My Year 9s are currently writing practice exams. I've spent most of the last two days rewriting the exam that had been prepared for them, mainly because it scared me. It seemed to be aimed at University Students and I knew it would have had my year 9s in tears. The Head of English got me to go and speak to the teacher responsible and gently persuade them to allow me to make a few changes. Which I did. She told me it was my first duty as Head of English for next year (a position I'm yet to be officially given).
Anyway, it's been all rush and panic - which involved me pulling a large section out to use as a practice exam at the last minute - but it's done. Any my rowdy year 9s are currently practising soundlessly. (Well, mostly.) Except for T, who is sat on my desk asking irritating questions and more or less getting me to write his exam for him.
(The following takes place in hushed whispers)
T: What does it mean "Write a letter from Hunter to his dad"?
M: It means you pretend you're Hunter and write the letter that way.
T: I'm Hunter.
M: That's right.
T: And I'm writing a letter to my dad?
M: Yep.
T: Why's Hunter writing a letter to my dad?
M: No, you're Hunter, so you're writing a letter to his dad.
T: Who's Hunter's dad?
M: Er, he's his dad.
T: Oh, okay. So where does he live?
M: We don't know. He's gone missing.
T: Then how do I know where to send it.
M: You don't need to send it. Just write it, okay?
T: Is this from that book "Jetty Rats"?
Mr B bangs head on desk.
It's an interesting time of year. We're all on tenterhooks waiting to see which classes and subjects we'll be given. We've all been unofficially arranging which classes we want with the heads of various departments but the boss, being the sort of boss he is, has been secretly assigning people without consultation. So we're all in the dark until we're suddenly given a transitional class (say for year 10s going on to year 11) in Year 11 History.
At the moment, I have my fingers crossed for Head of English (A joint position with a more experienced teacher) and Year 12 International Politics among other things. The latter was offered to me by the Head of SOSE but secretly offered by the boss to his wunderkind (sneaky uberprofessional untrustworthy young[ish] teacher).
The good news is that my job interview last week went very well and I'm finally ongoing. I've also passed my VIT malarkey so I'm, like, a real teacher and stuff. It's only now that I realise how much this has all weighed on my mind this year. I haven't slept as soundly as I have these last couple of days since I first decided to become a teacher.
The only other thing worth mentioning is the anti-IR Law strike tomorrow. I'm planning on going but feel that it's largely a bad idea. The timing makes little sense and I suspect that dwindling numbers at successive protests will be used by Howard as an excuse for pushing his laws through. I feel it would be more useful to wait until the federal election is approaching. But what would I know?
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Year 8 English Student Survey
I gave my Year 8 Class a survey today on my performance (and theirs) throughout this year. Partly because it's an excellent (if nerve-wracking) way to get feedback and partly because I have to interview for my job next year and I want to show them a) what a good teacher I am and b) how up with the latest theories on performance and development culture I am.
They were actually very positive and very informative. The kids were really honest, particularly about their own strengths and weakness - both individually and as a class. The following, however, is far and away the best. (An excerpt follows.)
1. The English Lessons I most enjoy are those where:
Urban Legends, in computer rooms, movies, pornos.
(No real surprises there.)
2. The English Lessons I least enjoy are those where:
I got in trouble for putting scissors in the power point and then got ignored and gay questions on Antz.
What I would like from an English Teacher in order to improve my learning is:
Pornos and more help would be nice.
Perhaps not the best one to show at my interview.
The interview, for those who are wondering, is going to be a rather serious and stressful affair despite the fact that the position has been created for me. Indeed, it wouldn't have been advertised had I not assured the boss I would take it. Nevertheless, I'm now required to go up against a bunch of other eager graduates needing employment. The compulsory public advertising of internal positions at State Schools is one of the reasons new graduates find it hard to get a starting position. Most positions advertised simply don't exist, already filled before the notice is placed. (Although the interviewee is technically required to be judged on merit alone - as I'm assured I will be. Hooray.) It's always worth contacting a school and asking if anyone is already in a position before applying, I'm told.
Although, come to think of it, I did replace someone last year. So it's not impossible.
They were actually very positive and very informative. The kids were really honest, particularly about their own strengths and weakness - both individually and as a class. The following, however, is far and away the best. (An excerpt follows.)
1. The English Lessons I most enjoy are those where:
Urban Legends, in computer rooms, movies, pornos.
(No real surprises there.)
2. The English Lessons I least enjoy are those where:
I got in trouble for putting scissors in the power point and then got ignored and gay questions on Antz.
What I would like from an English Teacher in order to improve my learning is:
Pornos and more help would be nice.
Perhaps not the best one to show at my interview.
The interview, for those who are wondering, is going to be a rather serious and stressful affair despite the fact that the position has been created for me. Indeed, it wouldn't have been advertised had I not assured the boss I would take it. Nevertheless, I'm now required to go up against a bunch of other eager graduates needing employment. The compulsory public advertising of internal positions at State Schools is one of the reasons new graduates find it hard to get a starting position. Most positions advertised simply don't exist, already filled before the notice is placed. (Although the interviewee is technically required to be judged on merit alone - as I'm assured I will be. Hooray.) It's always worth contacting a school and asking if anyone is already in a position before applying, I'm told.
Although, come to think of it, I did replace someone last year. So it's not impossible.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
A Catch Up From the Classroom
It's been some weeks since the department blocked blogger, thereby condemning Teacher of Doom to languish in the cyber-ether, but with the rise of blogger beta, it returns with fresh anecdotes. Or would, if I could remember anything of the last few weeks. As it is, I'm preoccupied with reapplying for my job and compiling a largely fictitious portfolio for VIT.
For those lucky enough to never need know anything about VIT (Victorian Institute of Teaching or possibly Vapid, Irritating and Time-consuming), they are a level of bureaucracy recently foisted upon teachers by the State Government. Really, they function as a way of the government tackling a perceived 'problem in schools' (which to my mind equates to 'problem in culture') by handballing responsibility for teaching standards to an entirely new organisation. VIT will, within five years, require all existing teachers to regularly reapply for their teaching licence by proving (via a portfolio) that they are still up to the job. Which may sound fair, in theory. Presumably there is a similar organisation that asks GPs to resit their medical exams every year or so. At any rate, renewing a driver's licence is equally difficult.
I'm all for maintaining teaching standards. Indeed, there are a number of teachers within this school alone who do nothing to live up to their title. However, it's worth mentioning that mechanisms already exist (namely the professional review process common to most organisations, not to mention incessant and compulsory professional development activities, dear god..) and a supportive structure within the school allowing teachers to discuss strategies and issues with each other would probably be of more benefit to staff and students alike.
It's also worth noting the VIT provide no support or assistance to teachers in applying for their licence for the first or hundredth time (other than a somewhat perfunctory customer service centre that can be extraordinarily difficult to contact). They appear to exist solely to 'catch out' bad teachers, rather than help them to improve their practice. Nonetheless, teachers are required to pay for the privilege of carrying about their blue cardboard card.
The experience of a beginning teacher with VIT will go something like this:
1) Before completing teaching degree/certificate, beginning teacher will be told to send off an application to VIT.
2) VIT will send it back, telling them that they can't process the form without final results.
3) Teacher will complain that they are yet to receive their results and probably won't until, ooh, mid-December at the earliest.
4) Beginning teacher will apply for a job and be expected to have already been approved by VIT.
5) Results will finally arrive and Beginning Teacher will have to visit the tiny office in a very tall building in Melbourne (nice view!), armed with them and several other documents about past study, travel and identity. These will be processed by a team who seem to number about 3.
6) Beginning Teacher will be reminded that less than 50% of applications will be processed by the start of the following school year. Without approval, the teacher is forbidden to teach. Think about that, 50% of graduating teachers will be unable to accept positions for the following year because of a delay in paperwork.
7) If Beginning Teacher is lucky enough to receive approval after sweating through most of January, he or she will receive a letter reminding them they are only 'provisional' teachers and the process is only just beginning.
8) Throughout their first year Beginning Teacher is required to attend (in their own time) interminable seminars in the suburbs, telling them about the VIT process. No attend, no teach. On the plus side, they give you muffins. And you get to sit there being sarcastic, if that's your bag.
9) In the final term, as the Beginning Teacher is sweating over VCE exam results, report writing and (quite possibly) reapplying for their own job, they are reminded that they need to hand in a detailed portfolio on their professional development throughout the year.
10) The Beginning Teacher fabricates said folio, at no small expense of their time.
11) A meeting takes place, the folio is nodded at, provisional teacher becomes professional teacher. Or something. (Still waiting for this last bit.)
The folio, if you're still reading, consists of a detailed recount of PD sessions the teacher will have forgotten about by the time he or she comes to write about them, a description of a unit of work and the reaction of two separate students and details of three collegiate activities. Collegiate activities being 'team teaching' - something a teacher will very rarely be involved in. For myself, it was precisely never. Collegiate curriculum development yes, collegiate teaching no. This seems to be the case for fellow applicants.
The end result is a fictional piece of work which really makes a mockery of the whole process. A bad teacher is not going to be caught out through having to submit such a folio, only a bad liar. Or someone simply too busy teaching.
In short, reflection and discussion with peers and colleagues, along with a genuine interest in student issues and milieu are the key to ensuring better teachers, not an artificial process run by people whose knowledge of the area is outdated at best and inexcusably slight at worst.
Ah, that feels better... rant over.
In other news, I last week had an interesting conversation with the worst behaved boy in year 9. He's a lippy sod who often needs to be shouted down into silence. (Not a practice I regularly engage in.)
J: You don't like me, do you Mister B?
Mr B: Have you given me reason to?
J: (pause - a rare display of genuine reflection) Oh, I didn't think of that.
Mr B: Do you think you're a good presence in the classroom? Do you think you work well and help others to work?
J: Hmm. Good point.
Mr B: I don't dislike you J but would you like having you in the classroom if you were me?
J: No way.
Mr B: There's your answer.
J: Fair enough. Never thought of it that way.
(And he moves off. And actually succeeds in being less of a nuisance for minutes.)
Problems still continue with T, the boring kid spoken of below, who recently had to be removed from class after boring a friend into violence.
(K: Mister B, can I please punch T's head in?
Mr B: Wait until after class K.)
The next day another friend had to be stopped from throwing him out the window.
(Mr B: W, put T down. No, on this side of the window.)
I spoke to him later and asked him why he thought he irritated people. He was at a loss and my heart went out to him. But then I had to ask him to be quiet.
For those lucky enough to never need know anything about VIT (Victorian Institute of Teaching or possibly Vapid, Irritating and Time-consuming), they are a level of bureaucracy recently foisted upon teachers by the State Government. Really, they function as a way of the government tackling a perceived 'problem in schools' (which to my mind equates to 'problem in culture') by handballing responsibility for teaching standards to an entirely new organisation. VIT will, within five years, require all existing teachers to regularly reapply for their teaching licence by proving (via a portfolio) that they are still up to the job. Which may sound fair, in theory. Presumably there is a similar organisation that asks GPs to resit their medical exams every year or so. At any rate, renewing a driver's licence is equally difficult.
I'm all for maintaining teaching standards. Indeed, there are a number of teachers within this school alone who do nothing to live up to their title. However, it's worth mentioning that mechanisms already exist (namely the professional review process common to most organisations, not to mention incessant and compulsory professional development activities, dear god..) and a supportive structure within the school allowing teachers to discuss strategies and issues with each other would probably be of more benefit to staff and students alike.
It's also worth noting the VIT provide no support or assistance to teachers in applying for their licence for the first or hundredth time (other than a somewhat perfunctory customer service centre that can be extraordinarily difficult to contact). They appear to exist solely to 'catch out' bad teachers, rather than help them to improve their practice. Nonetheless, teachers are required to pay for the privilege of carrying about their blue cardboard card.
The experience of a beginning teacher with VIT will go something like this:
1) Before completing teaching degree/certificate, beginning teacher will be told to send off an application to VIT.
2) VIT will send it back, telling them that they can't process the form without final results.
3) Teacher will complain that they are yet to receive their results and probably won't until, ooh, mid-December at the earliest.
4) Beginning teacher will apply for a job and be expected to have already been approved by VIT.
5) Results will finally arrive and Beginning Teacher will have to visit the tiny office in a very tall building in Melbourne (nice view!), armed with them and several other documents about past study, travel and identity. These will be processed by a team who seem to number about 3.
6) Beginning Teacher will be reminded that less than 50% of applications will be processed by the start of the following school year. Without approval, the teacher is forbidden to teach. Think about that, 50% of graduating teachers will be unable to accept positions for the following year because of a delay in paperwork.
7) If Beginning Teacher is lucky enough to receive approval after sweating through most of January, he or she will receive a letter reminding them they are only 'provisional' teachers and the process is only just beginning.
8) Throughout their first year Beginning Teacher is required to attend (in their own time) interminable seminars in the suburbs, telling them about the VIT process. No attend, no teach. On the plus side, they give you muffins. And you get to sit there being sarcastic, if that's your bag.
9) In the final term, as the Beginning Teacher is sweating over VCE exam results, report writing and (quite possibly) reapplying for their own job, they are reminded that they need to hand in a detailed portfolio on their professional development throughout the year.
10) The Beginning Teacher fabricates said folio, at no small expense of their time.
11) A meeting takes place, the folio is nodded at, provisional teacher becomes professional teacher. Or something. (Still waiting for this last bit.)
The folio, if you're still reading, consists of a detailed recount of PD sessions the teacher will have forgotten about by the time he or she comes to write about them, a description of a unit of work and the reaction of two separate students and details of three collegiate activities. Collegiate activities being 'team teaching' - something a teacher will very rarely be involved in. For myself, it was precisely never. Collegiate curriculum development yes, collegiate teaching no. This seems to be the case for fellow applicants.
The end result is a fictional piece of work which really makes a mockery of the whole process. A bad teacher is not going to be caught out through having to submit such a folio, only a bad liar. Or someone simply too busy teaching.
In short, reflection and discussion with peers and colleagues, along with a genuine interest in student issues and milieu are the key to ensuring better teachers, not an artificial process run by people whose knowledge of the area is outdated at best and inexcusably slight at worst.
Ah, that feels better... rant over.
In other news, I last week had an interesting conversation with the worst behaved boy in year 9. He's a lippy sod who often needs to be shouted down into silence. (Not a practice I regularly engage in.)
J: You don't like me, do you Mister B?
Mr B: Have you given me reason to?
J: (pause - a rare display of genuine reflection) Oh, I didn't think of that.
Mr B: Do you think you're a good presence in the classroom? Do you think you work well and help others to work?
J: Hmm. Good point.
Mr B: I don't dislike you J but would you like having you in the classroom if you were me?
J: No way.
Mr B: There's your answer.
J: Fair enough. Never thought of it that way.
(And he moves off. And actually succeeds in being less of a nuisance for minutes.)
Problems still continue with T, the boring kid spoken of below, who recently had to be removed from class after boring a friend into violence.
(K: Mister B, can I please punch T's head in?
Mr B: Wait until after class K.)
The next day another friend had to be stopped from throwing him out the window.
(Mr B: W, put T down. No, on this side of the window.)
I spoke to him later and asked him why he thought he irritated people. He was at a loss and my heart went out to him. But then I had to ask him to be quiet.
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