She's a Gansta!

Returning to the unreal world of reality has seen Sir immersed in a whole new series of classes for the year. Good things have come over the holidays.... a new position that is not co-ordination has allowed for a much more relaxed start to the year. Wot a relief. 

Sad news has also come over the holidays.... Sir's faithful partner in crime, a true blue Croatian battle axe has has a mastectomy and will be facing chemo and radiation therapy over the next 6 months. Much sadness and support will follow for this woman that Sir highly respects and admires.

Crusty and inappropriate as it is, Sir must comment on the amusing situation that has unfolded because of this heavy situation. Misogynist hairy has seen his day.... a leader he will be! And golly, what a leader he is turning out to be. A never-present holding-up-the-law type of guy he has never been, however how fortunate that he has managed to step into he role of co-ordinator after Sir. What smooth sailing! After all of the hard work of weeding out difficult students and teachers alike, setting up procedures and negotiating strategies, squeezing blood out of a stone and showing that there is hope for good natured sweet mouthed sober young people in society. At least in the outer west...

Yes, Sir is a little grouchy. She admits that timing has never been her forte. However neither has taking on a role that has been shaped by someone else been Sir's scene. Should Sir be grateful that the position is now so highly sought after because it appears to be easy? Oh this is too much! Perhaps it is time to move on.

"But it was all right with me"

At some stage the sex issue will always come up. Unsuspectingly usually, tragic always. 

Sir had one of these moments on Saturday night. It accompanied the open happy face of a young woman, probably about 25 years old now. She crept up on Sir at a party in the school holidays... one is never safe from ex students....She was proud and useless, clinging to the act like it was a trophy of her childhood. Perhaps she thought it was? Power and control can be sexy... between explicitly consenting adults. After she told and smiled, a previously happy drunk became a morbidly smashed one. Luckily Sir has an amazing and understanding partner who coaxed her home and locked her in for the night without complaining at all about Sir's fruity methanoic breath and misunderstood grunts at a cuddle puddle.

But what of the taboo? 

Sir has had many conversations with other teachers about the fundamental organic sexuality of students. Most teachers will acknowledge a beautiful student, a student with lovely eyes, or lovely hair, or a pleasant manner. The way that these adults justify their feeling is by projecting these qualities onto the future student, the grown up student, in a manner that explains away both inherent role of mentor in teaching as well as the dodgy position they find themselves in by verbally objectifying the student. 

Sir always feels like her skin wants to crawl off her body after these conversation, which incidently inevitably turn nasty. "Don't you ever think about it?" is the usual question put to the horrified look on Sir's face, while Sir starts to questions whether perhaps her boundaries around under 18 yr olds are indeed archaic, and perhaps intrinsic beauty can be spoken of in the secondary school context if it is purely philosophical?.... 

No. As adult teachers, we occupy the space of highly sexually charged adolescent bodies. The brains of these young people are rewiring. They are lucky to be able to connect their social identity with their (r)age. They are bodies without heads, trying to order and qualify the sexualised ideas that soak society and social interactions while literally pickled in hormones. 

So these disjointed teacher conversations are not about beauty, or platonic admiration. They cannot be disguised as absent minded harmless talk. They are not about teachers being cool with sexuality and hip with bodies. The sex issue is about power and ambition. Its about boundaries and trading in body capital. Its about teachers being clear about the motivation behind their relationships with students. Its about explicit and assumed consent. 

Its not a difficult relationship to have. It just requires the teacher to assume the position of an adult in order to allow the student to remain safe. 

Can you see yourself in a leadership position in the future?

You may or may not know that teachers in Victoria a paid on a scale. This scale ranges from Graduate to Expert. Depending on the status of certain extra curricular positions there are added position types like Leading Teacher. Each year, teachers that have not reached the ceiling of this scale are required to complete a P&D Plan. The purpose of this document is widely advertised as a tool to check that teachers have developed their skills as professionals by setting goals that will improve student outcomes.

In Sir's humble opinion, the reality of this process, this time wasting document, is to act as a front for a more sinister purpose. The purpose being the insidious creep of the generic UK based secondary education system. 

For sure, Australia used to be the lucky country. For Monsantic corporations on the lookout for Engineering, Science and Mathematics tertiary graduates the poaching pickings are slim indeed. But do not be fooled. The intelligence of young people has not declined... in fact, it could be said that the capitalistic intelligence of generation Z is outstanding. Why go to University to study for at least three years, more realistically seven years, on the Melbourne Model, when you can make four times as much money after five years in the workforce by morphing into a tradie? 

I digress. This serious subject of educational decline will be addressed in much more depth at a later time. For now....

The P&D plan has highlighted the relevance of certain things to Sir. Teaching is good, rewarding, and hard work, certainly. But also, as a Science teacher Sir gets to be a real geek. Titration, Filtration, Saturation. All joyous things in a dark time of year. Let your life be lit up by Luminol.

Would all the female staff members remain beind, please?

     

The Management meeting on a Monday morning. Term 4 week 9. Twelve leaders present discussing the placement of important dates on next year calendar. Needs to be done ASAP! Request from the Senior Campus! Oh my! Sir is sagging, and so are ten other pairs of eyes. Its just about over.

Then. A request. Female staff members. It appears that there have been some complaints made to the front office lady about the state of the female toilets. Toilet paper is being left on the floor. Tampon wrappers are floating in toilet bowls. Drips are appearing on seats and the floor in all colours of the rainbow. Wrapped pads are being left on the feminine hygiene bin lids. Footprints have been sighted on toilet seats. An unsavory business indeed. Signs have been made and laminated, with appropriate instructions for toilet use, stuck on the back of toilet doors for the convenience of all... but they have been removed. Twice. What should we do?

November, December. Tricky times on Campus. Scratching out reports for all students, friend or foe. Waiting to hear about teaching allotments for the next year, team changes, year level coordinators and positions of responsibility. Sir has managed to be at school for the least amount of time possible in this, her least favourite time of year. Hideously banal, stupidly tetchy, bad weather December in Melbourne.

However, despite the pressure  bone fido teaching commitments stretched around grappling with the ever dodgy report writing program, a lady-teacher drama unravels.

The toilets in the Salt Mine. Well, toilet is the more appropriate singular.

Toilet is located in the administration block of the school. A small unpleasant wee cave, comprising of four cubicles, shared by twenty five women. Twenty five women bound to urinate, change feminine dressings, wash hands and faces, apply deodorant and/or makeup, sunscreen and any other personal product, in a half by one half meter space in front of a mirror that uncannily highlights only greying temples and dark eye rings. Twenty five women, in and out, between teaching periods, dictated by bells, on cue. The things we are never told.

Dykix hygenix lady comes to change over the feminine hygiene bins once a fortnight, there are only two of them. Often there is a funny smell around the lady-teacher wee cave, perhaps due to a dry drain, maybe due to overfilled sanitary bins, who knows? Its a public toilet and as far as Sir is concerned & people are pigs in public places... and even more so in public private places.`

In preparation for a day of teaching, Sir, and all other lady teachers, arrives to school immaculately clean. Clean of dirt and grime and well presented to be sure. But also clean of any smell at all, ladylike or not. In class and out we are required to be devoid of scent and sexuality. We are decent role models, positive and blemish free. Our bodies are public property, open to touch and scrutiny by grotty pimply teenagers, yet we do not touch or scrutinise. We are sexless and do not wear our sexuality.

Sir needs to use toilet. This requires hand washing and removal of clothes to expose gendered body parts. Time alone, if only to change a tampon and breathe slowly through period pain. Time alone, if only to sit, relax and urinate. Time.... three minutes until the bell and a cubicle..... without a lady-plug bin. Sir looks up and reads the sign about how to behave appropriately in this private, quiet space. The irritation that solidifies in her guts, into rage, manifests into highly inappropriate behavior. Sir wraps her tampon in shiny single ply paper, pops it in her pocket and trots out of the lady-teacher wee cave with four laminated pieces of paper tucked under her arm.

You know I'm strict, but I'll run over the exam rules again, for the record.

Let us continue with the exam theme in this gloriously slow revolving door that is Novemeber in teacherland.

Today Sir had the pleasure of supervising younger ones in smaller exam rooms. Better? Nup. Stuck with one of Sir's fave mysogynist hairys' in the morning and a surprising lack of supervising teachers in the afternoon. Mysogynist hairy will often broach the topic of sexuality with Sir. Cool and trendy perhaps in the small world of Nick Cave groupie art teacher and poker playing mathematical grumps in the corner of the staffroom. But Sir is happy to be boxed at work and is, frankly, sick of the conversation.

Picture that teacher that doesn't teach. Every school and every school department has one... everyone knows who this is. The one that makes a connection with the kiddies by relating to them on their own level by talking to them about sex and taking drugs. Being open minded about things like interpreting the meaning of Uniform do black shoes include 12 up Docs? and the actual origins of language why it is not really degrading to call someone 'retarded' or 'gay' because of the evolution of slang in popular culture, especially rap music. No pedagodical critique, no structure, no lesson plan.

Teaching is an intrinsicly private practice. Yes, we are immersed in a classroom with 26 young people that we hope will be engaged in open learning activities in the earlier part of the day and structured student centred activities after lunch lunch? I use the term loosley and the positive correlation between poor food and poor behaviour is already well known. Yet, as adults and professionals, we are alone in this enviornment. The snatched glimpses into classroom control, lesson planning and the appearance of a student engaged is often a facade that covers up poor teaching practice and bored students.

Today Sir had a private chuckle at the sincere and earnest effort that mysogynist hairy did put into his exam rule speech. So did the students. None of us were fooled.

This is not a complex instruction to follow.

This last week has seen Sir taking on the role of exam supervisor at the Senior Campus of the Salt Mine. Loading 700 plus Yr 10 students into a gymnasium stuffed with single tables and single chairs in 30 by 20 rows is a mean feat, a toughie in any one's books. Up goes the starters gun.

We provide out students with a quality education that gives them experience of examinations from Yr 7 to Yr 12. The theory being that the young ones will grow accustomed to sitting exams and therefore perform better in their Senior Year. Poppycock. The practice shows that instead, most students but especially boys, experience a mental meltdown twice a year. This is their experience of educational preparation. Desperate stubbly young faces searching mine for any sign of contact with humanity in the sterile conditions of tertiary examination practice.

The the exam begins. Certain teachers are rostered on for exam duty. Certain teachers patrol the exam hall like hawks, looking for any sigh of movement outside the expected behavioural sphere... which is, well... small. Sir feels a little like a grown up child, wanting to scream "stop moving about, for god's sake! Can't you see the child is already having an out of body experience?''. Ten heavy pairs of teacher feet clump up and down long rows, watching pencils dart across paper, eyes seeking confirmation, questions being asked driven by the need for a vocal conversation removed from the intense looping panic dialoge inside 700 heads.

It ends. Papers are collected and collated. 1400 weary eyes exit the hall and scurry off... somewhere. Home, the local shopping hole, to parents waiting in cars, back home to the X Box. 700 audible sighs of releif. One shakey Sir. Anger engulfs her for the injustice of this phoney experience. Sir never liked exams and was a good student. Sigh.

Injustice in this system refers to the exam experience as just that. An experience. Students at the Salt Mine are not required to pass said examinations to pass a subject sucessfully, yet they are required to sit the exam to meet the requirements of the school year. Promotion panel discussions revolved around preparation for the said event... an excrutiating cross examination of a failing student's ability to show their engagement with the school community and curriculum. Or no engagement as the case often will be. The pain for the true educator is why such an emphasis on a false positive experience? Sir struggles to see the point of trying to mould new generation sparkies, plumbers and hairdressors into examination machines... and will struggle for many years to come.

Advanced General Mathematics

Advanced General Mathematics was introduced at the Salt Mine two years ago. Coming from schools where Sir had the pleasure of teaching at the Senior levels, Sir volunteered to run this subject as an extension Mathematics course available to the select bright ones. It has run, Sir has certainly enjoyed the eclectic curriculum of Semester One and the beauty of Trigonometric ratios in the Second Semester. Trading beloved Chemistry, Organic compounds and Ionic bonding for Sine, Cosine and Tangent curves, discussions around pieces of pi and modelling the movements of the tide, the sun across the sky in Antartica, temperature over a day. A fair exchange? Sir thought so.

The powers that be, heading working parties around implementing college wide strategies to raise the literacy levels College Wide decide that there is no longer a market for the Yr 11 Mathematics in Yr 10. It seems that Nationwide PAT test data has shown that our students have a lower than expected literacy levels. In fact, more specifically, literacy levels seem to fall from Yr 7 to Yr 9. Solution: introduce a Literacy program that has been shown to improve literacy in the most illiterate children in our Western Schools... proven to work in Queensland!

Setting the context, stepping aside from the politics of creating a Leading teacher position from an aspirant AP week's holiday, aside from developing an understanding of the classification of schools in the Western suburbs of Victoria someone has to be the lowest in order for a system of comparison to work the junior classes of the Salt Mine lost Mathematics lessons to make way for the Literacy program. Wonder why the Yr 9 kiddies can't get their head around playing with pro-numerals and slicing up pieces of the unit circle.

Despite the loss of the subject, Sir enjoyed the last exam for the class of 2008, wondering how long it will take to accrue enough apathy to chat all the way through the exam... or is it the elusive prerequisite for a Leading Teacher?