A silent teacher

A teacher does a lot of talking. A bad teacher does a lot of shouting. I do a lot of both. Or more accurately, I did a lot of both. I can't any more. I don't have a voice. And I am not allowed to use the little bit that is left. Which is somewhat terrifying…

How do you measure a year in the life…

For the musical fans amongst you, you will spot the reference to "Seasons of Love". I completed a year in the classroom in May, and this question has been floating around in my head. How can I measure this year, or even make sense of it? The truth is, even after a summer away, a…

Take 2: 100 happy days

"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not the thing for you." Luckily, I'm not going to try skydiving any time soon. But today was the first day of my second year as a teacher. And given the stone in stomach feeling I had about it, I thought it might be a good time to retry the 100 happy…

A punch in the gut

"I am a bad person I know. So please dont tell me that I am bad. I am a wast person. I am not best at all in everything. I am samed my life" Asjed Ali Shaikh (Class 6, The Explorers) There are days where you know it's all gone wrong. It's clear from the…

Disproportional response

I needed some way of putting off doing my lesson plan on Israel for tomorrow, so I decided to faff around with the blog a bit. And looking back, I realised that this has become more and more of a "stream of consciousness", and far less a record of the insanity that is class. I'm…