My cathedral

In need of restoration from the work week, I stood on our patio and soaked in the elements of a private cathedral, our garden. Filled with scents, colours and bird song, it is more religion to me than any man made structure of bricks and mortar, or declaration of man.

Augie Dog by my side, relaxed under the influence of our garden, sank,  stretching out, as the magic of nature entwined us. Restored us.

Saturday morning, the rains have come. Mr FD is away, caring for his old Uncle who can no longer be left alone, and yet will not accept help. I feel sorry for Uncle, who is suffering the loss of his life to dementia, but also for Mr FD who has to deal with resistant, anger and denial every minute he is trying to assist Uncle.

Another tough week. School is more like a war zone these days. Students kick holes in walls, and another of our couches has been cut. Teachers with decades of experience working with children have declared this present cohort of students, particularly the years 7 and 8, as some of the most destructive and ill-behaved of their careers. Not a proud branding.

New gardens were constructed to soften and beautify the grounds and just days into the plantings, students are not only crashing through the gardens, but actively pulling the plants out. Why would they even bother? What unruly anger is within these young people? Such self centred, disrespect.

Parents who do not respect, are growing children who do not respect. Then add the ingredient of the influence of social media and young people feeling the pressure to out perform, one up, to achieve constant attention. Self absorbed is their middle name. Mobile phones in school are weapons of destruction.

My personal battle was added to this week. A male student who was asked not to enter the library as we had no space left and as he had stated he didn’t need to use the library for study or assessment, he merely wanted to “chill out”. Within minutes he was on the mobile phone to his mother declaring he was barred from the Library. Returning from class I was informed Mummy had rang to complain. Of course her precious son had told the truth!

Mothers, do not enter into every issue your child has. Let them own their own behaviour, suffer their own consequences and learn resilience. The energy that these selfish student mistruths suck from teachers, means that students who have real issues, urgent needs, sometimes life and death issues, have to wait longer for assistance. Remember the mantra, “Don’t sweat the small stuff?” Well, apply it to your children and let us do our real jobs. Do your job as parent.

Then maybe I can enjoy my cathedral for its beauty and no just for its healing.

that was the week that was

My first class teaching ICT and Information skills to year 8, a double period lesson, went really well.

I did my slideshow telling them about myself – what I did on my holidays, what I am reading, what I am listening to (played them Lumineers and Mumford and Sons songs that I am playing in my car on the drive to work; music as long as it is current always goes down well in bonding with students) and explained my expectations (number one rule is to treat others as we would like to be treated) as well as made my promise to them to work hard for them and to care about their studies. I also made sure that they wrote down my email address and told them to show it to their parents. Hopefully, I won’t regret that!

Then we got down to work, learning how to log onto the school system and set up passwords. I have one aspergers’ student and he called me over to tell me that he had encrypted his password into a number code so that even though he wrote it in his diary, he would be able to remember it. Minutes later he called me back over – his password wouldn’t work! We will continue next lesson…

I also have a home class, and the mother of a year twelve student (a senior) rang the school to say that her son did not receive his school diary. I know that when they were handed out we were not short, and so the school secretary telephoned the mother back with that message. Not yet sure of names and faces of students yet, I went online and checked the ID photo of the student – he was the student who volunteered to hand out the diaries! He has either lost it already, or his helicopter mother pisses him off and he told her he didn’t have one, just so she didn’t go through his school diary. By year twelve I think parents need not to hover quite so much.

So, it’s been quite a good start in many ways. I did have to draw a line in the sand and stand my ground over one or two internal admin issues with colleagues which is never nice, but things do seem to be working out in an acceptable manner. I have found over the years that if one rarely complains about things than when one does, it is usually taken seriously and attended to. Usually. It also helps to suggest a solution along with the complaint, even if it is not the final solution, it shows that you are trying to settle the issue yourself.

I just wonder how long we will have the year 8s bluffed and the hormones click in and they become the ferals we always seem to end up with by the end of the year!