Badger Galore
Staying ‘Up Over’ for a while.
Time goes by...so slowly.
I don't know why I do it but my weekend was pretty much ruined by me silently fretting over my day in school today.Last week I was thrown into the pit of lions and had to pretty much wing it but this time I got the class teacher's planning on Saturday and I think that's what set my 'worrying' off.One day, three lessons...English, Maths and Art.For English I was to get the children to discuss and list the differences and similarities between novels and short stories, read and share a (given) short story and then discuss character traits and get them to write two character descriptions.Yikes! I found it very uninspiring and my Mother was too far away to be able to give me a note saying "Please excuse Mr Allen from English today as it will destroy his soul."I am used to talking about beginnings, middles and ends, plots and characters but here we were talking exposition, conflict, resolution and orientation. What?!(I just glossed over 'orientation' because I simply could not be bothered to find out what it meant in this context and I have nearly got to 55 without ever being worried about it!)Of course, as expected, try as I might to breathe life into the lesson I was flogging a dead horse. The 28 ten and eleven year olds just didn't need or want to know about it. Rulers and pencils were tapping on the desk and there was lots of unfocused chatter about things other than the lesson and I warned them that I would send people out if they did not concentrate on the task at hand....then a rubber went flying across the table and I snapped"OUT!"The boy sheepishly went to the class next door and I winced inside that I had sent him for throwing a rubber in a lesson I could not make interesting but I had warned them so I had to show them I meant business. It did quieten the rest down and as I pointed at a few others who were playing with fire (No not really, it was not that far out of control) I noticed my finger shaking so quickly put it down so they could not see my fear.It was slightly better after that and we made it to Morning Tea without further incident.I had a half an hour 'Duty' handing out pink stickers to those who were walking on the concrete...no, that was a good thing, to walk on the concrete. You didn't deserve a sticker if you ran!......and then it was back in for Maths.I doubt there is any Infant Teacher who has spent 27 years full time only ever worrying about number bonds to 10 who doesn't pale at the thought of Year 6 Maths.I was to start off with 'Odd and Even' numbers, phew, I knew about them and we played a game for that bit which they enjoyed. Then we moved onto 'Multiples'...in the Swimming Pool of Life I was still touching the bottom but the water was getting up to my chin and my heart was beating a bit faster.Again we made it a game where we went around the room counting in ones but as we were thinking of multiples of 5 , when you got to a multiple of 5 you had to say 'multiple' and not the number...so it went '1, 2, 3, 4, multiple, 6, 7, 8, 9, multiple' and so on. We tried multiples of 2 next but they couldn't cope with that...the remembering of the number after the multiple...so we just gave up and set them off writing the multiples down.The planning said give them calculators to work them out but I thought 'Nah'... it's not that hard.They did the multiples of 2 to 100, then multiples of 5 to 100, then multiples of 10 to 100 at which point they were all thinking 'Doddle!' but then I hit them with multiples of 3 to 100 and when I set them off doing multiples of 4 to 100 someone shouted out out "Child Abuse!""Listen," I said, "this is not me I am just following instructions and wait till you see what comes next." A girl burst into tears at that.Yes, next was multiples of 9 to 100...DUM, DUM, DUUUUUM!At the sight of the teary girl I relented and handed out the calculators.Of course there were a few who, again in the Swimming Pool of Life, were doing synchronised swimming and getting top marks even from Russian judges but we still hadn't finished....I had to introduce 'Composite' numbers. Somehow I have got to the age I am without ever knowing what a 'Composite' number is and am I ashamed. Am I bollocks! I'm sorry, like the differences between short stories and novels, I just don't care.Anyway it turns out the a 'Composite' number is on that can be divided by 1 and itself as well as another number or numbers. Has that knowledge changed your life? Has it Heck!Finally I had to talk about 'Prime' numbers and here an Infant Teacher in the Swimming Pool of Life swallows water and starts to panic and can't feel the tiles under their toes anymore....what do you do in this situation? Well, it's easy you grab hold of the nearest synchronised swimmer and hope they know the routine.The best synchronised swimmer in today's pool was called Nick and he spouted the 'Prime' numbers to 100 like a veritable dolphin and I trusted his expertise and scrawled them down for all the non swimmers to cling onto and copy. It turns out that Nick, though good in this particular water, was not spot on and added 6 extra 'Prime' numbers between 2 and 97.I had had enough by this point and got them out of the 'metaphorical' pool and we went and played games outside for 30 minutes until the next break.The final lesson was Art and I had been given free rein by the class teacher to do whatever I wanted. I handed everyone two 'Cicada' wings...sourced painlessly, I might add...and told them to create something including them but added that they didn't necessarily have to end up as 'wings' on something in their art work."Are these safe? They are not diseased? " Asked the pain who had thrown the rubber earlier."They are fine." I said."Are you sure? Have you had them tested in a laboratory?" He continued.More than a finger was shaking now. Both my hands were trembling and it was all I could do not to place them about his neck and squeeze the life from him.I was underwhelmed with the response of the work they produced. Most of the girls drew Fairies...yawn... but the boys did some aliens where the wings were eyes and the best synchronised swimmer, Nick, did a penguin and used the wings as feet.Finally three o'clock came and the day was over....it had felt so much longer than the six hours it actually had been.I walked them down to the gate and left them to be seen off by a Teacher Aide. As I was walking back I bumped into the 'Painful Rubber Thrower'again."When are you back?" He asked."Oh, I don't know," I said, "They might not want me back.""Oh, I hope so," he said, "You're Awesome!"
Three days...
A little jaunt and a slight hitch.
Not the day I was expecting...
So...the new school year started here at the beginning of the week after the long summer break. On the first day I sent out my CV to all the local schools offering my services as Cover Teacher but letting them know that I am not available after the 3rd February until the 9th March.I woke this morning just after 8.00 am and as I usually am called much earlier than that I expected another day at home but the phone rang at 8.15 and it was the school just down the road asking me if I could come in.It was for their Year 5/6 class which loosened my bowels slightly but I bit the bullet and said 'Yes'."Is there any planning for the day?""I'm not sure," said the school admin lady. My bowels loosened further.I dashed to get ready and then looked around for something to keep Year 5 and 6 children engaged for a whole day!I grabbed Will's Red Bellied Black Snake skin, an amusing story book by Michael Rosen and my jar of collected Cicada wings and headed down the road.I got there at 8.30.Now the local school here is a small village school and my experience of village schools has only been the one near the Cheese Factory. There they have 28 children in the whole school.I was shocked today to discover that I had 28 children in the class I was taking. My bowels were now screaming 'Run for the hills!' But it was too late.School started at 9.00 and it took from 8.30 until that time for me to have a quick tour and the be told about school routine and a quick rundown on who might be challenging in my class and then they were in.....all 28 of them...and I had no planning and had to wing it.I did the roll first...If it works for Prep surely it was good enough for Year 5 and 6 so I asked them what jobs they were hoping to do when they finished school. There were three builders, a mechanic, two zookeepers, a policewoman, two authors, a vet, an army man, a snake wrangler and someone who grew lettuces among other things."Just lettuces?" I asked."Other vegetables as well," she added.Then I had to read a chapter of a book their class teacher had started which was by David Walliams, not knowing what had happened before or how to pronounce the characters names...so I was glad when that was over.The I brought out the snakeskin and we talked about snakes for while. I told them that before coming to Australia I was worried about snakes and expected to see them everyday but in reality I had hardly seen any."I've only seen two this year" I said."Well, the summer has hardly started" chipped in one bright spark.I wrote the word 'snake' on the board vertically."Ah, we are doing an 'acoustic'" someone said."Not quite" I said."It's an acrostic" someone corrected.I wrote my 'off the cuff' poem to demonstrate...Slithering silentlyNo one knows he's thereAttack is imminentKeep your eyes openExpect death!It was rather dramatic but I was pleased with it.I got them to write their own poems and decorate around them with a colourful patterned snake and then, if they wanted they could come up to the front and share their work and I draped the snake skin around their shoulders while they read their poems. That filled the two hours up until 'Morning Tea' at 11.00."Are you coming for lunch?" asked the Year 3/4 teacher.I get so confused with these break times here but at Morning Tea the children do have their lunch. I went to the staffroom for mine and without me even mentioning snakes the conversation turned to them and I was alarmed at how often the rest of the staff encountered the slithering beasties.""Is this wood or veneer?" I asked touching the table..."Well, I rarely see one."After the break I read 'Little Head Riding Pudd' a silly spoof of the well known Fairy Tale and then got them to write their own silly versions of well known stories. We had 'Mouldysocks and the Three Hares', 'Mouldy Jocks' (!), 'Break Winderella' and the 'Fringerhead Can' amongst other oddities.They, mostly, all did well and I was impressed with their writing skills. That kept them busy until 1.20 pm when it was the next break time.For the final session the Year 6's had an Italian lesson and the Year 5's went off to the library with a teacher aide so I had a free 30 minutes to mark their Fairy Stories then I had to do a spelling test with the Year 5's and after a quick outside game it was time for them to go home."How did you get on?" Asked the School Admin lady."I'm still alive" I said."Good," she smiled, "Can you do Monday as well, in the same class?"