Well, it's been quite a while since I've done one of these, and I've been dormant for ages so it seems appropriate to do it now. The new school year is about to kick off, and I am at a new campus (with the same company) so while a lot of my old complaints will still hold true, but there will also be a delightful newness, helped in no small part by swapping to Year 1 International (so that means I have the same class for the whole day, and have finally ditched the third grade text books which were horrible). I will have a lot less typing time as it will be a more hands on, but I'll also have less marking too - something that makes me very happy. That will just mean I will have to be more focused in my free time. They do like their forms and paperwork here, but I guess it is only fair that I atone for previous years by submitting it all on time.
I went on a short hiatus here while I was working on a project I have been referring to as the Honkin' Big Book Project. But "working" should be in air quotes, as the end of the school year with a newborn at home wasn't quite the best time to choose. I do have plans of working on it, especially now that I am largely waking up around 5 o'clock or so most days due to one daughter or the other. I have slowly been weaning myself off my early morning clickbait feast, and by small steps I'm becoming more productive then - so long as neither Madeline nor Rosalyn wake up again. I intend to go back to posting more regularly here, even if it is just something short. I have however also found a nice new place to play on, so I will have to do my best not to spend all my free time there
To aid with all this I have just recently finished a rather drastic overhaul of HabitRPG, coughed up for a subscription and used another orb of rebirth. I still hadn't hit level 100, but once again standards were slipping a bit. I also hadn't really been using the Habits column much, relying instead on Dailies and To-Do's. I've pulled a lot of no-core activities that I've either mastered, are too easy or aren't what I want to focus on, and dropped some challenges that were equally distracting. I'm excited for the new start of the school year, and new focus that I've got... we'll just have to see how long that lasts.
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Friday, 15 August 2014
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Heraldry
"Aye, I can do it, but it's not a very... regal sort of animal." the blacksmith said.
"Screw those sanctimonious bastards, and their notions of heraldry!" The knight drew breath, and from his previous visits to the smithy, Danny knew he was going to start his long winded tirade yet again. He nodded his head at all the relevant places, pumped the bellows as quietly as he could, and wished he would just pay up and leave. "Beggin' yer parden sir, but if'n you want me to finish this today, then it's best you leave and lets me get on with it." A curt nod and the knight left him in peace.
Danny shook his head in confusion. Lions, dragons or eagles all made sense on a shield. To some degree he could even see the sense in a stag, noble looking with the antlers. But a manatee? A manatee?
I started the Monday Mixer yesterday, after work. There were still a couple of kids in the classroom, waiting to be picked up. One had some input in the story, naming the blacksmith and telling my off for my spelling and swearing. She also suggested trying for the overachiever award, but I couldn’t comfortably cram more words in. She of course loved the toilet definition of garderobe. Sanctimonius, smithy and manatee were enough for this piece though. There were some coats of arms with manatees on, mainly drawn by kids. But when I saw the horribly wonderful pun on the t-shirt, I couldn’t resist selecting that picture.
"Screw those sanctimonious bastards, and their notions of heraldry!" The knight drew breath, and from his previous visits to the smithy, Danny knew he was going to start his long winded tirade yet again. He nodded his head at all the relevant places, pumped the bellows as quietly as he could, and wished he would just pay up and leave. "Beggin' yer parden sir, but if'n you want me to finish this today, then it's best you leave and lets me get on with it." A curt nod and the knight left him in peace.
Danny shook his head in confusion. Lions, dragons or eagles all made sense on a shield. To some degree he could even see the sense in a stag, noble looking with the antlers. But a manatee? A manatee?
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| Picture from here |
Sunday, 18 September 2011
First Times
This has been sitting around for a while, needing a last couple of sentences and a once-over to check for editing. Jeff said about doing a first time story, and two ideas leapt out at me. This was the first, my first day of teaching. Especially since Amazing Superpowers did such a great cartoon of it (which I also redid, for one of their competitions... my version is after the story).
Nature. The Great Outdoors. The countryside. I’m so not a fan. Nature is just a euphemism for being amongst hordes of biting and stinging insects with no electricity. The Great Outdoors aren’t. Sure, I like building a sandcastle at the beach, but that’s the extent of it. And as for the countryside, I like towns and cities. Chickens should be frozen or deep fried, not covered in feathers and clucking. So it seemed to be counter-intuitive when I applied to the Northern Territory for work. But not really, as if I had tried getting a teaching job back in Canberra or near where I’d gone to Uni, I’d be unlikely to get anything permanent, and I was too lazy for the extra effort that is incorporated into relief teaching - plus I wanted a steady income. Besides, my parents had met in a small town in the NT, so how bad could it be?
It turns out it can be pretty bad. It didn’t take long for me to be offered a job via email. I tried looking it up on a halfway decent map... no dice. I had to write back for some more information so I could locate it. It turned out the school they were suggesting for my first teaching gig was a one teacher, multi-age and class school in the middle of the Simpson desert. I’d be the teacher, principal, and do all the paperwork, in a small, dry (as in no alcohol!) aboriginal community. I know taking that would be setting myself up for failure, and knocked them back, knowing that would put my name on the bottom of the list of applicants. Bummer.
Luckily though, the list of applicants was humourously short, and within a fortnight, I was offered another job, this time in a town called Borroloola. At least I’d heard of this town before, and the school and the town sounded OK. A lot of our friends got phone calls for job interviews while playing Quake, and the same happened to me, an auspicious sign so I thought. In hindsight though, when we were in our rooms we were either playing Quake or asleep, so I guess it wasn’t that surprising really. The interview with the principal went well, and I accepted the position he offered me at the end.
I had a farewell to civilisation party with all my mates, and headed up north. I met the other teachers at the local pub, and told them I was into reading, computer games and a bit about myself. Little did I know they opened a book on how long I’d stay, with the longest bet being a week (I showed them, by sticking it out for three years).
The first day of my first teaching job, I handed out what I thought was a quite reasonable test to my 4/5 class, to gauge their ability, starting out with half a butterfly and the instruction to finish the picture by completing the other side along the axis of symmetry. A few hands shot up, and I was getting ready to answer the question “What does symmetry mean?” Instead the kid asked me how to spell his name. He wasn’t the only one. I sighed, and collected the tests, reeling back my expectations. Instead, I picked a picture book at random and started to read. It was called Toby, and was about a dog, a golden retriever. Page one: This is Toby, my dog. Page two: Toby died yesterday. It continued on, a sad paean singing the praises of a little boy’s pet. I think I was in tears by page 5.
As a first time, it wasn’t great. But really, isn’t that what you want? For something to suck badly at the beginning, so each day is an improvement... no sense peaking too early.
I did a hidden comic for this one (like many of the ASP ones, done lightly in blue) but they didn't post it when I got a commendation, so I guess it didn't make the grade.
http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2009/04/the-first-day/
Chalkie
Nature. The Great Outdoors. The countryside. I’m so not a fan. Nature is just a euphemism for being amongst hordes of biting and stinging insects with no electricity. The Great Outdoors aren’t. Sure, I like building a sandcastle at the beach, but that’s the extent of it. And as for the countryside, I like towns and cities. Chickens should be frozen or deep fried, not covered in feathers and clucking. So it seemed to be counter-intuitive when I applied to the Northern Territory for work. But not really, as if I had tried getting a teaching job back in Canberra or near where I’d gone to Uni, I’d be unlikely to get anything permanent, and I was too lazy for the extra effort that is incorporated into relief teaching - plus I wanted a steady income. Besides, my parents had met in a small town in the NT, so how bad could it be?
It turns out it can be pretty bad. It didn’t take long for me to be offered a job via email. I tried looking it up on a halfway decent map... no dice. I had to write back for some more information so I could locate it. It turned out the school they were suggesting for my first teaching gig was a one teacher, multi-age and class school in the middle of the Simpson desert. I’d be the teacher, principal, and do all the paperwork, in a small, dry (as in no alcohol!) aboriginal community. I know taking that would be setting myself up for failure, and knocked them back, knowing that would put my name on the bottom of the list of applicants. Bummer.
Luckily though, the list of applicants was humourously short, and within a fortnight, I was offered another job, this time in a town called Borroloola. At least I’d heard of this town before, and the school and the town sounded OK. A lot of our friends got phone calls for job interviews while playing Quake, and the same happened to me, an auspicious sign so I thought. In hindsight though, when we were in our rooms we were either playing Quake or asleep, so I guess it wasn’t that surprising really. The interview with the principal went well, and I accepted the position he offered me at the end.
I had a farewell to civilisation party with all my mates, and headed up north. I met the other teachers at the local pub, and told them I was into reading, computer games and a bit about myself. Little did I know they opened a book on how long I’d stay, with the longest bet being a week (I showed them, by sticking it out for three years).
The first day of my first teaching job, I handed out what I thought was a quite reasonable test to my 4/5 class, to gauge their ability, starting out with half a butterfly and the instruction to finish the picture by completing the other side along the axis of symmetry. A few hands shot up, and I was getting ready to answer the question “What does symmetry mean?” Instead the kid asked me how to spell his name. He wasn’t the only one. I sighed, and collected the tests, reeling back my expectations. Instead, I picked a picture book at random and started to read. It was called Toby, and was about a dog, a golden retriever. Page one: This is Toby, my dog. Page two: Toby died yesterday. It continued on, a sad paean singing the praises of a little boy’s pet. I think I was in tears by page 5.
As a first time, it wasn’t great. But really, isn’t that what you want? For something to suck badly at the beginning, so each day is an improvement... no sense peaking too early.
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