Christmas Time

I'm officially on Christmas time. That means some late nights, a few sleep-ins and a lot more napping than usual. I have a pile of marking that will probably not leave my bag until the Sunday night before I go back to work, and there are of course the usual travel plans.
It also means that I will be reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -- as it is a holiday tradition my wife and I started our first Christmas together. From that book there is a particular quote that I like to think of as words to live by. They are spoken by Scrooge's nephew in their exchange before Scrooge first sees Marley in his door knocker.

"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The Teacher with the Good Hair

In teaching, as in anything else, there are good days, bad days, then there are days that are just different. Last Friday was one of those days.
I have a class that, behaviour wise, is not my favourite class to teach. It has been a struggle for me to find ways to manage the class in a way that everyone is learning the material. I only teach them once a week, and that is part of the difficulty; building any rapport with them has been difficult.
However, on Friday, at the start of the class they all quieted down much quicker than normal and I made a comment about it and smiled. The remarks they made next shocked me: "Did you see that? Sir smiled;" "He must be having a good day; he smiled."
I stopped and asked them if they really thought I never smiled. I realized that despite trying all of the classroom management techniques I know, I never just stopped and had a laugh with them.
I have decided (and I told them this) that I would be focusing on positive behaviour so that they can see a better side of me. I will send positive postcards home and Respect cards to their form tutors, as opposed to the negative referrals that have been far too common.
There was one other comment that added to the strangeness of the day. Apparently to a group of year sevens, I am "the teacher with the good hair." -- that gave me a good laugh!

I like technology...

I have been working a lot with my school's VLE, and have been enjoying it a lot. One thing that I have been trying to keep in mind is, what will encourage the students' learning? Someone reminded me today that technology is a tool to help students learn, but I have been thinking about this idea. As an English teacher, I am leaning more towards the idea that teaching literacy through the use of technology is not the only thing that is important, but also teaching technological literacy. Students are constantly bombarded with text messages, emails, pop-up ads, banner ads, and such a plethora of messages that as a teacher, I must teach students the skills they need to be critical readers of e-lit.

I have also been thinking about the environment a lot lately. I am thinking of starting an environmental awareness club next school year.

First words

I suppose it's time to get this blog underway, eh?

I hope to accomplish a few things with this blog:
1. exercise my own writing skills,
2. encourage my students to read and write for enjoyment,
3. open up a forum for some language discussion.

First word:
redundant -- I am growing to dislike this word, despite liking the way it rolls off the tongue. I don't know how often I hear or read the phrase, "made redundant." Let's call a spade a spade; let's call it what it is: laid off, let go, dismissed. These are all weak ways of saying that you have been made jobless. In the current economy, the last thing we need is another euphemism. We should all be a little more blunt, and by blunt I mean honest. We will never build a society or economy of trust and prosperity, while we are hiding the truth with pretty words.