Wed 21st March
The school is hosting an English Olympiad at the weekend in which students from all the schools in the city are invited to compete. I’ve had the American Culture, Society and History questions I set rejected on the grounds of my not being American (rather than because they are all very arsey questions which allow a 33 year old to say “Ha! You didn’t know that? What do you know?” to an annoyed 15 year-old Mongolian honours student). Here are my favourite ones, for your edification: (answers at the bottom of this post, and Wikipedia, presumably)
-Which founding father was a leading figure in the Enlightenment, and among countless other achievements invented bifocal glasses and a peculiar musical instrument which was later rumoured to cause insanity in the listener?
-Who is the current Vice-President of the US?
-Born around 1595, the daughter of a native american chief, which princess reputedly saved the lives of colonials, in 1607, by pleading on their behalf with her father? She died on a visit to England in 1617, and is buried at Gravesend, Kent.
-The citizens of which American city were only given the right to vote in Presidential elections after the 23rd Amendment of the US Constitution in 1963?
My term plan of setting the students to do presentations to lesson my teaching load didn’t really come off, with only a handful of students believing it was worth the effort of trying to improve their grade from a notoriously bollixy teacher. It did inspire me to give the students a lecture on why Hitler wasn’t so great, which I enjoyed and which seemed to provoke some interest from the 11th grade.
I took the opportunity to castigate my students for relying on PowerPoint and the internet (without which I would have had some trouble with my Shackleton presentation, but need I remind you that hypocrisy is a teacher’s prerogative?): a lot of students had one variant or another on ‘the-dog-ate-my-memory-stick’ excuse for not having their work ready to give. All the Power-Pointed presentations that were given ended with a screen proudly saying “Sources : www.google.com”
Does this happen in the US and UK too? I imagine it does. Whatever happened to the time-honoured tradition of getting one book on a subject from the library, then listing half the bibliography as your source? Is that too much trouble for this generation of cyber-slackers?
I’ve also been sounding-off to my colleagues on the failings of education systems where grades are the only thing that students, parents and schools are interested in.
To be fair to the school, if it was the only thing they were interested in, then they’d have relieved me of my grading duties at the end of last term; and to be fair to Mongolia, the grade-obsession must be near universal, wherever education is practised. Much as I was as a student, I am convinced that as far as teaching and learning go, grading, beyond ‘pass’, ‘fail’ and maybe ‘distinction’, is about 93.4% useless.
The carrot I use to get the 4th grade to hand in work is that I draw them a little cartoon rather than write a score - a carrot or themselves looking stupid if the work was poor, a happy rabbit, or a zombie, or a baby smoking a cigarette, depending on their preference, if the work was good. This has worked surprisingly well - as the poor students are rewarded in as much as they all get a cartoon, but I find they all make more effort with their work even though some of the ‘lazy student’ drawings are better than the rabbits; naturally, though, nothing could be cooler than a baby smoking a cigarette.
In occasional bouts of homesickness I find my way to www.icliverpool.co.uk to read the latest news from the Echo: home of balanced, informative journalism. Today I learned that Liverpool gangs are producing skunk cannabis "one puff of which can cause schizophrenia" (well, we already know it induces paranoia), and was moved by a touching photograph of Stab Boy and his mother, who blames the infamous Chucky movies (source of all juvenile crime in Merseyside for many years now, well, apart from instant-schizophrenia skunk) for her son's recent behavioural problems. Actually, now I have a pseudo-broadband connection I am listening to Radio 4 a lot, so I am well aware that the Echo is making the most of local variants on what seem to be the big stories at the moment in the national press: nonetheless, I admire the particular panache with which those exemplary Echo hacks manage to churn this stuff out. Well done!
American Quiz answers: Ben Franklin, Dick Cheney, Pocahontas, Washington D.C.
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 March 2007
Thursday, 21 December 2006
Banjos & Morale, Statistics
Thursday 21st December 2007
[temporary edit]
In this climate, and Christmas being just round the corner (which we teachers from God-fearing Christian nations get off as a holiday out of respect for our deeply held religious beliefs), I saw it as my duty today to do my best for school morale by bringing my banjo into work with me today. I am ever reminded of the importance that the great Ernest Shackleton placed on the banjo in helping bring his men through the ordeal of 18 months or so trapped in the Antarctic: “It’s vital mental medicine, and we shall need it.” I played in most of my classes (although managed to also actually teach some, too), and also in the school lobby and staff room. On 26th December the corporation which owns the school and numerous other enterprises, including the Grand Khan Irish Pub, have now formally requested that I perform at said prestigious venue (which a colleague informs me is the most expensive restaurant in Mongolia) for the corporation Christmas Party. The request was made through the school - I was given the number of what presumably turned out to be the manager (who I'd already met many times) to phone to make the necessary arrangements. I am not very good with Mongolian names yet. After googling the correct name of the pub - now changed in all posts - I discover that my ambition of being the first banjo player to pick at the Grand Khan has already been crushed - see link on the side panel
Was charmed yesterday to uncover another little feature of my soviet time-capsule of an apartment (which I have had to sign a contract for today - have refused to sign the inventory until it is itemised - I need to know if I can take the collection of cheap pottery elephants and the puppy emerging from a barrel with me) . Up on the wall by the door to the flat there is a battered little plastic box which I had thought was some kind of heater or ventilator. My young home help (whose name I asked and found out is Puru Tstszga - her little sister is Mungun Tstszga) gestured at it and I realised that it has a little plug. Once inserted the right way round the box came alive and beautiful cello music played in a haunting blend of classical western and oriental style wafted out. The radio is tuned to only one station, and I guess was there for the voice of Big Brother back in the communist era. I tried to stop them but Puru and Mungun insisted on tidying my flat yesterday which took them about an hour. I gave them a few candies and some bacon to give to their parents (ok - it’s Mongolian bacon which I tried and don’t like. I buy expensively delicious imported Hungarian bacon for my own consumption now) - and of course also thanked them by playing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.' Mungun thanked me by bowing down to the floor in a ‘salaam’ gesture. Through someone at school I am aiming to hire a cleaner so I can avoid either cleaning up for myself or becoming dependent on child labour.
The UB Post, which is one of two Mongolian English language weeklies, has printed the National Statistic Office’s report on the ‘Economic and Social Situation of Mongolia.’ I learn that my salary is certainly a comfortable one here - for the first time I find myself beating a national average: by more than four times. What’s more, I am going a good way towards keeping my monthly expenditure below the N.A. (T242,000) - having no rent to pay and being such a tight-fisted bastard. The average monthly income in Mongolia (T190,000) is up 42.6% on last year. I don’t know how inflation stands here but the stats say household expenditure is up 9.6% on last year, so I guess the average Mongolian’s standard of living has probably improved (the average salary being T52,000 below the average expenditure notwithstanding).
Production of beverages, handbags, fur, petrol, clocks and coal are up! But, sadly, knitted goods, spirit alcohol, metal sleepers and macaroni noodles are down.
Concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide in the 13th microdistrict was 19 times the maximum allowable quantity for air quality; various other stats relating to atmospheric pollution baffle me but look suitably ominous. Incidentally, I can’t believe that I managed to write about my trip to the country without mentioning the wonder and sheer joy of breathing such (however cold) fabulously clean air for a day.
Crimes against freedom, human rights and reputation are down 50%! Attempted murder is up a mere 5.7%,’ negligent murder ‘(well, you know, with the best will in the world, it’s going to happen from time-to-time) a better 9.1% and death by ‘unfortunate occasion’ (most regrettable) a respectable 20.5%.
Finally, the report tells us that for the first 11 months of 2006 the nation had in total “2,492 disasters of T5.4 billion loss registered” in which 178 people died, 1061 ger and houses burned down and 14.6 thousand head of livestock were lost. No indication in the report as whether this is up or down on 2005.
Now to do my bit for the flagging Mongol spirit alcohol industry. Cheers!
[temporary edit]
In this climate, and Christmas being just round the corner (which we teachers from God-fearing Christian nations get off as a holiday out of respect for our deeply held religious beliefs), I saw it as my duty today to do my best for school morale by bringing my banjo into work with me today. I am ever reminded of the importance that the great Ernest Shackleton placed on the banjo in helping bring his men through the ordeal of 18 months or so trapped in the Antarctic: “It’s vital mental medicine, and we shall need it.” I played in most of my classes (although managed to also actually teach some, too), and also in the school lobby and staff room. On 26th December the corporation which owns the school and numerous other enterprises, including the Grand Khan Irish Pub, have now formally requested that I perform at said prestigious venue (which a colleague informs me is the most expensive restaurant in Mongolia) for the corporation Christmas Party. The request was made through the school - I was given the number of what presumably turned out to be the manager (who I'd already met many times) to phone to make the necessary arrangements. I am not very good with Mongolian names yet. After googling the correct name of the pub - now changed in all posts - I discover that my ambition of being the first banjo player to pick at the Grand Khan has already been crushed - see link on the side panel
Was charmed yesterday to uncover another little feature of my soviet time-capsule of an apartment (which I have had to sign a contract for today - have refused to sign the inventory until it is itemised - I need to know if I can take the collection of cheap pottery elephants and the puppy emerging from a barrel with me) . Up on the wall by the door to the flat there is a battered little plastic box which I had thought was some kind of heater or ventilator. My young home help (whose name I asked and found out is Puru Tstszga - her little sister is Mungun Tstszga) gestured at it and I realised that it has a little plug. Once inserted the right way round the box came alive and beautiful cello music played in a haunting blend of classical western and oriental style wafted out. The radio is tuned to only one station, and I guess was there for the voice of Big Brother back in the communist era. I tried to stop them but Puru and Mungun insisted on tidying my flat yesterday which took them about an hour. I gave them a few candies and some bacon to give to their parents (ok - it’s Mongolian bacon which I tried and don’t like. I buy expensively delicious imported Hungarian bacon for my own consumption now) - and of course also thanked them by playing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.' Mungun thanked me by bowing down to the floor in a ‘salaam’ gesture. Through someone at school I am aiming to hire a cleaner so I can avoid either cleaning up for myself or becoming dependent on child labour.
The UB Post, which is one of two Mongolian English language weeklies, has printed the National Statistic Office’s report on the ‘Economic and Social Situation of Mongolia.’ I learn that my salary is certainly a comfortable one here - for the first time I find myself beating a national average: by more than four times. What’s more, I am going a good way towards keeping my monthly expenditure below the N.A. (T242,000) - having no rent to pay and being such a tight-fisted bastard. The average monthly income in Mongolia (T190,000) is up 42.6% on last year. I don’t know how inflation stands here but the stats say household expenditure is up 9.6% on last year, so I guess the average Mongolian’s standard of living has probably improved (the average salary being T52,000 below the average expenditure notwithstanding).
Production of beverages, handbags, fur, petrol, clocks and coal are up! But, sadly, knitted goods, spirit alcohol, metal sleepers and macaroni noodles are down.
Concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide in the 13th microdistrict was 19 times the maximum allowable quantity for air quality; various other stats relating to atmospheric pollution baffle me but look suitably ominous. Incidentally, I can’t believe that I managed to write about my trip to the country without mentioning the wonder and sheer joy of breathing such (however cold) fabulously clean air for a day.
Crimes against freedom, human rights and reputation are down 50%! Attempted murder is up a mere 5.7%,’ negligent murder ‘(well, you know, with the best will in the world, it’s going to happen from time-to-time) a better 9.1% and death by ‘unfortunate occasion’ (most regrettable) a respectable 20.5%.
Finally, the report tells us that for the first 11 months of 2006 the nation had in total “2,492 disasters of T5.4 billion loss registered” in which 178 people died, 1061 ger and houses burned down and 14.6 thousand head of livestock were lost. No indication in the report as whether this is up or down on 2005.
Now to do my bit for the flagging Mongol spirit alcohol industry. Cheers!
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
China's WTO Membership, Generosity, Serious Discipline Issues
Tuesday 19th December
Yesterday I went for a meal at a Chinese restaurant with one of the school’s Chinese teachers, Yuan Yuan, and her friend. On Friday Yuan Yuan had asked if I could help her friend by checking over her dissertation for her Masters degree. I would be very happy to help, I said, but it might take some time to check through it all. Oh, that was not a problem, her friend had “19 day” before she had to hand the work in. “19 days to do the work?” I asked. “No, 19 day, 12 month,” Yuan replied with a smile. “The 19th of December?” I asked, reluctant to hear the reply. Yuan smiled again and nodded: “Yes, 19 December.” “Next Tuesday, the 19th of December?” although by now the question was purely rhetorical. “Yes.”
The dissertation turned out to be 50 turgid pages of economics; the subject being the advantages and benefits of China’s membership of the WTO. Most of the english was passable, however there was a slight problem with inconsistencies in the text. I made a brief check on the internet and confirmed that China has been a member of the WTO since 2001; all the material that the student had lifted from the internet spoke of China’s future membership: almost the entire paper was written about possible outcomes of something that had already happened. I spent a good four hours of Friday night drinking vodka and orange and changing the tense of what seemed to be every sentence in the paper - and resisting the temptation to spice up the dissertation by turning it into a reckless argument in favour of democracy sprinkled with a few choice phrases about the beloved Chairman Mao or the ideological bankruptcy of the ruling Communist regime.
Anyhow, as thanks for my selfless generosity, Yuan and her friend treated me to a meal at one of their favourite restaurants. It was 10 minutes walk from school in the opposite direction from my apartment; just next-door to the Wrestling Palace. Disappointingly, no be-diapered Mongolian wrestlers were catching a quick snack between bouts - maybe next time. The food was very nice - Szechuan, I believe, and a welcome relief from the school meals and my own uninspired cooking ; which are between them now starting to grind me down a little. Not nearly as good as Beijing, of course, but far closer to Beijing than Chinese food in the UK. I have no idea how much it cost because I didn’t make even a token suggestion that I pay anything. During the meal (and very happily after we had already been served) I had the excitement of experiencing my first Ulaanbaatar power-outage. It seems that it was only our building affected as light still came in from the street, and in about 15 minutes the power was back on. Yuan Yuan also kindly taught me essential Mongolian taxi driver speak (if memory serves me correctly): “tsu “(left), “balong”(right) and tchigili (straight on). I now have about a half dozen things I can say, which at this rate I should have the vocabulary of an underachieving dullard by the end of my stay.
While we're on the subject of my selfless generosity, I somehow neglected to boast that after being paid Friday (joy), I took a walk down to the old State Department Store and bought my two very good friends and helpers (whose names I still don’t know - must remember to learn how to ask) from the apartment building a colouring book and pencils each - which I was able to give them when they called round early that evening to see if I needed any chores doing. I took a photograph as evidence of my joy-bringing generosity, which, while it may know bounds, is at any rate now proven.
[temporary edit]
Yesterday I went for a meal at a Chinese restaurant with one of the school’s Chinese teachers, Yuan Yuan, and her friend. On Friday Yuan Yuan had asked if I could help her friend by checking over her dissertation for her Masters degree. I would be very happy to help, I said, but it might take some time to check through it all. Oh, that was not a problem, her friend had “19 day” before she had to hand the work in. “19 days to do the work?” I asked. “No, 19 day, 12 month,” Yuan replied with a smile. “The 19th of December?” I asked, reluctant to hear the reply. Yuan smiled again and nodded: “Yes, 19 December.” “Next Tuesday, the 19th of December?” although by now the question was purely rhetorical. “Yes.”
The dissertation turned out to be 50 turgid pages of economics; the subject being the advantages and benefits of China’s membership of the WTO. Most of the english was passable, however there was a slight problem with inconsistencies in the text. I made a brief check on the internet and confirmed that China has been a member of the WTO since 2001; all the material that the student had lifted from the internet spoke of China’s future membership: almost the entire paper was written about possible outcomes of something that had already happened. I spent a good four hours of Friday night drinking vodka and orange and changing the tense of what seemed to be every sentence in the paper - and resisting the temptation to spice up the dissertation by turning it into a reckless argument in favour of democracy sprinkled with a few choice phrases about the beloved Chairman Mao or the ideological bankruptcy of the ruling Communist regime.
Anyhow, as thanks for my selfless generosity, Yuan and her friend treated me to a meal at one of their favourite restaurants. It was 10 minutes walk from school in the opposite direction from my apartment; just next-door to the Wrestling Palace. Disappointingly, no be-diapered Mongolian wrestlers were catching a quick snack between bouts - maybe next time. The food was very nice - Szechuan, I believe, and a welcome relief from the school meals and my own uninspired cooking ; which are between them now starting to grind me down a little. Not nearly as good as Beijing, of course, but far closer to Beijing than Chinese food in the UK. I have no idea how much it cost because I didn’t make even a token suggestion that I pay anything. During the meal (and very happily after we had already been served) I had the excitement of experiencing my first Ulaanbaatar power-outage. It seems that it was only our building affected as light still came in from the street, and in about 15 minutes the power was back on. Yuan Yuan also kindly taught me essential Mongolian taxi driver speak (if memory serves me correctly): “tsu “(left), “balong”(right) and tchigili (straight on). I now have about a half dozen things I can say, which at this rate I should have the vocabulary of an underachieving dullard by the end of my stay.
While we're on the subject of my selfless generosity, I somehow neglected to boast that after being paid Friday (joy), I took a walk down to the old State Department Store and bought my two very good friends and helpers (whose names I still don’t know - must remember to learn how to ask) from the apartment building a colouring book and pencils each - which I was able to give them when they called round early that evening to see if I needed any chores doing. I took a photograph as evidence of my joy-bringing generosity, which, while it may know bounds, is at any rate now proven.
[temporary edit]
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
UB Banjo Debut, and Hypocrisy
Wednesday 13th December
Drinking a can of Hite beer with a picture of a fearsome looking rap group/ overweight boy band called ‘guys666’ on it. They appear to mean business.
There’s an acoustic guitar in the staff room which one of the Mongolian teachers gets down and strums on from time to time. He strums through Beatles songs or 12 bar blues and indicated that I should bring my banjo in to school today (by pointing at me with a nod, miming strumming and asking “Yes?”). I did so, and we had a pretty good pick together in one of our free periods, he had no problem with the 'Worried Man Blues' and another teacher asked for 'Country Roads,' which impressed no end. I managed to fall in on a Mongolian song in A minor and we played a few others. I then proceeded to start teaching him 'Duelling Banjos,' which entirely undermines the past four years of my complaining about having to play it - but now I have it in mind to impress drunk American businessmen in the Great Khan. All very promising.
Earlier, in the first of my 4th grade classes I managed to last 10 minutes of trying to teach a very reluctant to study class, before offering that if they finished the present piece of work I would sing them a few songs. I guess it shows how much I am pining for an audience that I had to resort to bullying a bunch of 9 year olds into demanding that I play for them. I left the room for a minute to get the banjo and they were all, as threatened, sat quietly for my return. Gave them a brief history of the instrument of course and a run through ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown,’ my playing given an extra bit of sparkle by the certain knowledge that this was the finest bit of banjo-picking they’d ever seen. Followed with ‘Oh Susanna,’ to which I chalked up the words on the blackboard. Of course, it was all part of a structured lesson plan: in the previous class we’d done the weather (“Yesterday it was snowing. It was very cold.”) so ‘The sun so hot I froze to death,’ was a great lyric to have the class sing along to. I say sing along - I considered changing key to suiting their voices etc., likewise the tempo to make it easier for them to follow the words, but decided that that would compromise the performance too much. Anyway, they enjoyed it, and I did too. I did get the class to help me write another nonsense weather verse, which I won’t reproduce here for copyright reasons. If only I could record them singing it, overdub some sleigh bells and release it in time for the Xmas no.1 spot. We even went on past the lunch bell without the kids scrambling for the door.
Later in the day I had a second 4th grade class. Some of them actually already knew the words to ‘Oh Susanna,’ or close enough to the words for Mongolia. Somehow though, I didn’t get the same buzz - until I got a request for ‘Old Macdonald Had A Farm’- which has a fine bluegrass pedigree, having been recorded by Flatt & Scruggs on their Carnegie Hall album. I undermined two weeks of building a stern disciplinarian persona for the class by jumping up and down and making farmyard noises to a host of animals/verses shouted out by the kids. Another teacher walked in at the end of the lesson and I made such a good impression that I was required to sing her a bunch of songs too.
At the end of school there was an English Department staff meeting. We had it whilst sat on the kiddie stools in the Disney Room. If that room is chosen to keep the meeting from running on and on then I’m glad we were only in there for two bloody hours. The subject was discipline in class; I suspect that the reason for the meaning was not so much to placate us non-Mongolian teachers regarding our concerns, but to make us consider not saying anything and just getting on with things in the future. It was most probably the meeting with the highest ‘number of things written on a blackboard’ to ‘actual decisions made or any kind of meaningful conclusion’ reached ratio discrepancy I have ever sat through. The gist was: just deal with it. I did manage to have a good say on the subject of discouraging the younger kids from associating the foreign teachers’ lessons with ‘having fun:’ a sad failing of so many of my predecessors, which has been a foundation of many of the problems later teachers have experienced. One thing about teaching, which anyone who knows me will have gathered from my tedious list of unacceptable behaviour in the classroom, is that I am really, really enjoying being an unashamed hypocrite. On which subject, I don’t allow my students to use “really, really” because “it’s crass.” Red line though the second "really" and a snidey comment every time.
Tuesday, 12 December 2006
Disruptive Behaviour, Very Short Stories
Monday 11th December 2006
Any teachers reading this will be very smug about my emotional naivety in this matter, but today the kids pissed me off. I mentioned that the department head is off in China shopping for household goods this week; what I hadn’t guessed - which should have been obvious really - was that I would be taking her classes as well as mine this week. So I arrived to a full morning of double-sized classrooms (30 kids, that is, barely a classroom by UK comprehensive standards, but a bit of a handful for my second week of teaching) who had absolutely no intention of studying at all - that being the usual course in case of teacher absence. There were two streams of students (advanced and intermediate) in each class, and I still have only the vaguest idea of what they are supposed to be studying in both cases.
Do not think that I did not rise to the challenge. So much teacherly behaviour is so deeply ingrained into us from years at the receiving end that when a situation arises the required pompous edicts just roll off our lips. In fact, how did the first teachers learn this, back in the mists of time? We may never know.
The further advantage in my situation was that when a student came back with a sarcastic comment I could come back at them at double speed, leaving them floundering with their English. As for what comments were being made in Mongolian I can only surmise - but of course it was easy to retain a contemptuous disdain for anything I couldn’t understand.
After my third straight lesson that morning I went to see the deputy with a list of names (which I had got students to write down themselves at the moment of admonition - another neat little psychological trick I must have picked up off some sadistic teacher at some point) and the intention to introduce the concept of detention. One of the American students was already in the office complaining that she too refused to tolerate any further disruptive behaviour from the spoilt brats in her charge.
The deputy spoke to the students concerned, and returned to tell me that the students might benefit from having clearly laid down rules. Now, as I understand the concept, Rules are there to be broken, twisted, questioned, or to have loopholes exploited. A very unreliable tool for this situation. How did British courts respond to the challenge of dealing with young offenders within the legal framework? By introducing the nebulous concept of Antisocial Behaviour of course.
So, I wrote the following list, to explain some concepts to the Mongolian kids. I am so set against rules that I was very pleased with the final result - not a rule in sight.
Commonly accepted standards of behaviour in the classroom:
-To arrive for the lesson on time. If late, to explain to the teacher the reason for lateness.
-To take your seat promptly and to get out the relevant course books, exercise books and writing material for the class. Certainly to have this done so by the time the teacher is present in the classroom.
-Not to listen to walkmen, mp3 players, etc; not to talk on mobile phones, watch videos, play games or engage in any similar activities at any time during class. Whether or not a phone, mp3 player, etc is in use, not to sit with earphones on. To expect that should such activity be engaged in, the items will be confiscated, at the least for the remainder of the day, if not for the remainder of the week or longer.
-Not to have work or books relating to other subjects out during a given class.
-Not to eat or drink during class.
-Not to engage in private conversation while the teacher is talking nor while the class are working.
-If asked not to do something, to immediately comply with the request, and not to repeatedly engage in the outlined behaviour.
-Not to put away books at the ringing of the class bell nor in anticipation of the bell ringing. To only put away course materials when the teacher says that the class is over.
-If a student has a question for the teacher, not to shout it out , but to raise their hand until the teacher indicates that they may ask their question.
If any of these activities are engaged in, it is to be understood that they present a serious obstacle to a subject being taught, and that it is therefore understandable that a teacher may need to use disciplinary measures to deter such infractions. Typical deterrents include (but are not limited to):
-Confiscation of items that should not be present during class; such confiscations enduring at least for the remainder of the lesson, more probably for the remainder of the day, week, or in some instances longer.
-Detention: requiring a student to attend an additional class at the end of a given school day.
-Lines: The writing of a line such as “I must not behave ignorantly and oafishly during class”, typically to be repeated 5, 10, 100 or more times. As seen in the opening credits of The Simpsons cartoon.
-Generally, additional homework being assigned to the miscreant student, such as “Write a 500 word essay on the benefits of self-discipline.”
Tuesday 12th December 2006
I guess I must have worked something out of my system by writing my vindictive code of conduct, because today went fine at school. It was helped by the fact that the students had to do a 2 hour maths test in the morning, enabling me to finish marking the exam essays from last week. I was still teaching the double-sized classes, but the lessons went much more smoothly today.
WIRED magazine recently asked a bunch of leading science fiction and horror writers to write a 6 word short story - based on the fact that Hemmingway wrote such a story and apparently considered it the best thing he had ever written:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
My favourite contributions to WIRED were from Frank Miller:
With bloody hands, I say goodbye.
which could stand in for the majority of Miller’s work, I think; and also on a theme often visited in the author’s work, this gem from Alan Moore:
machine. Unexpectedly, I invented a time
(which took me a long while to get, possibly owing to ‘machine’ being published online with a capital ‘M’; surely an error?).
So I introduced the concept to my classes today, and we discussed why any of these might (or might not) be considered a story, and so on. I wanted to force the students with a weaker grasp of English to write something and get the better students to think more about word choice, and be more concise in their writing (hey, maybe I could learn something there too...). I was very much surprised at the results, because the students got the idea and really worked on it, seemed to enjoy it too. I ran around the class reading out the stories as they were finished. Some were really good. After such successful lessons, feeling that I’d encouraged a little bit of creativity in the classroom I decided to run a contest for the school for the best Very Short Story. The winner gets an English language paperback of their choice (max value T10000) from the State Department Store.
After the Very Short Story I’ll be stealing Brian Aldiss’ ‘Mini Sagas’ competition from the Daily Telegraph - for stories no more than 50 words in length. I found some good examples of these online from foreign language students (to which I may link here if I can figure out how to) and some not so great ones from a competition where the winner was a synopsis of The Lord of the Rings. 50 words? I did it in 6 for the benefit of the class:
Frodo gets Ring. Sauron is defeated.
Any teachers reading this will be very smug about my emotional naivety in this matter, but today the kids pissed me off. I mentioned that the department head is off in China shopping for household goods this week; what I hadn’t guessed - which should have been obvious really - was that I would be taking her classes as well as mine this week. So I arrived to a full morning of double-sized classrooms (30 kids, that is, barely a classroom by UK comprehensive standards, but a bit of a handful for my second week of teaching) who had absolutely no intention of studying at all - that being the usual course in case of teacher absence. There were two streams of students (advanced and intermediate) in each class, and I still have only the vaguest idea of what they are supposed to be studying in both cases.
Do not think that I did not rise to the challenge. So much teacherly behaviour is so deeply ingrained into us from years at the receiving end that when a situation arises the required pompous edicts just roll off our lips. In fact, how did the first teachers learn this, back in the mists of time? We may never know.
The further advantage in my situation was that when a student came back with a sarcastic comment I could come back at them at double speed, leaving them floundering with their English. As for what comments were being made in Mongolian I can only surmise - but of course it was easy to retain a contemptuous disdain for anything I couldn’t understand.
After my third straight lesson that morning I went to see the deputy with a list of names (which I had got students to write down themselves at the moment of admonition - another neat little psychological trick I must have picked up off some sadistic teacher at some point) and the intention to introduce the concept of detention. One of the American students was already in the office complaining that she too refused to tolerate any further disruptive behaviour from the spoilt brats in her charge.
The deputy spoke to the students concerned, and returned to tell me that the students might benefit from having clearly laid down rules. Now, as I understand the concept, Rules are there to be broken, twisted, questioned, or to have loopholes exploited. A very unreliable tool for this situation. How did British courts respond to the challenge of dealing with young offenders within the legal framework? By introducing the nebulous concept of Antisocial Behaviour of course.
So, I wrote the following list, to explain some concepts to the Mongolian kids. I am so set against rules that I was very pleased with the final result - not a rule in sight.
Commonly accepted standards of behaviour in the classroom:
-To arrive for the lesson on time. If late, to explain to the teacher the reason for lateness.
-To take your seat promptly and to get out the relevant course books, exercise books and writing material for the class. Certainly to have this done so by the time the teacher is present in the classroom.
-Not to listen to walkmen, mp3 players, etc; not to talk on mobile phones, watch videos, play games or engage in any similar activities at any time during class. Whether or not a phone, mp3 player, etc is in use, not to sit with earphones on. To expect that should such activity be engaged in, the items will be confiscated, at the least for the remainder of the day, if not for the remainder of the week or longer.
-Not to have work or books relating to other subjects out during a given class.
-Not to eat or drink during class.
-Not to engage in private conversation while the teacher is talking nor while the class are working.
-If asked not to do something, to immediately comply with the request, and not to repeatedly engage in the outlined behaviour.
-Not to put away books at the ringing of the class bell nor in anticipation of the bell ringing. To only put away course materials when the teacher says that the class is over.
-If a student has a question for the teacher, not to shout it out , but to raise their hand until the teacher indicates that they may ask their question.
If any of these activities are engaged in, it is to be understood that they present a serious obstacle to a subject being taught, and that it is therefore understandable that a teacher may need to use disciplinary measures to deter such infractions. Typical deterrents include (but are not limited to):
-Confiscation of items that should not be present during class; such confiscations enduring at least for the remainder of the lesson, more probably for the remainder of the day, week, or in some instances longer.
-Detention: requiring a student to attend an additional class at the end of a given school day.
-Lines: The writing of a line such as “I must not behave ignorantly and oafishly during class”, typically to be repeated 5, 10, 100 or more times. As seen in the opening credits of The Simpsons cartoon.
-Generally, additional homework being assigned to the miscreant student, such as “Write a 500 word essay on the benefits of self-discipline.”
Tuesday 12th December 2006
I guess I must have worked something out of my system by writing my vindictive code of conduct, because today went fine at school. It was helped by the fact that the students had to do a 2 hour maths test in the morning, enabling me to finish marking the exam essays from last week. I was still teaching the double-sized classes, but the lessons went much more smoothly today.
WIRED magazine recently asked a bunch of leading science fiction and horror writers to write a 6 word short story - based on the fact that Hemmingway wrote such a story and apparently considered it the best thing he had ever written:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
My favourite contributions to WIRED were from Frank Miller:
With bloody hands, I say goodbye.
which could stand in for the majority of Miller’s work, I think; and also on a theme often visited in the author’s work, this gem from Alan Moore:
machine. Unexpectedly, I invented a time
(which took me a long while to get, possibly owing to ‘machine’ being published online with a capital ‘M’; surely an error?).
So I introduced the concept to my classes today, and we discussed why any of these might (or might not) be considered a story, and so on. I wanted to force the students with a weaker grasp of English to write something and get the better students to think more about word choice, and be more concise in their writing (hey, maybe I could learn something there too...). I was very much surprised at the results, because the students got the idea and really worked on it, seemed to enjoy it too. I ran around the class reading out the stories as they were finished. Some were really good. After such successful lessons, feeling that I’d encouraged a little bit of creativity in the classroom I decided to run a contest for the school for the best Very Short Story. The winner gets an English language paperback of their choice (max value T10000) from the State Department Store.
After the Very Short Story I’ll be stealing Brian Aldiss’ ‘Mini Sagas’ competition from the Daily Telegraph - for stories no more than 50 words in length. I found some good examples of these online from foreign language students (to which I may link here if I can figure out how to) and some not so great ones from a competition where the winner was a synopsis of The Lord of the Rings. 50 words? I did it in 6 for the benefit of the class:
Frodo gets Ring. Sauron is defeated.
Sunday, 10 December 2006
More Teaching Joy
Wednesday 6th December 2006
Was entirely capable of getting up this morning at 7am, head clearer by far than I’d feared, eyes perhaps a trifle ringed. Had slept well. There seemed, however, to be no hot water in the pipes so I washed my hair with cold water and swallowed half a cup of tea, before bolting out to work. Extremely thankful to live just 5 minutes brisk walk from work. Have noticed that noone ever seems to be in much of a hurry walking about here, which loitering frankly does not seem to be good for the health.
School, was a much more equable affair today. I put my pupils through the paces in their spoken examination, throughout the whole day. They did fairly well, and I managed to keep order from breaking down in class. Spent far too long agonising over awarding them their scores. For most of today I had the company of the department head: she is from, I later learned, a town in the Gobi desert, has been in UB only 2 years and lives with her daughter who, as with other teacher’s kids, is a student at the school. Next week she's going to China to buy furnishings for her apartment. Anything not produced in Mongolia is generally pretty expensive here, especially compared to the price of food and clothing and, presumably, people's wages. There's a floor of the State Department Store devoted to electronic goods and it is not impressively well-stocked, nor are goods flying off the shelves.
The department head has been very flattering about my Englishness. The course books the kids study are British and there is a bit of snobbery against American English from some of the teachers, which I am politely playing along with at present. The teachers here have by and large come from the States (and unfortunately, from some of the expressions used I detect evidence of antipodean involvement at the school too) so someone who speaks 'real' English is a novelty.
I had suspected that I was xpected to teach one of the lower grades, and indeed I was. Without any warning I was suddenly dumped on a class of ten or so 9 year olds. The kids were very much enjoying themselves chatting and getting into little fights. A few of them welcomed me cheerily with calls like "Hello teacher! Are we going to be playing games today?" I suppose in a manner of speaking, we were.
Their English, really, was just as good as the higher grades but the boys were even more incapable of sitting still for a moment. I was pleased to rise to the discipline problem rather than teach and make the most troublesome boys sit to their horror next to girls; gave them lines when they repeatedly disobeyed instructions (“I will not talk in class” "I will sit still in class" "I will listen to teacher"). All of which had some effect on the stunned little mites. However, they still did not quite get it, so after one interruption to many I was forced to unleash the "Oi!" - which has been known to stop stone-throwers and car-vandals dead in their tracks in Liverpool - and demand to know in a bellow whether they had been listening to me or not. The remaining five minutes of class were very orderly indeed. How long this all lasts, of course, we shall see. The boys were pretty sheepish when they left class. In a later class an older student referred to me as Mr Grouch and I felt a thrill of pride that I might have already earned such a teacherly nick-name.
I had a very disappointed look at the school’s library. Several Harry Potters, a lot of Hardy Boys books, a couple of airport thrillers; leaving maybe half a dozen books that I could face reading. I have borrowed ‘The Wind in the Willows’ to which I will now return - the god of the pipes willing - in the bath.
Was entirely capable of getting up this morning at 7am, head clearer by far than I’d feared, eyes perhaps a trifle ringed. Had slept well. There seemed, however, to be no hot water in the pipes so I washed my hair with cold water and swallowed half a cup of tea, before bolting out to work. Extremely thankful to live just 5 minutes brisk walk from work. Have noticed that noone ever seems to be in much of a hurry walking about here, which loitering frankly does not seem to be good for the health.
School, was a much more equable affair today. I put my pupils through the paces in their spoken examination, throughout the whole day. They did fairly well, and I managed to keep order from breaking down in class. Spent far too long agonising over awarding them their scores. For most of today I had the company of the department head: she is from, I later learned, a town in the Gobi desert, has been in UB only 2 years and lives with her daughter who, as with other teacher’s kids, is a student at the school. Next week she's going to China to buy furnishings for her apartment. Anything not produced in Mongolia is generally pretty expensive here, especially compared to the price of food and clothing and, presumably, people's wages. There's a floor of the State Department Store devoted to electronic goods and it is not impressively well-stocked, nor are goods flying off the shelves.
The department head has been very flattering about my Englishness. The course books the kids study are British and there is a bit of snobbery against American English from some of the teachers, which I am politely playing along with at present. The teachers here have by and large come from the States (and unfortunately, from some of the expressions used I detect evidence of antipodean involvement at the school too) so someone who speaks 'real' English is a novelty.
I had suspected that I was xpected to teach one of the lower grades, and indeed I was. Without any warning I was suddenly dumped on a class of ten or so 9 year olds. The kids were very much enjoying themselves chatting and getting into little fights. A few of them welcomed me cheerily with calls like "Hello teacher! Are we going to be playing games today?" I suppose in a manner of speaking, we were.
Their English, really, was just as good as the higher grades but the boys were even more incapable of sitting still for a moment. I was pleased to rise to the discipline problem rather than teach and make the most troublesome boys sit to their horror next to girls; gave them lines when they repeatedly disobeyed instructions (“I will not talk in class” "I will sit still in class" "I will listen to teacher"). All of which had some effect on the stunned little mites. However, they still did not quite get it, so after one interruption to many I was forced to unleash the "Oi!" - which has been known to stop stone-throwers and car-vandals dead in their tracks in Liverpool - and demand to know in a bellow whether they had been listening to me or not. The remaining five minutes of class were very orderly indeed. How long this all lasts, of course, we shall see. The boys were pretty sheepish when they left class. In a later class an older student referred to me as Mr Grouch and I felt a thrill of pride that I might have already earned such a teacherly nick-name.
I had a very disappointed look at the school’s library. Several Harry Potters, a lot of Hardy Boys books, a couple of airport thrillers; leaving maybe half a dozen books that I could face reading. I have borrowed ‘The Wind in the Willows’ to which I will now return - the god of the pipes willing - in the bath.
Saturday, 9 December 2006
School, Taxi, Food (Meat), Audition Nerves
Monday 4th December 2006
Either I slept through my alarm or it didn’t go off. So I didn’t get up until well after eight and was barely ready for school until 9am - shortly before which the sun had risen, a deathly red crescent over the vaporous horizon. Today was probably another overcast day - but I didn’t see much of it. Took a brisk walk to the school, toting the banjer so’s to be off for the Great Khan Irish Pub straight after work. As I’d be spending the day indoors I had dispensed with the thermals, and my legs felt the chill. I made every effort to combat the pollution by breathing through my nose - nature’s filter mask. I was rewarded a little later in the day with a nose bleed.
The next eight hours were pretty much occupied by the same task, which, surprisingly enough I found to be quite engaging. Namely, I sat on a kiddie stool and marked English essay questions for the 8th, 9th and 10th grades. Uniformly pretty bad as far as content and grammar, but the spelling I am sure was above the UK average. I scored very strictly and left snidey but hopefully also mildly encouraging comments. The essays about ‘What makes a successful school’ were often quite entertaining and witty - the essays about 'The problems Mongolia faces' predictable and dull - but some nationalistic responses were quite enlightening (“We are the sons of Chinggis. Think - only think!!” after lamenting that once other nations were "scare of Mongolia, now Mongolia is scare of other Nations.”) Lots of students wrote of the national characteristic being laziness - curiously, all students whose work displayed more than a fair share of the alleged Mongolian national character...
I didn’t manage to get away from exam marking until 5.45pm. Fellow teachers said a taxi to the pub shouldn’t cost more than T700 and no one offered me a lift, so I headed out into the freezing cold and before too long a cab stopped. The driver, a burly fellow, did not seem overjoyed (altho was by no means antagonistic) at my lack of Mongolian language. I repeated "Irish Pub" in as Mongolian an accent as I could manage and tried pronouncing the name of the central square (Sukhbaatar) a few times, all to much shaking of his head as we weaved through the traffic. It was, at least, warm in the cab. We passed what I was pretty sure should be the turn off for the centre - the driver indicated I was not to worry. He pulled over the cab and started bellowing out to passing students - presumably saying "Can anyone find out where it is this foreign fuckwit wants to go so I can get on with my job?” He was mostly ignored. Eventually a few students came over, but they also seemed to have trouble understanding me, even though I kept pointing at my map of UB. Finally, he drove on further round what proved to be the Baga Toiru - an inner-ring road (it actually turned out that my sense of direction had proven pretty good, in conjunction with the map and I had a fairly good idea where we were). Well, a bunch of students at the Uni understoond and explained and off we roared, changing lanes alarmingly to rush through junctions. There was heavy traffic at the centre so the driver and I were able to nod confirmingly to each other as we approached the Grand Khan. I paid magnaminously with T2000 largely out of guilt at having failed to learn enough Mongolian to give simple directions, and was rewarded by surprised gratitude.
In the Grand Khan Irish Pub of course I was an hour late for my appointment with the manager/band leader. Feeling foolish and out of place I asked if he might still be around and was told that he could be summoned in 10 minutes. Sat there feeling rather nervous , overawed by the sheer size of the place, and the many tables of well dressed young people and wealthy American businessmen. I rehearsed suggesting that it might be more appropriate for me to come back on Sunday afternoon, or when I’ve got a bit of a band together. However, the manager proved to be happily unconcerned about hearing me play tonight - we chatted a bit and he suggested I come down tomorrow at 10.30pm when his band would be playing. I said that would be great.
Lured by enticing aromas I decided I would get some food - ordered a burger and fries that I’d seen someone else get and was rewarded with an (inevitably) monstrously meaty burger and delicious but few fries. Amazingly, the meat all vanished - possibly, as with the school meal, because I have somehow hypnotised myself into believing that the cold means my cells are just absorbing the stuff up.
Then met up with a Mongolian family I knew from Liverpool. They chastised me for having already eaten but I gamely volunteered to try and cram in a bit more so they drove us to an upmarket traditional Mongolian restaurant, called Modern Nomads. The food was great - I had a selection plate from the children’s menu which was very substantial - meat and veg boiled dumplings, miniature fried meat pasties, little meat pastry balls, oh, and a bit of meat. There may have been more meat - there was also a bit of salty chopped carrot.
They drove me home and the family became the first guests in my humble apartment for a pot of tea. Fond farewells and, falling asleep as I tried to write up this blog entry, I got to bed about 10pm. 1am I woke up, somewhat having difficulty with digestion, but not quite enough to warrant raiding my heartburn pills and, my mind turning with this and that, did not fall back to sleep until after 3am.
Either I slept through my alarm or it didn’t go off. So I didn’t get up until well after eight and was barely ready for school until 9am - shortly before which the sun had risen, a deathly red crescent over the vaporous horizon. Today was probably another overcast day - but I didn’t see much of it. Took a brisk walk to the school, toting the banjer so’s to be off for the Great Khan Irish Pub straight after work. As I’d be spending the day indoors I had dispensed with the thermals, and my legs felt the chill. I made every effort to combat the pollution by breathing through my nose - nature’s filter mask. I was rewarded a little later in the day with a nose bleed.
The next eight hours were pretty much occupied by the same task, which, surprisingly enough I found to be quite engaging. Namely, I sat on a kiddie stool and marked English essay questions for the 8th, 9th and 10th grades. Uniformly pretty bad as far as content and grammar, but the spelling I am sure was above the UK average. I scored very strictly and left snidey but hopefully also mildly encouraging comments. The essays about ‘What makes a successful school’ were often quite entertaining and witty - the essays about 'The problems Mongolia faces' predictable and dull - but some nationalistic responses were quite enlightening (“We are the sons of Chinggis. Think - only think!!” after lamenting that once other nations were "scare of Mongolia, now Mongolia is scare of other Nations.”) Lots of students wrote of the national characteristic being laziness - curiously, all students whose work displayed more than a fair share of the alleged Mongolian national character...
I didn’t manage to get away from exam marking until 5.45pm. Fellow teachers said a taxi to the pub shouldn’t cost more than T700 and no one offered me a lift, so I headed out into the freezing cold and before too long a cab stopped. The driver, a burly fellow, did not seem overjoyed (altho was by no means antagonistic) at my lack of Mongolian language. I repeated "Irish Pub" in as Mongolian an accent as I could manage and tried pronouncing the name of the central square (Sukhbaatar) a few times, all to much shaking of his head as we weaved through the traffic. It was, at least, warm in the cab. We passed what I was pretty sure should be the turn off for the centre - the driver indicated I was not to worry. He pulled over the cab and started bellowing out to passing students - presumably saying "Can anyone find out where it is this foreign fuckwit wants to go so I can get on with my job?” He was mostly ignored. Eventually a few students came over, but they also seemed to have trouble understanding me, even though I kept pointing at my map of UB. Finally, he drove on further round what proved to be the Baga Toiru - an inner-ring road (it actually turned out that my sense of direction had proven pretty good, in conjunction with the map and I had a fairly good idea where we were). Well, a bunch of students at the Uni understoond and explained and off we roared, changing lanes alarmingly to rush through junctions. There was heavy traffic at the centre so the driver and I were able to nod confirmingly to each other as we approached the Grand Khan. I paid magnaminously with T2000 largely out of guilt at having failed to learn enough Mongolian to give simple directions, and was rewarded by surprised gratitude.
In the Grand Khan Irish Pub of course I was an hour late for my appointment with the manager/band leader. Feeling foolish and out of place I asked if he might still be around and was told that he could be summoned in 10 minutes. Sat there feeling rather nervous , overawed by the sheer size of the place, and the many tables of well dressed young people and wealthy American businessmen. I rehearsed suggesting that it might be more appropriate for me to come back on Sunday afternoon, or when I’ve got a bit of a band together. However, the manager proved to be happily unconcerned about hearing me play tonight - we chatted a bit and he suggested I come down tomorrow at 10.30pm when his band would be playing. I said that would be great.
Lured by enticing aromas I decided I would get some food - ordered a burger and fries that I’d seen someone else get and was rewarded with an (inevitably) monstrously meaty burger and delicious but few fries. Amazingly, the meat all vanished - possibly, as with the school meal, because I have somehow hypnotised myself into believing that the cold means my cells are just absorbing the stuff up.
Then met up with a Mongolian family I knew from Liverpool. They chastised me for having already eaten but I gamely volunteered to try and cram in a bit more so they drove us to an upmarket traditional Mongolian restaurant, called Modern Nomads. The food was great - I had a selection plate from the children’s menu which was very substantial - meat and veg boiled dumplings, miniature fried meat pasties, little meat pastry balls, oh, and a bit of meat. There may have been more meat - there was also a bit of salty chopped carrot.
They drove me home and the family became the first guests in my humble apartment for a pot of tea. Fond farewells and, falling asleep as I tried to write up this blog entry, I got to bed about 10pm. 1am I woke up, somewhat having difficulty with digestion, but not quite enough to warrant raiding my heartburn pills and, my mind turning with this and that, did not fall back to sleep until after 3am.
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