A Definite Uncertainty.

Sometimes you wonder are the students the real staff.

Some staff act like students. That includes me sometimes. Well. At least I am honest.
So one of my formal observations was scheduled for today. My year 7. Lovely year 7. I look at this bunch every week and see them eager to learn, lots of interesting (and silly, of course) questions. This kind of makes teaching worthwhile, makes a day interesting and fulfilling. But if I could foresee everything before they occur, I would not be here right now. Lottery, oh yes, all mine. Plus, I would have personally make sure Justin Bieber was not created. Parents, contraception, do it. The lesson went so out of hand, in fact, the teacher had to cancel the formal observation. Let's pretend it never happened.

So, my interesting day began nice and early. Went back to prepare my 4-lesson day. First two-period, I was basing it on Coldplay. Yes, you heard it, Coldplay. Oh yes, and the X Factor, too. We were talking about radio technology, you see. If you haven't seen Coldplay's (amazing, amazing) performance on the X Factor, you have the watch it. Radio-controlled wristband, blink, blink, you rock. Just before you say anything, I don't watch the X Factor. I watched the Coldplay clip online, avoiding the majority of the la-la-la-la-la you-can't-sing disaster. One of the great things  about teaching is that the fact that nothing is certain is a certain. First thing in the morning, been told they have PSHE to find out their work experience in January. Exciting. The theory can wait then. Let's have a short fun lesson. (well, as oppose to a long fun lesson I guess.) Little did I know after the break, my skills were going to be pushed to the limit with my year 7.

I would like to point out, there are only 3 photocopier-printer-all-in-one-gigantic blah blah machine in the whole school. All staff have to queue for them everyday - with all the students. The printer in the Art block overlooks my classroom. The bell rang - 5 minutes too early, and when I was printing. I panicked and ran away from my printing back to the classroom. The lesson started with me out of breathe Calm down, dear, just calm down, I said to myself. Moved on with my lesson. Did a brilliant starter activity. Then, something happened. A chain reaction. A chain reaction that would ruin the formal observation.

A student from the back row put her hand up. I swiftly acknowledged that.
'I need to go to rehearsal, sir.'
'What rehearsal is this?'
'Music, sir. With Mr S.'
'Is it now?'
'Yes, sir.'
At this point my teacher told me 'she wasn't lying, she can go.'
The girl left the room, with another girl. Student number, minus two.
Resumed my lesson. 5 minutes in. A knock on the floor. The two girls came back.
'What's happening?'
'We need to take her as well. She is in our rehearsal.'
'Go.' Minus three, in some ways this lesson was getting better.
5 minutes in from the 5 minutes we already been in. Knock. Knock knock. The two girls plus the girl they took away came back.
'What's happening?' At this point, I was still smiling. How could I not?
'We need to take him as well. He is in the choir.'
This is almost like two people picking their team members in a football team, but dragged out over a lesson, 50 minutes. I think you can see where this is going. Knock. Minus four. Knock. Minus five. The fifth time they did this, I was losing my patience. This was taking the (insert inappropriate word here). I told the teacher that I was going to tell them and sort things out before they come back. The teacher even wrote a note, saying that 'a formal observation was going on, you are disrupting my lesson and it is very unfair on my BT.' At least someone cared. To be honest, you get all different types of teachers. The good ones are hard to find. In this case, the irresponsible one who did not care about the phrases 'BT' and 'formal observation' was the culprit. The sixth time the students came back, I told them 'no, you are not having him.' Funny enough, there were more students knocking on my door than students inside my classroom. For (insert inappropriate word here) sake. I closed the door. I could have slammed the door, but at that point, I just couldn't be bothered. I glazed back at my teacher. It was at this moment when I threw out the question, 'are you really going to make this formal?' 'After all of that disruption, no no. It wasn't your fault. It was really unfair for you.' Anyway, some good news I guess. Because I swear if I carried on, my inner thoughts would explode outwards and the people won't like it. Trust me.

I was lost after the lesson, which if you took out the 50-minute interval in the middle due to this music concert blah blah, was a great lesson I thought. I spent one week planning for this lesson. I slept for 90 minutes yesterday just to perfect the lesson plan. All this went to waste, just like that. I wanted answers. My evil child within said 'someone should pay for this'.

I then found out an email was sent out listing all the students that were involved in the concert rehearsal, at 1127. 1127. Yes, 1127, Wednesday 14 December 2011. 1127. Yes, 1127. My lesson started at 1100 and ended at 1230. 1127. Sorry. 1127. Eleven twenty-seven. Something was fundamentally wrong here. Who in their right mind expect a teacher to, in the middle of a class, turn to your students and say 'I need to check my email. It's 1127.' This was out of order. To be frank, I am trying to do my job here and learn something as I go along. I was prevented to do my job properly. I certainly learned something today - I am not that nice after all. Trust me, this wouldn't go unnoticed. I am telling my tutor. I am fed up of being Mr Nice Guy.

iD + :T C.
Don't say anything. This is the worst week ever. Enough.

Battleground.

In the end, we are all alone, literally.

I woke up today on my bedroom floor. I didn't know how I end up on the floor. If you're an animal than tear up the floor, break a sweat on the floor, on the floor. (Cough.) It is a great idea to put cushions right next to my desk. I don't want to damage this lovely face, do I?

Sigh. Still tells the time, but not on my wrist.

You know one of those morning that you knew when you wake up you sense it is not your day? Today I had that breeze of sixth sense. And it was not nice. My watch broke in the most ridiculous place - the plastic needle-like thing (I am quite sure there's a proper name for it) snapped in half. Lovely watch, now in need of repairing. Sigh. Luckily I have a collection of watches. Well, two, just two. I guess you only have one left hand so you only ever require one watch per section of lifetime, but it is days like this when you need a second watch. Sigh. Maybe it is time for watch shopping. Don't worry. They are only Swatch watches. Needn't cost an arm and a leg.

Well, as if the day couldn't get worst, I got back to school, feeling absolutely terrible. If you haven't ever try sleeping on the floor, I strongly suggest you don't. Backbone. (Cue cracking noises.) Nah. Not a good idea. Anyway, I must move on. There are children waiting to be educated. There is a student teacher waiting to deliver the education. It gives me satisfaction to do this job. I enjoy it, even on a rainy day. Anyway, that's not the point. Today starts with Period 1. It is a new class for me. GCSE Year 11. I walked into that classroom and immediately sense something is wrong. Someone's missing. The teacher, the actual teacher. Anyway, I did promise another fellow teacher that we would swap rooms for the two periods. So I did. That was easy, like a walk in the park, literally. But, then things started to turn. First of all, the computer network was down, apparently some fibre optic issue. The IT of this school intrigues me every day. How should I summarise it? It just doesn't work, does not work, negative, no no. Anyway, I learned from the previous weeks always be prepared. So, I took out my boardmarker and started the lesson. At this point, it was 0910. 10 minutes in. Still no proper teacher in this classroom. One teacher did come in at 0912 to say, 'are you teaching?', to which I replied 'yes, period 1 only, and where is the teacher - if she is not in, shouldn't there be a cover teacher?' It is to our mutual understanding that the answer to that question would be 'I don't have a godblimey clue.' Oh well, I started the lesson already. These kids are eager to learn. I had a lesson planned. I am quite sure help is on its way. I carried on with the lesson. This was quite difficult in some sense. This is a new class for me. I have to learn everybody's name in 5 minutes and think on the spot, all unsupervised. Something's fundamentally wrong here.

First lesson approached its dying minutes. It was at this point I realised that 'hey, dude, you are doing this alone'. The problem was, I planned for one lesson. One. You know. The number that is less than two but more than zero? I knew, at that moment, 0948, 2 minutes left, I have to think of something else to do with this class, yet my brain is screaming, where is the help I was supposed to get?

1020, fire alarm went off, I didn't hear nothing. The TA next door came in. For a moment I thought 'thank god you are here, do you have any cover work?', but then she replied 'fire alarm, sir'. Well. It is only 1021 and this day was testing my limits already.

The lesson did end smoothly. The class said they enjoyed my lesson. Now that's what all teachers wanted to hear. Happy things. False sense of hope. Walked back to my classroom, the day was going to turn for the worse. The cover work was present - in the wrong classroom. It was at this point I was asked 'did you do the cover work?'

'No. I am not suppose to. I am not the cover teacher. I did P2 revision with them. Only suppose to be one period. But I did two periods. Because nobody came. No cover teacher. No information. Nothing.' It was at this moment I realised that it was not about my general welfare any more. The cover work, children's education is more important. I agree, wholeheartedly. But, what is a student teacher to do when things like this happen? I chose to keep calm and tackle it head on. To be honest, this was the best and worst lesson morphed into one.

Oh, remember the fire alarm? Things would get even worse. Last week, with my year 7, we did a starch test with flour and talcum powder, to show not all white powder makes iodine turn black. (That was a good lesson.) Turned out, one of the kids took the talcum powder out, played with it, and the particles set the fire alarm off. Now, the talcum powder, alongside a lot of my other resources, were stored in a tray. The problem is, we don't have a staff room. This resource tray of mine gets relocated every hour. Not just my tray. My coat, my bags, my other things. It was a miracle that my bag wasn't damaged or stolen yet. To be honest, my yellow headphones was the first victim of this whole ordeal of bags and coats in a neat pile - on the floor. To cut a long story short, the safety officer did come to Science and shouted at the technician. But, then the technician did defend me and himself, quoting 'there's no blimey places to even store his coat'. It was good after all when you know someone stood up for you.

The day was too long, and I had enough for today. It is now nearly midnight. I have a headache. I know I am always optimistic, but today just wasn't my day. If you did read from the beginning to the very end, I would like to thank you. Because at least I know someone cares.

iD + :T C.
PS A storm is coming. Where is the calm before that going to come?

PGCE. Periodically Great Concerts, End of.

Weekends are for friends and family. Fact. OK, maybe on selected weekdays, too.

Hello! It's now Saturday 10 December 2011. Today I shall start filling up this blog with my adventure throughout the PGCE year. In case you didn't gather by now, yes, I am still the guy who signs 'iD + :T' on every Christmas card, and yes, I am training to become a teacher now. I didn't start the blog in September like my good old friend, 'Chris', but I think you should know by now, I am very slow. It makes perfect sense to start a blog at the beginning of a new chapter, ie in September, but, hey, I am very slow. It makes more sense to start writing when you have something interesting to say, ie in September, but, hey, I am very slow. What I was trying to say is, I am very slow. It's now Sunday 11 December 2011. Don't worry. I shall try and finish this blog post before the Mayan calendar ends.

In case you didn't know me, I am 23 years old (as of 11 December 2011 that is, don't know if that is still true by the end of this post) and training to become a teacher. For the past 4 years, I was studying to become a Master in Chemistry with Mathematics. Yes, you can tick the box, check, he is a proper geek. Before those 4 years, I was, eh, how should I put this, eh, ALIVE, or should I say, carrying out 'MRSGREN' relatively effectively (except that one time when I fell off a moving swing at terminal velocity and went unconscious for a while, that doesn't count, I was six). I really want to tell you more about myself, but I am afraid you will have to wait for my autobiography, available in all good bookstores, well, except WHSmith - I refuse to be placed next to Nuts and FHM. Creepy people touching over revealing covers with sweaty palms. No, no. Well, I wish I can share all of my inner thoughts to the world, but let's face it, I know what my inner thoughts are like and I don't want to end up in the cast of 'the Only Way is Essex' - I refuse any sort of mental torture, thank you very much (Oh, shut up.).

Let's start the week with Thursday, Thursday evening. (don't worry, we will go back to Wednesday, it is amazing, I don't want you to miss it.)
/ Thursday 8 December: Meat at Hawksmoor

This picture says it all really. Luckily, only one of us is a teacher.

So, after the career-defining (in a good way, a very good way) lesson with my year 10s, I went out for dinner with my dear old friends, Clair and Ed, the fresh off the boat, Tom (pardon the pun, but Tom does live on a boat, literally, sorry, inner thoughts again). After too many glasses of (any children reading this, look away now) out of date Ribena (I say look away now) that's slightly (look away) high in ethanol content (look away, good) and with a really fancy French title 'vin de la maison' (House Wine, oh yes), I was commenting on the fact that all Clair's friends seemed to be quite sirly, about 6 feet tall, messy hair, and so on, to which Tom and Clair just simply nodded. Ed then replied with the classic joke 'but you are just weird' (clearly a fact, not a joke, laugh out loud), to which I replied with my classic joke 'I hate you, Ed'. Well, to be honest, I am very unorthodox, let's not lie about it. When we were having this amazing dinner at this posh steakhouse in Covent Garden, I literally just got out of work. I was wearing slim fit trousers, orange socks, a white shirt with a blue collar, a red left-cuff, a blue right-cuff, a green button strip, and oh yes, a red bow tie. That just isn't your normal teacher look, is it? But you are just weird - so true. Oh yes, speaking of bizarre, I had a lesson on Wednesday which made one of my students vomit live in class (involving a Big Mac, chips, one-piece KFC, coke, more coke, and a blender - ask me for details, too graphical to say it here). I am just not orthodox. Never was. Never is. Never will be. (Friday, went out a bought two more bowties, morphing into Doctor Who now.)

/ Saturday 10 December: When Nothing Else Compares

Saturday is for me. :)

Spent too long typing. A bit tired now. Judging by the Marmite characteristics of this band, I will cut the long story short, Coldplay is the greatest band on Earth, end of.

Bye! Same time next week?
It is now Sunday 11 December. Still 2011. Panic over.
iD + :T C.
PS Newcomers, in case you don't get it, iD:T is not an abbreviation of idiot. It is how I sign things like Christmas cards. It is a (ha ha) wink (iD) and a (hmmm) crossed face (:T).

Allergic to writing since 2011.

Coming soon.