Whitlow's Fantasy And Science Fiction Books

Yr 11 Info Tech, A6

I don’t have much in the way of info for this class. Teacher didn’t leave instructions and the only Info Tech teacher I found said they should be working on their ‘outcomes’, whatever they are. I go into the class, tell them “Outcomes, do it”, and they all jump in front of their computer screens. Hey presto!

It turns out their outcome is to design a website or brochure for a fictional shop called Whitlow’s Fantasy and Science Fiction Books. Sounds like fun. One student, Tim, has decided his shop owner will probably have a mullet, so he’s searching the net for a mulleted guy to go on his internet site. He picks a picture of the grottiest-looking mulleted loser he can find.

One student, Reno, who seems a bit more lethargic or distracted than usual, gets up to go to the printer; but he wobbles as he walks, like he’s on drugs or something. I mention on the sly he looks a bit drugged out, but he assures me he’s ‘clean’.

I hate it when students’ work takes them to the internet. They almost always use it to muck around. Apart from remonstrating some students for mucking around on the net, there’s not much for me to do.

Handcuffs

Yr 8 English, room 31

Boy, this is dodgy! Teacher’s notes are “Work on next sheet in English Rules 2”. Only trouble is, as the students saunter in in dribs and drabs, slouching around, it’s apparent none of them have bothered to bring said textbook - and their lockers are far away. I end up with nine students – the rest have either left the room without permission or are on the year eight camp. To make things worse, this class is in one of the rattiest-looking portables in the school, and it’s situated at an extreme edge of the school, as though it’s been quarantined.

Most of the students sit up the back. There’s one girl, Melanie, who sits alone up front. She’s busy drawing all over the table with yellow highlighter. When I ask her to clean it up she replies quietly, venomously, that she can’t. Her attitude is sarcastic, hostile; I sense enormous angst due to the fact that she’s a loner in the class. I figure it’s better to mostly leave her alone. I have to speak to her again later when I find her cutting up bits of the table with her scissors, but she eventually settles down to watching the antics of the other students.

Two boys, Joel and Kevin, are holding court in the corner of the room, regaling anyone who listens – and they talk so loudly no one has a choice – about possible careers they’d like to have: these include astronaut, pizza deliverer and porno star.

A girl tells me that another girl would have been in class but she had been handcuffed by some boy to a pole and couldn’t get away.

Two girls get a bit antsy and wander around the room. One of them asks me why I’m not getting them to do any work or at least something to pass the time. Exasperated, I reply I’m not there to entertain them, and that they had work to do but no one could be bothered to bring it; so I’m just sitting this one out.

Normally in this situation I’d hand out some word finds or puzzles or something, but I didn’t bring any. I know it’s silly – I’m an English teacher, why don’t I just teach them some English? – but you really have to know it’s hopeless giving students almost any work that’s not from their actual teacher. You have to be a real charismatic raconteur-cum-entrepreneur to pull it off, and that’s not me.

The class comes near to an end - and guess what? – that girl who’s supposedly been handcuffed to a pole comes in. And she has one end of a pair of handcuffs on her arm! Unbelievable.

Most of the students head out the door well before the bell. I could yell and rant and rave for them to stay, but I can’t be bothered, and I wonder how affective it’d be anyway. The few that obediently remain include, strangely enough, Melanie, the sulky loner. When I see it’s getting too much for them and they’re champing at the bit, I release them a couple of minutes before the bell. Gives me just enough time to clean the room up. When the bell finally goes, I walk out decorously, like nothing much has happened - just a normal day at this strange, strange country school.

Media Class

Yr 11 Media, R8/24

Oh my god, it’s Media Studies, a subject I’m actually competent and qualified to teach! Usually it’s stuff like Woodwork, Maths or PE.

The students have a choice of three activities: storyboard, cd covers and news report. Most students want to do the cd covers since it requires using the computers, but the room they’re in doesn’t have them. Typical. There was a room swap due to exams in their usual room, which has the computers.

The teacher’s notes include the following, to do with the news report activity:

“They may wish to look around the school for suitable scenes as the whole lot must be filmed in the school.”

Oh yeah, they’ll love that I think – an opportunity to wander around the school, bludging in the guise of ‘research’. I don’t mention it.

I go around the room speaking to each group (there’s three of them, from only eleven students) helping them with their storyboards and news reports. The basic activity seems sound – they are to present two different versions of the same news report, one looking at an issue in a positive light, the other in a negative light.

One group of girls are doing their news report on a fashion show. I’m thinking it’s not a very hard-hitting issue to cover, but typical of young girls, and maybe there’s an opportunity to cover it in terms of body image and stereotype. But the girls aren’t interested – they hardly know what I’m talking about; they see the issue as just being about good clothes and bad clothes. 

The second period is pretty much more of the same, but we’re now in Room 24 and I let some of the more responsible students use the computers. Some of the boys have sneaked out their Diskmans on the way down and are listening to what sounds like techno crap. I let them - it seems to keep them happy. It’s much better than having a class of bored, restless students. We ride out the rest of the period relatively unscathed.

School Camps

Yr 7 PE, A9

I have four students. The reason being that they’ve just finished a three-day camp yesterday, it’s a school sports day today, and tomorrow’s a public holiday. I guess after all that the parents figured, why bother? The teacher’s instructions say “Probably no one. Try Workbook p15”. I abandon that idea and just spend the time talking to the kids, asking them how the camp went, etc.

I’ve got Dylan, Scott, Hayley and Kimberly. Dylan’s a bit of a rebel: he tells me about the various adventures he got up to on the camp, including raids on the other huts and disturbing the animals on their visit to Healesville Sanctuary. The girls enthuse about the animals they got to touch – wombats, koalas, emus, even a snake. Scott’s a fairly straight, sensible kid. He asks to go to his locker and get a book. He doesn’t participate so much in the conversation.

I try relating some of my own stories about camps I’ve been on, but they don’t seem to be interested in what I have to say. Can’t say I blame them, but it’s strange how a lot of the older students can’t seem to stop asking me questions when I have them.

So anyway, I find out lots about this camp. There was square-dancing (Dylan tells me he and a mate dressed up as girls in mini-skirts); one student got injured mucking around on a trampoline (typical); the food was okay but the eggs were like custard (one boy kept eating everyone else’s vegetables); and the teachers woke the students up with their constant noise in the early hours of the morning (hmm, it’s usually the other way around!).

Nice Jumper

Yr 10 Math, A5

I’m about ten minutes late for class! The reason being that I thought I had year 8 Music, which is actually the next period. It’s okay though: I get to the class and the kids have seated themselves and are working quietly. I write some instructions on the board: ‘Finish 5.4, 5.5. Review questions 1 – 6.’ Oh-oh, they’ve started to muck around! No time to write, gotta sort this out…

I’m back. It was Andre, he was taking off the edging from around his table. He broke a bit off and used it as a sword to prod others. I stood in front of him and made him put it all back.

Now some girls are playing up, fighting each other. I think they’re doing it for my benefit. One of them, Amber, is always saying hello to me when I see her. She’s very friendly and we get along well. I go over to them and chastise them. I warn Amber I’ll move her if she continues. She smiles, touches my jumper and says, “It feels nice.” Megan, her friend, laughs. I tell her it’s just a woollen jumper and go back to my desk.

Almost all of them are getting restless now. It’s not surprising: the reports are all done and they have work experience next week. There’s not much time left so I give in and let them do what they want. Alenushka (yes, that’s her name!) decides to see what’s going on in the room adjoining this one. She parts the flimsy rollback door and talks to the teacher next door.

Meanwhile, Andre’s fighting with his mate Derek. I tell them both to go outside and sort out their problems. They leave laughing and incredulous. I wonder if I did the right thing.  What if they really start fighting out there? Was I irresponsible? They come back in soon after, it looks like they’ve worked out their problems.

Just enough time for a quick Top 5. Oh, by the way, High Fidelity was on tv the other night, and I watched it again. Such a great flick. It speaks so eloquently to anal, list-making music obsessives like me.

Top 5 Sci Fi books (one per author)

The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Martian Time-Slip – Philip Dick
A Canticle For Leibowitz – Walter Miller Jr
An Alien Heat – Michael Moorcock

I had to make this one per author, otherwise they’d probably all be Ursula Le Guin’s (my favourite author). Not a bad list, for short notice. It’ll do for now.

The Night Tolkien Died

Yr 9 Maths, T2

They have a worksheet on Index Laws, whatever they are – something about simplifying algebra equations (I was never a good maths student!). I start off by reminding the students that, contrary to popular opinion, when I show up that does not mean there’s no work. I hold up the worksheets they are to do as evidence, and say “I have it here”. I then say “But it looks like it’s pretty easy, so if you finish quickly then you can have a bludge.” This seems to satisfy them and they settle down to work.

Before long a couple of boys have finished. One requests to go to his locker to get a book to read. The other wants to go to the library to get a book he has had on order for two months. He’s champing at the bit to go, but I say no, telling him he can surely wait a couple of hours. He pleads, so I make a deal with him: if I’ve read it or I know the book I’ll let him go. It turns out it is a book I know, if haven’t read – Soldier Boy, by Anthony Hill. He goes.

I receive the pink roll sheet that the students have been passing around and writing their names on. Some wag has included as part of the class Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain, Hitler, plus George W Bush and Tony Blair. I remark that it’s all correct – they’re all bad guys. Some kids question this, but I stand my ground.

The other boy comes back from his locker with a book, The Night Tolkien Died. I’m intrigued, so I ask to look at it. I tell the boy to go away so I can read the title story. He seems a bit indignant, but complies. I happily pass the time browsing through the book till the bell.

Cinema Show

Yr 7 PE, C7

This is kinda interesting: I have a tag-team situation with Kate, a scrumptiously gorgeous substitute (unfortunately, married) who I’ve known for a while on the rounds. We’re instructed to show a video (Harry Potter) to our respective groups. I go down the gym to round them up while Kate sets the video up in the designated classroom. When I finally get them to the room Kate has set it out beautifully, with chairs all arranged in order like a cinema. I make a quip about popcorn being for sale in the foyer, and Kate joins in, saying something about programmes being available.

We encounter our first glitch when the video machine doesn’t seem to play the tape properly – it keeps stopping. I volunteer to get the other machine in a room nearby. It’s locked up in a cupboard, but I quickly gain the keys. Problem is, once I’ve opened the padlock I still can’t open the door – the latch has been bent by some hoon. I go off to the tech department in search of a hammer. Eventually, after some hammering, I get the door open and roll the new machine into the waiting class, where Kate has been keeping the kids occupied with a few rounds of Celebrity Heads.

Kate tries the tape again and it turns out the problem is with the tape – it doesn’t play properly! I volunteer again to go off in search of a different tape – any tape – amidst sundry, mostly unrealistic suggestions from the students about what to get. I go to the staffroom next door and find Back To The Future. Good enough! I’m back before Kate has got her game of Celebrity Heads well under way, and we finally settle down to watch the film. It’s nearly fifteen minutes before the end of the first period when the movie starts. Luckily, it’s a double period for us. The kids complain predictably about my choice of movie, but it keeps them occupied until the end of the second period.

What a lot of mucking around just to show one bloody video!