hello rover

another week just blasted by. and now the one thing i can't wait for is a holiday next week. no exams or essays to consume my weekends, no needy kids begging for help with everything from their social life to their maths problems. no kids yelling, screaming, and hitting each other. and no stress. i can wake up in the morning and know that the day is mine, not someone elses that i must fulfill. and then, i won't be able to wait to do it all again.

only 2 weeks to go now. i'm going to miss this place. i feel like i belong here now, i'm going to miss the great staff in my staffroom, the kids in my classes and challenge of it all. i've referred students to heads of department, given probably still not quite enough detentions, made kids pick up rubbish and called their parents. they're starting to hate me because i make them do the right thing! lol! it looks like i'm almost a real teacher. and i'm going to get another go at those nines again next week, they're not going to beat me that easy. they'll have to put up with me teaching them for a lesson, and i aint gonna take no shit from them again. will report back next week after they've given me their best efforts at being rude to the new teacher.

another week passes
a big pile of assignments accumulates to be marked
some idiots hit each other in the head
some other kids swear
some grown up idiots drop bombs on some people
and everyone lies
it's a sad new world

7 weeks have passed now since i started intern teaching, and i have another 4 to go. the remaining weeks are disappearing fast as exams are coming up, revision lessons abound and new topics are started. i can't call myself a teacher yet because i still can't manage a year 9 class without significant assistance. and i can really only just manage the seniors. i forsee much hard work ahead. i also forsee some reward and feelings of goodness when i get there.

sometimes i think i'm stupid. i'm sure other people think i am. i'm still learning stuff i should have learnt when i was 5 years old! but, better late than never. like today, i finally learned how to be more assertive. if i don't let all the students in the class know that i know that the bell doesn't ring for 5 minutes yet, they all try to tell me it rang 5 minutes ago. the students certainly think i'm stupid. but once i let them all know at the same time that i know the bell doesn't ring for another 5 minutes and that you can't fool me that easy, then they suddenly back off. it seems that i have never made a habit of externalising all my thoughts so that other people know what i'm thinking. i've never thought it necessary, half of what i think turns out to be wrong or stupid anyway, so why bother telling everyone at the top of my voice about it? well, now i know why everyone does externalise all their thoughts to whoever happens to be nearby. in some way it establishes a social boundary, and the thoughts that you choose to vocally emit determine the sort of boundary that you create around you. in a classroom you need to be careful to emit thoughts that convey authority and a position of control (especially with yr 9's) and expectations of good behaviour. in other social situations there will be other thoughts that you should emit to fit into the surroundings, and different thoughts to filter out. i usually filter out just about everything except necesseties. that doesn't work as a teacher. i've got to create a new filter for my brain that passes such thoughts as 'stop that now, it's annoying me and everyone around you', but still stops thoughts such as 'shut the hell up, you're shitting me'. it's going to take a bit of fine tuning.