardener’s boring story time. According to the stats my readership has rocketed to a massive six whole people. Result! After my bath I think I shall tackle the Foundation subjects (that’s anything other than English and Maths to you). Pointless really as much of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent frantically putting this bloody assembly together. Still no ideas on that score. I can’t do the Romans and Egyptians as we haven’t studied them this term. Drat.
14.15: back at my desk…Christ, the will to carry on with this shit is seeping out of my body…
15.50: Christ, this is a farce! I’ve been to Sainsbury’s and spent damn near 20 quid on steaks, beer and Viz. And other, less than necessary things. I haven’t planned anything other than maths, I’m pissing today away like an alcoholic homeless pisses away his hard earned cock-sucking money. Just to let you know: this is an entirely authentic kind of ‘planning day’ for me. Most of my colleagues would have finished the lot by now and would be out with their friends doing the sorts of things a lot of teachers do in their time off, like sporting activities, going to church, helping out with other people’s children (seriously, they do…why the fuck do they want to do that on their days off?!), doing some gardening or DIY, or some other wholesome, productive activity. Not me though, when I’ve ‘finished’ (or given up) today it’s straight onto the pop and no mistake. As for going outside, fuck that, it’s rank out there.
18.10: What an abortion of a day…I’ve got so much fucking work to do before Monday! Typical, I always do this. Shit.
19.30: Managed to plan geography, science and ICT (computers n’ that). I also saw a picture of a young lady on the interweb with a penis. A penis!! How…why? Game over, time for a beer. I shall return to this work thing tomorrow. Maybe. If I’m around.
I’ve got to prepare a class assembly, to be shown to the whole school and parents of my kids three days into the new half term. I’ve got to fill a 20 minute slot, or rather, the kids do. That’s quite a gig for a mob of six and seven year olds. I must think of a uniting theme. Let’s look at the syllabus for last half term…see if I can model the assembly around one of the topics they were involved in.
English: Poetry maybe? No, nobody likes sitting through 20 minutes of children’s poetry.
Maths: Fuck that
Science: Forces and movement. No, getting half of my lot to try and explain that would by foolhardy, they’ve forgotten most of it already.
P.S.H.E: Fluffy horse shit about feelings. Never!
DT: Making a buggy. No, we didn’t manage to finish them.
RE: Didn’t teach it much to be honest. Time was an issue and I didn’t fancy cramming into the time I had available a load of shit laid down by the powers that be that all religions in our ‘community’ are equally valid and just wonderful. They’re not.
History: Florence fucking Nightingale. Christ. It’s going to have to be the bitch with the lamp. And the owl. And a penchant for being an elitist hag to her nurses, oh and accidentally killing most of the soldiers she ‘looked after’. Fuck me. Maybe I should spice it up by having one of the little girls dressed up as Mary Seacole and turning up for a dance-off to find out who’s the sickest nurse. (Sick as in wicked, not sick as in the Aids or cancer) Actually that might work. All the sick (sick as in cholera, or canon ball wounds) British soldiers could break and the Tsar’s troops could pop and the watching Turks could crump. Well it’s a germ of an idea anyway.
And I’ve got to plan the first week’s maths, English and foundation subjects. See? See what we have to do in our poxy week off? Christ, you have no idea. You’ve got it easy sitting there in your place of work, I have to work today, at home! With nothing but tea breaks, the telly, and booze to sustain me. Christ, I’m a martyr me.
I’m on half term. No work for a week. Well, no going in to work for a week. Naturally I have work to do…planning lessons, er…and things. But that’s not the point. I’m not going in to work for a week. You are quite probably reading this at work. At your desk. Well I’m not at work. And you are. But then, we need the break us teachers. We work harder than anybody else. Men working on the off-shore rigs? Poofs. I dream of doing a cushy day’s work down the mine or dossing on some building site where you merely have to lift objects weighing twice your body-weight. As for you lot who have to be on public transport at seven in the morning to go and sit in some comfy chair while 40 telephone lines are ringing simultaneously on your desk and your client in New York is having kittens…lazy lazy bastards. Don’t even talk to me about nurses. We have to work in a stressful environment where we get ink on our hands. Ink! On our hands! You have no idea. We should be paid more. By rights, for teaching children songs and that I should be living in a five bedroom house with a garden. With a big car. And a chauffeur. And domestic servants so I don’t have to cook my own tea when I get home at five. Five!! I should earn as much as a surgeon. I’m far more valuable to society than one of them. I’m more valuable than you anyway. So actually, I think half your salary should be given directly to me. And I should have more days off. Thirteen weeks off a year just isn’t enough! Bastards.
(This post was brought to you by the N.U.T)
I’ve been on a course. Courses can go either way in this job, you can find yourself out of school for the day with a nice bunch of colleagues from the borough learning something useful (and sometimes fun, if you’re doing something hands on and arty) or you can find yourself sitting with a pack of sociopaths who would never survive out of school learning fuck-all about nothing. The best course I’ve ever been on, surprisingly, was a maths course. I hate maths. Given the choice I’d let someone else teach it. However the maths course I was on a few years ago lasted a few days and it was for teachers who felt their own maths skills could do with some work. There were only about a dozen of us on the course and instantly fell into role as the sort of retards’ class at school, and surprise surprise, everyone on it had a personality. You wouldn’t have guessed they were teachers, and a nicer bunch you couldn’t hope to meet. Which goes to prove what I’ve always felt, people who are dead good at sums are nerds who want abusing. So there. Anyway, the course I just went on was sort-of-ok. It was for every teacher new to my year group in the borough, and there were quite a lot of us. It seems most people who taught my year last year have moved to a different year group…having attended the course I now know why. They wanted to talk to us about where our children should be academically by the end of the summer term. It’s an important year you see, the children are tested (at an age where many European children aren’t at school yet) and the results are put into lots of very exciting spreadsheets. On the strength of this data your school is basically left alone or a man from The Government comes round and forcefully bums the year group’s teacher over his desk. Then OFSTED come round and bum him, and then all his colleagues do for getting the school noticed. Then the parents line up and do it. What I’m saying is that this year I either get the kids through or I end up like an unfortunate cast member from Deliverance. I’ve discussed this concern with the Head and she assures me that violent bumming of errant teachers doesn’t happen but I’m not convinced. I was round at a school on ‘special measures’ a while ago and they were all walking like Charlie Chaplin, so I fear the inspectors. Back to the course. They talked about all the standards needed to be reached in Maths, Writing, Reading and Science. We were talked to about assessment and the value of regularly doing so. We watched a video of suspiciously quiet children working in a classroom. We were shown photocopies of writing which children were expected to reach as an average level. Holy fuck. I’m dead. They’re going to bum me to death. I looked at this work and immediately started grouping my children in my head and pictured their writing. I’ve got my work cut out. Personally I would have said that the average level would be a fucking miracle for an awful lot…not, most of my lot. I’ve got a lot of EAL kids (English as an Additional Language…foreigners you see), a few SEN (Special Educational Needs…of varying levels) and most of the others, especially the white natives and those of Caribbean descent, just come from backgrounds which don’t value education very much. Oh for a class of Asians and Africans. That would save my arse. Literally. We then looked at the higher level work which we should aim for. I can think of one child who can do it. Sri-Lankan, naturally. So there I sat, for about six hours. My bum got cramp and went to sleep about two hours in. My brain did the same after about four. So this half term I have to plan a few exercises to help me assess my little ones and decide what to do next with them. Oh, and start some stretching exercises so it doesn’t hurt too much when the man from The Government bums me.
I’m really most awfully sorry about the lack of posts recently. I’ve had parent’s evenings, courses, colds, golly…you name it. Anyway, it’s half term starting tomorrow evening, so I will do lots of writings to catch up, next week will be Chipz Timez. I’m in a training centre as I type this offal, so I must keep it short. Tune in next week for more posts, teaching fans!
Pestilent children! I have caught their filthy, good for nothing germs. It’s only a cold but I resent it bitterly, and I have the patience of a baboon with piles today. I’m not good with a cold, it has to be said. I’m o.k. with a head-wound, inflamed testes or Ebola, but terrible with a cold. I will cough all over the mums and dads tonight at parents evening to avenge myself on them for their foul offspring. I want brandy. Bah!
The last week of the first half term. I have mixed feelings. To be honest it doesn’t feel I’ve been back five seconds so I’m not dying for the break but I think it would be a good thing. While I’m a fountain of patience and understanding at work as the weeks have gone on I’ve found myself getting snappier outside it. This happens all the time, I think we (teachers, and probably nurses and police among others) have to be patient at all times and it’s not an endless resource. Don’t get me wrong, you know damn well some teachers are just miserable old cunts. So my nearest and dearest are driving me up the fucking wall on occasion. Either that or I get defensive at the drop of a hat. So…time for a week off methinks. As it’s the last week of the half term we have parent’s evening. Two of them. This is the first year where every slot is filled, maybe it’s because the children are still new to school and the parents are still enthusiastic. Or maybe the last batches of parents I had just weren’t that fussed. I predict that the main concern this time will be jumpers. Not children throwing themselves off bridges in despair, but school jumpers of the type your average six year old can lose 50 times a day. The problem is this: I just don’t spend the last half hour of each day making sure they all have the right jumpers, coats, lunchboxes and other paraphernalia that school children are wont to have. I spend the last 15 sending them out to get all their shit together and making sure they’re walking outside wearing a coat or jumper but that’s all I can really do. Maybe it’s something I should be doing but I do think a six year old is able to remember a jumper. Most can, girls mainly of course. The boys are fucking useless. I wouldn’t mind so much but you get some flustered mum ranting about how he’s lost ‘free already this term!’ and then look at you as if you’ve farted when you ask if they’ve put the child’s name in it. They blink a bit as if you’ve suggested the most unnecessary thing ever. So, I think that’s going to be the main concern…fucking jumpers. I’ll have to make it clear that some things just don’t come naturally. I just don’t have a drop of maternal instinct in me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very caring and I love the children, I really really do, it’s just that I’ve got paternal instinct, which is a bit more robust and just…different. For example, if a child is struggling to pull his socks on after P.E. (because they’re all rucked up) a teacher of my year group would probably pull them up and have it sorted in two seconds. I won’t do it. What I do instead is talk the kid through it, thus enabling (that word makes me puke) the child to be able to do it themselves for ever more. Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach him to catch fish and he will eat for the rest of his life…and other clichéd bollocks. But it’s true. And I am a softy, crying children get a cuddle (which is an easy quick fix at this age, it solves everything) and they stop crying. You can snigger all you like. The only worry is that I’ll have nits at some point, been ok in the job so far but if I’m going to get nits it will be this year.
I’ve done most of the planning I said I had to do. Would have been better if I didn’t spend most of today out in town, but fuck it, I had a fantastic lunch and I bought a Motorhead t-shirt which I’m dead pleased about. I suppose, seeing as I’m a teacher I should really wear it tucked into some jeans with a pair of brogues on my fucking feet. I won’t though. I’m all Rock me.
