Just had a student, who finds reading a challenge, return 90 Packets of Instant Noodles by @DebFitzpatrick2, telling me he was able to focus on it & read the whole book, and how much he loved it. Now I have to find another one just like it!
I taught this boy a couple of years ago, and the fact that he has read and loved an entire novel by himself, without "having to" for class, is a huge achievement. I'm keenly nervous to find a great book for him to follow up. I'm thinking maybe one by Nick Earls. @nickearls
And now some of the girls in his class are asking me for books. (They're in the library for a language lesson, and their teacher is fine with me helping them find books to read.) One of them has read a heap of classics, including Lolita (!), but today she wants some good YA.
I sent her off with @elockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Her friend took @BorderPoet's Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.
And the young man took @Tim_Sinclair's Run. This is what a good day in the library looks like. 🥰
Some good things happened at school recently that have borne out my decades-long advocacy of selecting texts that meet the students’ needs, interests and abilities rather than falling back on The Canon and what we think is both Good For Them and in our comfort zone as teachers.
I share a pretty disengaged Year 10 class with my HT. We decided to teach @claire_zorn’s One Would Think the Deep this term, and it was such a great choice. When my HT read them the first couple of chapters in class, she said you could have heard the proverbial pin drop.
If you don’t know the book, it’s a multi-award-winning YA (#LoveOzYa) novel about grief and loss, masculinity and love, surfing, sex and scratching your way painfully toward adulthood.
A couple of years ago I weeded this book from the school library, but not before I took some photos of. Then I forgot about the photos until I had to clear space on my phone. Here, for your tweeting pleasure, are some of the greatest hairstyles of the 90s. #hairstylefile
I like to call this one the Sydney Opera House, although it was tempting to start the whole NSW V Victoria Scallops war again...
Staying with the Australian theme, I give you The Wave Rock:
My final observation on teaching from home before return to school on Monday. As you will remember, schools were reassured several times about the need for consistency and an ability to plan ahead. So in good faith that's what we did. Executive staff put in ridiculous hours...
planning what school would look like based on dates that shifted several times. So every time that happened, everything had to be re-organised. The new Premier's unilateral decision to bring us back a week early, released to the media first, of course, less than 24 hours
after the DoE's Secretary released a video to staff assuring us that nothing would change, so thereby putting her in the doghouse along with all our carefully laid plans... For my school, this meant we were now coming back to school in the middle of our two week exam period.
Saw my sister, niece and niece’s partner for the first time today in months. Lovely vegan lunch, wonderful to catch up, then sister and I went for a long walk. Now feet are killing me. Orthotic walking shoes hurting more than helping. 😭
We went to the local dog park and watched the shenanigans, although it got a bit too serious at one point and a poor, anxious corgi got picked up and shook by a big dog who smelt its fear. I like dogs but things can go very bad very quickly.
The big dog’s owners were clearly shocked and got him out of there. Little corgi was OK but still very fearful.
We had a long chat with a couple with an Irish wolfhound called Kat (their 8th!) and there was also a glossy black 14 week old Irish Mastiff who has feet
I thought people might appreciate a bit of an insight into how things are for teachers during lockdown. Please note this is just my personal experience, and is not a whinge or a plea for sympathy. I am fine, but it's hard, and all kinds of things are out of our control.
My load this year is 3 days English, 2 days library. At the start of lockdown, I had just one class (Year 8) that I didn't share at least one period with other teachers. My HT and I share a Year 9 and a Year 10 class, and I had one or two periods of other people's Year 8 classes.
Once lockdown started, this is how responsibility for posting work went: obviously, I'm 100% responsible for my own Year 8 class, and I took on the main responsibility for another Year 8 class where the split was 4/3 and the other teacher has young kids at home.
All day I have been listening to experts talk about the pros and cons of closing schools. Not a SINGLE ONE has mentioned the health and well-being of the teachers and admin and other adult staff who keep schools open every day.
They talk about how children are not at risk, but neglect to consider the risk to the adults who work in schools who may be pregnant, immune-compromised, diabetic, asthmatic, with any number of health issues that allow them to work, but make them vulnerable to COVID-19.
I mean, I’ve known since I was an undergraduate how badly people disrespect teachers, but I didn’t realise until this week that we were considered so utterly dispensable.