Of Tea and Teachers
Six boxes of fairtrade, organic Earl Grey tea arrived at my house. That's 300 teabags in all.
:) I'm good for a little while.
It's impossibly cold. I know there are colder parts of the world, but nobody really lives there except polar bears and Sarah Palin. It's too cold for human life here, forget any further north.
So I spent all of tuesday outside in the country.
We were supposed to be learning about how to run science field trips. But we basically just did all the activities the children would do. Whch was fun, but didn't teach us anything about leadership, outdoor learning for small groups, risk assessments, what to do if a child falls through the icy pond...this is a trend on the course. It's quite fun, but I only really learn stuff on placements, by trial and error actually teaching.
So anyway. I was wearing two pairs of trousers with tights underneath, heck knows how many layers on top, and the thickest gloves, scarf and hat in the world. I was generally okay, but the tips of my fingers, toes and nose went numb. Some people had basically just a coat. I'm relieved they're still alive. The lads too.
Ice: *CRUNCH-crackkkk!!!*
James: "Aaaagh!!...Um, that was a controlled risk-assessment. We can now safely say the ice isn't thick enough to hold human weight. Carry on."
There were many more "controlled risk assessments". Some weren't very controlled.
Yeah, it was mainly a laugh because my group is really awesome. It was a bit useless really. "In the summer, we'd find all sorts of things while pond dipping! But, um...you can't really do that now...not many schools come in January..." Soooo...why are we here?
Pond dipping was actually ice fishing. Mini-beast hunting was surprisingly successful though. We found what may have been a stag beetle grub, which are pretty rare down here and the ranger got kind of excited. Shame it was half squished, slimy and dead, but still, something laid its egg there, so that's still quite promising.
Today we had a careers fair. I joined two unions, got a free bag, 2 free pens, 1 free pencil and a free ruler, 2 free diaries, and several free planners and sweets. It was okay, I guess, except one lecture theatre had this magical portal to Siberia. Either that, or some *expletive deleted* turned on the bloody air conditioning when it was already in minus degrees outside. But come on! It must've been a portal to Siberia, because who'd be that stupid???
The last lecture was from the National Union of Teachers (The NUT man), and clearly, there was nothing else to be said. I swear, he told me nothing I hadn't heard already except one thing. Which I can't even remember. I got so bored I started writing letters. Once I'd exhausted my friends, I wrote some haikus, I wrote to a fictional character I made up, to Julius Caesar, and to God. That's how productive that session was.
No, really. "Make sure you use good spelling in your application letters, because if you don't, that reflects badly on you." WE'RE TRAINING TO BE TEACHERS!!! Do you think we'd have got this far if we didn't know that? "The one thing you must never do is use physical force on a child." Oh gosh, really??? Because I've been caning them left right and centre, thank goodness you told me that, it's not like I could've gained enough experience to even join the course if I thought hitting kids was alright...seriously, if he thinks that's a revelation he should be telling to PGCE students, maybe we shouldn't let this man near schools. Even if I was a creep who had slipped under the radar, is his one sentence going to make me change my mind? "Oh gosh, you mean I could get into trouble for that??? Oh no, I'd better change my ways!" Give me that hour of my life back. NOW.
*Opens the tea* That's better.