There are some messed up people……

Now this Blogging lark starts you thinking and doing some strange things, but it also has made me see some strange things too.

I am growing vegetables again this year and I took some snaps of them as they do look quite good to me. I mucked about with a program called SLIDE and put the pictures of a few beans, carrots etc in a slide show. This show I then posted on the Blog via a link labelled Veg Porn. The link appears on my VIDs links, but you would not know as I did not publicise this. I did not think that it was worth announcing.

Now the thing about WordPress is it shows you stats about your Blog. How many hits you get, on what pages, where the person came from to get to your Blog eg. via a Facebook posting of mine – it is all there to see. You do not see who visits you, but you get told how they got to you basically.

Well I can say now that my slide show was clicked on first by one crazy dude, as they got there from a Google search for “Veg Porn”!

I am not joking, this is no wind up!

You can get help for that is all I say.

Those were the days Part 7

Why we have a block on picture searches

We used to be able to search for images with laptops. You get blocked from doing so by the County server these days. If you read on you will see one reason why.

I was teaching a year seven class about food chains using a food web that had a field of corn as the habitat for insects, field mice, various birds….. You catch the drift. One the girls in the class genuinely did not know what a swallow was. I told her it was a bird that ate insects. She still had no idea. So in order to provide a remedy for her blank stare, I did a quick picture search on Google and beckoned her over to my desk. As she approached the first hit came for an image from howtomakeyourwifeswallow.com which was hastily minimised with a Homer Simpsonesque yelp! It was a close call and luckily I was not hooked up to the projector at the time!

When I started teaching 30 years ago……..

I started my professional career in teaching on 8th July 1991 at a West London comprehensive school and I was thinking….

 

 

When I started teaching:

  • Kids stood up in the Hall when the Head walked in to start an assembly.
  • The Headteacher in my first school always taught a GCSE class, turned up to department meetings, wrote reports etc. Just to keep his toe in the water.
  • Some staff would go down the pub at lunch every day, without fail. The Clay Pigeon used to take a copy of the TES on a Friday from the news agent as so many staff went there at lunchtime on that day
  • Every parents evening you were served a hot meal before the appointments started or alternatively you could claim travel expenses for a return journey to and from home.
  • Wine was always served at all INSET day lunches.
  • Reports were written by hand once a year on A5 carbon paper for each student.
  • The form tutor report also had space for a comment from Head of Year and the Head Teacher too. The Head wrote a comment about every kid in the school every year.
  • UCAS was done by hand. If you wanted to write a reference (by hand) on a student you went to the school file, which if you were lucky had a few clumps of year reports in it on hard to read carbon paper to use for background info.
  • WORD had only one font option.
  • Computers were not networked, they were pushed around class rooms on trolleys
  • Chalk was king
  • You could smoke in the staff room
  • Registers were filled in by hand simply with a ‘/’ or ‘O’ with red and black ink
  • You could tell off an unruly student and they would stand there and take a good verbal whelping. You could have it out with them without having a ‘time out’ card waved in your face, or the kid simply walking off away from you because they ‘had issues’.
  • You differentiated by getting brighter kids to copy out more than their less able peers.
  • It hardly ever snowed. One change for the better.
  • The Borough minibus test consisted of backing out the minibus onto the school car park from its garage, driving to Sainsburys across the road, turning round and coming back the long way round the block. Providing you did not curb the bus turning left on the way back you passed. It did not involve waiting till you were 26 and having to pay £2k for the training course and test.
  • Mini buses had no power steering and PE teachers had arms like Popeye.
  • The staff football team had a better kit than the students.
  • A three part lesson Period 5 most days was as follows: shout at the kids, copy out, and put the stools up at the end.
  • Students used my digital scales to check the mass of their lucky pennies, as drug dealers had not yet done the analogue to digital switch. The pennies were used to measure out the set weight of puff on pan scales
  • INSET days were called “Baker” days after the Government minister who took a week off our holidays and made us come into work instead.
  • I regularly played football with a year 11  group if their PE lesson coincided with one of my free periods.
  • Free Periods were free, not “Non-contact time”

Bike progress…..

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The bike is coming together. Brand new headset, bottom bracket and a front hub pulled apart and serviced by Baz.

Don’t look much but it has parts ripped off bikes in barns, two different council tips (I give Amersham the big thumbs up) and bids on ebay.

It has been a steep learning curve.

Get well soon Buster!

I do not profess to be a Daily Mail reader, but the following story about Buster Bloodvessel’s demise is a worrying development. Get Well Soon Big Guy!

Buster rushed to hospital link

In my last year at Kingston Poly the Summer Ball/Leavers Bash was an outdoor gig which took place on a temporary stage at one of the self-catering halls of residence  The headline act were Bad Manners and it was a big deal . From memory the tickets were rather pricey, so a gang of us decided to go to the gig the cheap way. We strolled down to the off licence and got a stack of beer. Then we trekked to Surbiton Cemetery and stumbled past the graves to the back fence. Once the obstacle had been gate vaulted and the beer slung over in carrier bags we were in the grounds of the halls of residence.

It was very dark and disorientating at first because the point at which we had pitched up was at the back of the temporary stage. We slowly felt our way around to the side of the stage where we came against the wall of a portacabin. It seemed an appropriate place for a team pit stop. The four of us lined up and had a well-earned piss against the wall of the hut. Gavin, who was a very tall bloke, shouts out an expletive as he can see the goings on inside the portacabin through the window he is facing. The rest of us scrabble around to the stairs to the fire exit and lean round to take a squint through a window by the fire exit door. Inside we could see the band getting ready to go on stage with a few of the Student Union Politburo darting here and there trying not to panic whilst attempting to lend a hand. Amongst the chaos was Buster Bloodvessel who was sitting on a plastic chair in the centre of the room deep in thought, cool as a cucumber. He had a piece of paper in his lap and a black magic marker in one hand. In the other hand he had a roach the size of a saveloy. He took a big draw on the thing and furrowed his brow as he thought of what to write next on the set list that he was generating.

We could not resist so we knocked on the door and got let in. It was not quite Martin Sheen meets Marlon Brando, but you know what I am getting at in trying to set the scene. We all had had a skin full so we just stood there a bit star struck blinking in the light.

Someone piped up “Hey Buster, can we have your autograph?”

“Yeah, got any paper?” he replied.

“Er…. No.” was the answer.

“Come here then” he beckoned us forward and signed our foreheads with his marker pen.

We looked a right bunch of numpties when we later snuck into the gathering crowd, but we did not care.

Those were the days Part 6

Maths Vocabulary

I am grateful for the cover supervisors who do a thankless task in covering classes these days. I have said this before, but man alive, have I done some maths covers in my time, particularly at planet QM. It got so bad that I was asked for an appointment for parents evening by one kid as I had covered his class so much.

It is hard to teach maths – it is great that once they master something. Kids love to do the same process or calculation time and time again. They find it comforting – a sort of algebraic ‘copying out’.

What is hard is introducing a new term or equation to students, especially when you only know your way of doing the new calculation yourself.

I have learned over the years that the following verbs are essential when teaching maths:

Addzez                      (+)                   eg. “3 addz 4 is 7”

Takesawayz             (-)                    eg. “13 takesawayz 2 is 11”

Timezez                     (x)                   eg. “ 2 timezez 2 is 4”

Guzinterz                  (÷)                   eg. “6 guzinterz 24 4times”

Setting yourself a goal

Bikes are a passion of mine. Cannot help falling in love with them. However I am no technical wizard when it comes down to bike mechanics. So my latest affair with a Raleigh Massif Mk I has been a long and drawn out one.

Isn’t Jimmy Cliff a legend by the way? Play out with him rather than Beyonce next time folks on the Pyramid stage please.

Another legend was a bloke called Sheldon Brown

He is no longer with us but without his guidance I would be lost and out of love. His knowledge remains for all to read on his fantastic website http://sheldonbrown.com

Raleighs used to be the IBMs of their age. They are about as hard to work with as using a stone axe to wire up a satellite dish. The modern kit just does not fit on them. So I find myself looking at wierd chat rooms to find out how to replace the bike’s steering mechanism and also turning to good old Sheldon for pearls of wisdom on how to fit 12omm hubs into a 4 1/2 inch gap.

But I refuse to get obsessive – unlike this bloke – Click and see HERE

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Those were the days Part 5


 

Work Experience Visits

During the Summer term all the Year 10 students spent two weeks out of school  on a variety of work placements. There was an expectation that staff went to see how the students were getting on. Teacher visits were organised using a booking sheet by the staff room that you could sign up your name next to a student. It was pretty flexible and there were a few perks, one of which was the fact that you got out of school and away from being called for “cover” if you went visiting.

Some students really blossomed in the working environment and it was just a nice to see how they were getting on. 

One mentor of mine, a Tea-club stalwart and fellow member of the Science department Richard Michaels (RM) shared the same GCSE science classes in year 10 and 11. This meant that during work experience in June we had a lot of “free” periods that coincided.

RM suggested that we did a batch of work experience visits together along the High Street, as we had similar “free” periods in a run from mid-morning till the end of school. 

So the next day, after prearranging via a few phone calls, we visited a group of students who were working from Woolworths to the solicitors’ office all the way up the High Street. It was good to see the kids doing well and after completing the last visit RM suggested we debriefed in The Swan.

At the pub we had a good go at writing up the visit reports, as it was still lunch time at school and we were free last period. Here RM assumed the old git, Inspector Morse role and I (as Sergeant Lewis) was the younger partner, who got stitched up with the driving and getting the rounds bought.

As I brought the drinks back RM leaned back in his chair and puffed out a plume of smoke and said “This is the life! Year 11 are down the road, no classes to teach, no registration neither!”

REGISTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My jaw dropped. I could see RM grinning smugly. He had no tutor group, whereas I had a Year 9 form to register. The school had a 5 minute afternoon registration period where you checked everyone was present, distributed notes and notices to your tutor group and then sent them on to their afternoon lessons.  

He knew the score and I had been mugged off. I checked the clock……….. Too late! I had no time to get back in time to do it. Panic set in, I had visions of my form group drifting in to the lab after getting bored of waiting for me and causing mayhem. Knowing them it could get messy.

I jumped up and got on the payphone and quickly punched in the numbers.

Rings for ages, no answer. Kids will be waiting now. COME ON PICK UP!

Still rings. I have visions of my lab getting trashed.

Receptionist finally answers

“Chris, it’s Sam. I need help!”

“You’re down the pub aren’t you?”

“No I am not! I need a really quick favour”

At this point someone in the pub wins on the fruit machine and it starts paying out loudly. RM is laughing his socks off.

“You ARE down the pub!”

“YES I AM DOWN THE PUB! Just please get someone to register my form. PLEASE!”

RM is in absolute stitches.

“I will see what I can do. Make sure RM behaves himself!”

I could have swung for him, sitting there with his fag, pint and big grin.

Those were the days part 4

Inspections OFSTED had not been invented when I first started teaching. Instead you got dropped in on by Borough ‘advisors’ on a very infrequent and irregular basis.

During one lesson observation of a Tea-club member tension was building. As the class beavered away, putting together a spice rack, or some such wooden contraption, the advisor scuttled around the workshop with his pen and clipboard, occasionally asking the teacher inane questions.

The Tea-club member normally did not take any messing and the advisor clearly irritated him. When another “shouldn’t you be doing it this way?’ question came his way the teacher finally lost it.

“Right lads,” bellowed the irate teacher “tools down, machines off!” The wagon load of monkeys that was this year 10 class ground to a halt and silence returned to the workshop.

“Now then lads, as you can see we have a visitor today, a Mr Jones. He is a so called expert in woodwork teaching and I have decided that he knows far more about my job than I do, so I am going to leave you both to it and go for a brew.”

Then beckoning with his hands he introduced both parties, “Lads. Mr Jones.” “Mr Jones, meet the lads, they are all yours!” and then walked out and left them to it! Old school!

Vegetables of the small variety.

A small step in the preparation for the veg show in Aylesbury in September.

It has been held back by halo blight breaking out in the climbing french beans.