I friggin love sunflowers.

I’m beginning to realize that studying education at the graduate level is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Half the time I just do not give one solitary shit about what is being discussed. Maybe actually all of the time I do not give one solitary shit about it, but about 50% of the time I have genuinely no idea what anyone is talking about. At first I thought it was the accents. “Oh, don’t worry,” I thought to myself, “these people have trouble pronouncing the letter ‘R’ so of course you don’t understand it when they say things like ‘zone of proximal development.’” But now that I’m nearing the end of my program, I’m beginning to realize the flaw with that statement.

No, as it turns out, 50% of the time I don’t give a shit and the other 50% of the time I’m too stupid even to figure out if a shit is indeed given. What these statistics mean is that I’ve spent about 100% of my time during lectures and classes absent-mindedly drawing hand turkey after hand turkey. When people in America ask me what I learned over in England, I’m going to have to tell them that I learned only two things: 1) Public transportation is fabulous in Europe, and 2) My fingers are so fat they look like lumpy sausages when traced onto paper.

In my future as a teacher I’m not entirely sure where these two facts are going to help me. And I suppose that’s been my problem with this course; I don’t particularly want abstract knowledge about education—no, I want abstract knowledge about religion and theology, but when it comes to education I just want you to tell me quickly and simply how I can get the kids not to resort to cannibalism during my lessons. Instead of providing this information, however, the university forces us to sit through lecture after pointless lecture on how data is recorded, or how newly qualified teachers feel their learning is shaped, or different theories of education and whatnot.

Now let’s take a trip back to my classroom. See, I still have literally not a single clue what to do when a child asks me if they can go to the bathroom. I quite honestly worry about getting asked for bathroom permission during every lesson, because my hair falls out as I panic over whether or not the child asking me genuinely has to pee or if they are just trying to go off and do drugs in the toilet or run around in oncoming traffic or whatever it is children do when they leave classes when they’re not supposed to. And if they do genuinely have to pee, what if my not allowing them to results in a burst kidney and death or—even worse—wet pants? That would destroy the child’s social credibility, and I would probably feel so guilty that I’d develop such a bad drinking problem that even British people would think it was a drinking problem. SO PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME IF YOU CAN GO TO THE LOO, ENGLISH CHILD, BECAUSE I CANNOT HANDLE THIS LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY!!!

But no. No one tells me how to handle my students’ requests to use the restroom. Instead they give me endless metaphors about how I will feel during my NQT year, all of them involving sunflowers.

Today during our lecture I descended into depths of boredom not seen since my university biology lectures. After briefly considering resorting once more to forming yet another assembly-line-of-one for the production of hand turkeys, I realized that I could have much more fun during lecture by pretending to enjoy myself.

So instead of reclining in my seat to the point where my ass was nearly off the edge, I sat up straight, leaned forward, and tried to maintain a level of eye contact with the lecturer that suggested that I was sexually attracted to him. With every sentence he read in a monotone voice off his boring-ass slides, I nodded enthusiastically with a Disney princess smile on my face. Had he been right in front of me and not separated by about 20 rows of students, I would have reached out, grabbed him, and sung into his face, “PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE SOURCES TO WHICH NEWLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS ATTRIBUTE THEIR LEARNING!” Then there’d be a key change, the music would swell, and then I’d sing, “I AM SO ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT LEARNING ABOUT WHAT MAKES A GOOD CONTEXT FOR LEARNING AS A NEWLY QUALIFIED TEACHER!”

As it was, I was in the very last row of the lecture theater. And so I had to resort to swooning with delight with every word, and rushing to capture with my pen every single one of his many gems. He clicked his Powerpoint presentation and yet another picture of a sunflower popped up. “GASP!” I said, grabbing my desk for support. I fucking love sunflowers! I love learning about NQT feelings!!!

I wish that I hadn’t felt slightly sick to my stomach at the end of the presentation. I would have loved to have given him a standing ovation.

Some things, like hair, are more important than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

If you're in my curriculum group you probably think this blog post is going to be about how I got into an argument with our guest lecturer today over the disgusting ease with which he switched between sets of terms (Israel and the Palestinian Territories, vs The Occupiers and Palestine) depending on whether he was speaking to Palestinians or Israelis.

But no. I have an even greater injustice to speak out against.

So this guest speaker enters the room. I take a quick look at him--besides the tie that's slightly too loud for England he looks pretty normal. Typical man in a suit from an organization. However, as soon as he was invited to begin his talk, things quickly went downhill. With an ounce of hysteria in his voice, the first words out of his mouth were a desperate insistence that the windows be opened. As he threw off his jacket, tore off his tie, and rolled up his sleeves, I was starting to worry that he was having some kind of an extreme male menopausal hot flash that would result in us having a naked and crazed guest lecturer standing in front of us.

I froze in panic as some classmates hurried to the windows to allow cool air in. I know it must seem as though I'm making a bigger deal out of this man's uncomfortable warmth than perhaps I should, but I know that if I were in the same situation (a guest in unfamiliar territory who feels uncomfortably warm) I would just grin and bear the heat. I don't care if I'm dressed in more layers than a Victorian woman and the classroom's heat is so intense that the friction of pencils on paper causes small brush fires to break out--I don't give a shit. If I'm a guest speaker somewhere I'm STILL not going to perform the professional equivalent of a burlesque show by removing even a blazer.

My God, I thought. My God, this man must be crazy. The tie is off. And beneath his polite requests there is a palpable sense of urgency that seems to scream, "I AM SO WARM! I AM SO WARM! WE HAVE TO OPEN THE WINDOWS IMMEDIATELY!!!!"

With the opening of windows and speedy professional nudity this man's thirst for coolness was immediately quenched. For a second I was ready to forget the fact that this man was OH MY GOD SO WARM!, but then he turned his back to the class.

I saw it, and for a split second I continued my usual daydreaming. Today's reverie involved Robin Hood asking me to give up the whole teaching thing in favor of simply being a badass. This then morphed into imagining Robin Hood, St Stephen, and Ronald McDonald having a picnic together. They were just about to--WAIT. WAIT. Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Get into your nuclear bunker. What in the name of Hank F. Effington is attached to the back of that guy's head?

From the front he looked totally normal. Okay, maybe his mustache was slightly too big and slightly too ginger for his gray beard, but otherwise he looked average. Slight receding hairline, gray hair, glasses...nothing too weird here. I found myself employing my Jedi powers to get him to turn again so I could catch sight of it. Come on...come on...

BINGO!

I took a moment to just stare at it in all of its rattail glory. I've really never seen anything like it. It looked like if he grew it out for another couple of months he could tuck it into his belt loop and use it as an alternative to suspenders. It was so long, a nearly never-ending braid, and my God was it tiny. At its widest it was about the width of my pinky, but it quickly withered away into a tiny braid that would make a fine toupee for a fetus. Such a tiny braid, how could he do it himself? Does his wife braid it every morning as she silently dies inside? Can such a man even attract a wife?

I briefly got a hold of myself and turned away from the hypnotic hairdo, but unfortunately I made eye contact with one of my classmates. And we just knew. We just knew. This man has a goddamn RATTAIL.

Well fuck, I thought to myself. I came here today to learn, but there goes any hope of me not having at least three inappropriate and uncontrollable giggles today. All of them hair-related. As it happened, I did manage to control my giggles (though I did have a couple of spontaneous fits of shaking). I did, however, find myself unable to stop myself from imagining what it would be like to pull on it. Not just a slight tug. I mean a serious yank that throws the man around the room like a rag doll tied to a ceiling fan. I wanted to grab hold of that rattail and drag the man around the room. I wanted to use that rattail to turn that man into a human hammer like Miss Trunchbull does. How much force would I need to apply to floor him simply by tugging on his hair? I wondered to myself. Could it be used like a leash? When he gives horsey rides to his children (assuming he has any I think we can safely assume they all--even the girls--have rattails), do they use it as a whip?

But enough about this man's hair. There's one more thing that must be addressed:

The Snort.

Look, I know what it's like to laugh. Sometimes you get a little carried away and you might snort a little bit. But provided you commit ritual suicide immediately afterwards, this snort is completely forgivable. This man, however, apparently thought he'd forgo the laughter that accompanies this embarrassing and unholy noise and simply have a snort in a vacuum.

What am I talking about?

Here's a normal snort laughter:
[*Punchline of a joke*]
Hahahahahhaha--SNORK--HaOMGthatwassoembarrassinghahahah

Here's this guy's laughter:
[*Punchline of a joke*]
SNORK!


I'm sorry, but simply making a snort noise is not an acceptable alternative to laughter. I can forgive his gross political views, his hot flashes, and even his rattail. But I feel that snort laughing without actually laughing is a character flaw that should be grounds for immediate termination. And I don't mean firing him.

A blast from the past

From July 20, 2008. Just outside Jerusalem.

I was watching the news in Hebrew, and suddenly they were having an interview with a guy. The guy was being filmed in his room at home or something. And in the background on the guy’s walls there were pictures of wolves EVERYWHERE. Like, at least 8 that I could see. Just pictures of wolves crammed in to every free space on the wall. And then to top it off, the guy was wearing a t-shirt with a huge picture of a--yes, you guessed it: wolf. Like, obviously someone really likes wolves. Like, a lot. Can you imagine this guy at dinner parties? “Hi, my name is Avi [I don’t remember his real name, but this is a good guess since we’re in Israel]. I’m really interested in wolves.” I could just imagine him, sipping champagne in the corner. He’d be wearing one of his many wolf t-shirts underneath a tuxedo jacket, miserable because he couldn’t find any women to talk about wolves with. “I wish I brought my book about wolves to read….,” he’d think to himself.

I have no idea what the interview was about since I couldn’t hear over my hysterical laughter—but one would assume that the interview was about wolves.

Giraffe cranes with a taste for blood.

I wish people had “for hire” lights, just like taxis. I don’t mean “for hire” like we’re all prostitutes, I mean “for hire” in the “I’m ready and willing to interact with other homo sapiens at this moment” sense. It’d be perfect for those days when I want people to fuck off—I’d just turn off the light and only tourists and others ignorant of taxi protocol would continue to try to hail a conversation. Because sometimes you (and by you I mean me) have days where you don’t want to be rude to people and you can’t just tell them the truth: that right now the thought of interacting with another person makes you desperately want to vomit. And because humans don’t have “for hire” lights, the only option left is to hide. And think about giraffes.

That’s really what I did today. Apologies to people trying to track me down, but I need to think about giraffes much more than I need to interact with other people right now.

Before I talk about giraffes, I think I need to talk about cranes for a bit first. See, I’ve been thinking about cranes and claws for a while. Mostly because a few nights ago I had a dream that the school I was working at suddenly materialized in a claw machine that I was controlling. So then I dreamed that I could pick up students and teachers who pissed me off, hoist them up into the air, and then drop them into what Dream Sam recognized as nuclear waste, but which Awake Sam recognizes was actually horse shit.

Another thing that has got me thinking about cranes a lot is the fact that every day on the drive home we catch a glimpse of the city. There’s this one moment in particular where we get off the freeway and you see this glorious bit of green, and the city’s famous buildings sort of poke through the newer buildings and the green and…and…I can’t really describe it. But I love it.

But then there are construction cranes. Oh my God, there are cranes. Cranes everywhere. But not that much construction… For a while I had convinced myself that the cranes were actually an invading alien race, quietly biding its time until it had bred enough new cranes to form a crane army for a hostile takeover. Now, of course, I see that’s ridiculous. See, these cranes peer their heads over the houses and famous spires of the city like giraffes sticking their heads over the railings of the zoo’s giraffe enclosure to say “Herro!” to tourists.

Yes, dear reader. I am convinced that cranes are actually mechanical giraffes bred in the locked, underground laboratories of this city by creepy graduate students from the Ukraine to kill the people of this town.

Igor: “We’ve done it! We have successfully created the world’s first mechanical giraffe!”

Evgeny: “MUAHAHA!”

Igor: “And now we shall let these creatures loose on the city to wreak havoc, these giraffe cranes with a taste for blood! MUAHA—“

Evgeny: “And Cheerios.”

Igor: “Sorry?”

Evgeny: “They are giraffe cranes with a taste for blood…and Cheerios. I fed them Cheerios, too. They seemed to quite like them…”

Igor: “[*heavy sigh*]”


And so they’ve planted these mechanical giraffes everywhere in the city. I sat and stared for an hour at one in particular today, and I’m convinced he is a mechanical giraffe who wants to avenge the brutal turning into scrap metal of his father, the great giraffe crane king, Okonkwo. I imagine him going on a vengeful rampage through the city. “Nooooo!” people would scream as he picked them up and lifted them over the city before dropping them to be impaled on one of the city’s dreaming spires. Well, the few Israelis he’d find would say, “No no no no no” in a rapid fire, but everyone else would definitely go for the one “Nooooo!”

And so Chinua Achebe, this vengeful giraffe crane, lies dormant as the students and hordes of open-mouthed Japanese tourists pass by him, not knowing what level of monster lies in wait on the corner, just by that pub and that library.

But I know.

This Year 11 boy will be me in a few years

Today was an off-timetable day at my school, which meant that I had to sit through the exact same guest lecture given to four different Year 11/Sophomore groups. Which meant that, as I was sitting in front of the class within view of all the children, I had to have a look on my face that suggested that this was the most fascinating lecture ever to have been given in the history of lectures. My goodness, children, this is such a groundbreaking lecture that as soon as this class is over I shall rush off to alert the presses. Nay, I must alert God Himself. In the meantime I shall grip the arms of my chair for support as I struggle to contain my growing excitement over the course of 70 minutes each time the lecturer uses words like "functionalist" and "essentialist." For the fourth time that day.

At some point during this 70-minute lecture, perhaps about 45 minutes in, one of the boys burst out laughing. It was the sort of joyous laugh where he knew damn well he was going to be in big trouble, but so great was the comedy that stifling this laugh would be hazardous to his health. So let 'er rip. After a few seconds he managed to repress the rebellion, but he couldn't quite manage to stop the shaking, the silent, mirthful tears that steadily streamed out of his eyes, and the occasional snorts and squawks that accompany any laughter made to be silent for a long period of time.

The lecturer ignored this boy, who was essentially having a seizure in the corner, and continued on with his lecture, either with the courage of the Titanic band or with the helpless stupidity of a Mariokart player who has just driven off Rainbow Road. I'm not entirely sure to be honest. I quietly suggested to the senior teacher that we invite this boy to step outside to compose himself and then come back in.

Instead of taking advice from someone who knows a thing or two about uncontrollable giggling, the senior teacher stomped over to the giggling boy and started bawling him out. As soon as she started doing this I had to stifle a sympathy giggle, because anyone prone to fits of uncontrollable giggles can tell you that the only thing funnier than something funny is something funny in an inappropriate situation. And so the boy started almost hiccuping laughter, alternating between silent giggles and very loud guffaws that would burst out every now and then. I actually felt terrible for him because he looked desperate to stop giggling so that he wouldn't get in trouble, but each time the teacher yelled at him to stop being silly whatever he originally found funny increased exponentially in hilarity.

Eventually the teacher realized that she was only making the situation worse. Unfortunately, she still didn't quite get it. She stopped yelling at him, but replaced the yelling with the stink eye.

And so the lecturer droned on with his horrifically boring lecture as the teacher angrily glared at a child whose laughter was actually starting to propel him out of his seat. And instead of relieving this poor soul of his misery by sending him out into the hall, the teacher continued to maintain intense eye contact, as though her looking angry enough had the power to make something stop being funny.

Eventually (after grumpily staring at this child for about five minutes with hilarious results) she took my advice and kicked the kid out of the class, leaving him to cross the room to the door as he wiped joyful tears from his eyes and noisily walked into chairs and walls because of his laughter-induced blindness.
And the lecturer just kept plodding on.

The Bungalow.

So there’s this one classroom that I teach in that’s a bit like a mobile home. Every time I walk into it I always half expect to find some obese Mississippian named Sharla who is missing several teeth, and so it’s always a shock to instead find 25-or so English 12 year olds.

What I mean by “like a mobile home” is that it feels as though it’s one tornado, or heck, it’s even one half-hearted gust of wind away from completely collapsing and killing us all in a news story that the Daily Mail will somehow find a way to blame on both immigrants and ‘elf ‘n safety.

How do I know that this bungalow is unsafe? Because it quakes like…like….shit. Every simile I’ve tried to come up with is offensive, so I’m just going to skip the similes. But I feel as though with every step I take another window pane wobbles and screams for mercy before exploding, while meanwhile the bookshelves wearily concede defeat and willingly implode into themselves as they give their children one last, sad, knowing glance. “This fate awaits you, too, my child,” the bookshelves say as they collapse into restful oblivion.

Okay, obviously nothing’s collapsed or shattered yet. Though I am convinced that my shaking our classroom trailer by my ENORMOUS T-REX FOOTSTEPS will eventually bounce some of the smaller children out of their chairs just like in a moonbounce. And, yes, I get it. I’m fat. But there is still no excuse for how much the bungalow shakes when I walk around. Or indeed when anyone walks around. One of the smaller girls who has the same mass/density/whatever the relevant science word is, as a three month old baby manages almost as well as I do to get the trailer to rattle around like a washing machine making its break for freedom. It’s the sort of eerie, inexplicable thing that the Doctor needs to sort out for us.

I gotta admit, it’s distracting. Though not, admittedly, as distracting as the constant smell of fart. I told someone earlier today that young teenagers always smell of fart, BO, anxiety, and (in the case of girls) way too much perfume. And that’s not strictly true. Much like the city of Chicago, middle school/KS3 classrooms have Fart Pockets. And I’ve said on this blog many times that I think farts are hilarious, but that’s also not strictly true—the truth is that I think OWNED farts, farts whose credit is proudly claimed, are funny. So in the case of the silent fart pockets that lurk in my classroom and haunt my teaching experience, I’m not a happy camper. Basically my teaching experience can be summed up with this: I wander around the classroom and from time to time think to myself, “Oh goddamn it, not again.”

I also want to take this opportunity to express my fear at the thought that the more I teach the more the farts of children take over my life.

Jackie: Year 8 Champion Farter, Girls Division

Today a girl farted in my lesson and laughed so hard that she fell out of her chair.

And, dear reader, I must be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever felt a clearer sense of vocation than I did right there. I am 100% meant to be working with children.

It was during an ICT lesson, so it wasn’t the sort of thing done to interrupt a lesson. All the kids were getting on with their work. I saw this girl was giggling a bit, and her friend called me over. Without any kind of warning to brace myself, I entered into a new level of stench just as the friend announced, “Miss, Jackie farted!” At which point Jackie turned bright red and completely lost her shit (not literally, thank God!), and before I knew it she was convulsing with laughter on the floor. This angelic, well-behaved and intelligent young woman was reduced to a hilarious mess on the floor by a single fart.

“Yes, child,” I wanted to say to her. “Just yes. Clearly you understand what is truly amusing in this world. I have nothing left to teach you. Your education is complete. Go forth and be awesome.”

These kids are just so amazing. This champion farter is just the tip of the iceberg of awesomeness. Sometimes they horrify me, but mostly they just say the most delightfully bizarre shit. And I mean “shit” in the wonderful sense.

One girl decided that the British Empire was not the result of a desire for power or money, but rather a desire to acquire a bunch of lands with strange names like Swaziland. Another girl wrote a letter to her husband fighting in the trenches of World War I and confessed her affair with the milkman. Another kid created a new religious TV character who was a vampire and a Christian, someone who begged his victims for forgiveness right before draining them of all their blood. Another boy argued that Christians should be in favor of cloning because then we could resurrect Jesus, clone him, and then “we could all have our own personal Jesus.” And then there’s the Year 8 child who doesn’t say awesome things but just looks like Edward Scissorhands, minus the scissorhands.

Man, I’m going to miss these kids when I leave this school at the end of next week. I am genuinely worried that the kids at my next school won’t be as strange and wonderful as the ones I adore at this school.

Oh God. I just got all soppy and sentimental over a fart.