Teaching

craner

Beast of Burden
my only advice is don't try to be someone you are not. Teaching is generally (and I think I may have said this before) an amplification of your personality - be yourself but only more so, if that makes sense.

I know, I have taken note of this, but as my real personality is an over-sexed, semi-alcoholic, Symbolist poet-reading Bohemian, I've been a bit worried about this course of action. So I'm suppressing myself, and being a teacher. Not chain-smoking on school grounds, for example.

Trying to be organised is the hardest thing.

If I do pass as a successful teacher, and at the moment I'm not sure I will, I think it will only be on my own terms. I seem best suited to lower ability Yr. 7 (who are great: funny and vulnerable and lovely) and A-level (smart and up for the challenge). Year 9-11 are well tricky.
 

jenks

thread death
That's better than being told that you like the bloke out of the Barclay's advert - the one where he goes down the water chutes!
Kids in the corridor going 'pass me a towel'
Bastards!
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
That's better than being told that you like the bloke out of the Barclay's advert - the one where he goes down the water chutes!
Kids in the corridor going 'pass me a towel'
Bastards!

I got called shaggy the other day, ffs. I know I need a hair cut, but really. Her UCAS reference will be shit.


Really fed up with Daily Mail Dads too
 

marxbert

aphroditty
Every time I've ever tried to cheat on a paper using the internet, the stuff available was so bad that I ended up working three times harder than I would've if I'd just done the reading in the first place.

I suppose if you don't know any better though...

There are always the extremely lazy, those that will take whatever crap they can find. Any teacher or prof should be able to figure this out immediately, based on writing style, content, etc. The only time I've copy-and-pasted directly, it was a paper for someone else (ie, it wasn't my ass if the paper was ousted), and I lifted it from JSTOR or the MLA (ie, someplace reputable).

The dangers of internet plagarism are elsewhere. I've seen several students give entire presentations that were obviously taken from the internet--one, a report on Camus taken from SparkNotes; second, an argumentative speech (individual decided to argue Papa Smurf was a communist, lifted directly from some webpage). Both these happened 8 years ago. It is much easier to fool a teacher into thinking an oral report is your own than a written one.

The REAL danger is with the essayist-for-hire crowd. That's me. I've written countless papers for money, though I've never advertised over the Internet. I started writing papers for sacks of weed in high school and was selling them for $20/page (including biblio) by the end. 2 years out of uni, and I still get calls near finals from people I've never met, referred to by friends of friends. There is no real way to easily remedy this at large institutions, but I've written for small, private colleges as well. If a professor has no relationship with their students, it is near impossible to tell if a student is plagarizing.

There are all sorts of methods to stop this from happening, but it mainly depends on knowing your students.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
So is it just PE teachers who don't get shit? PE teachers are insufferable: swanning around in tracksuits, blowing whistles, in charge of all the school teams...of course the kids love them!
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
So is it just PE teachers who don't get shit? PE teachers are insufferable: swanning around in tracksuits, blowing whistles, in charge of all the school teams...of course the kids love them!

those who can't do, teach, those who can't teach teach PE.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
I know, I have taken note of this, but as my real personality is an over-sexed, semi-alcoholic, Symbolist poet-reading Bohemian, I've been a bit worried about this course of action. So I'm suppressing myself, and being a teacher. Not chain-smoking on school grounds, for example.

Trying to be organised is the hardest thing.

If I do pass as a successful teacher, and at the moment I'm not sure I will, I think it will only be on my own terms. I seem best suited to lower ability Yr. 7 (who are great: funny and vulnerable and lovely) and A-level (smart and up for the challenge). Year 9-11 are well tricky.

of course you'll pass. as long as you're working hard and like working with kids then you'll be fine.

year 9-11 are a challenge, but the challenge is being organised and being aware of what they're doing. which is really hard when you start.

and also, as a pgce student you feel really inhibited in showing your personality through teaching. now i have my own classes i'm sure my personality has come through a lot more because i don't feel the same pressures to be like all the teachers who i have taken over from. so i've got a lot better rapport with the kids because i felt a bit like a puppet. to some extent, you'll never get away from this during your pgce year.

i definitely had the year 7/a-level feeling to some extent last year, now i'm only doing year 10-11-12 i couldn't see myself doing year 7 again, where the need to be completely clear in what you expect at all times is really really important.

pe teachers do have something of an authority on kids. this is because their punishments are borderline sadistic, but they can get away with it because they are pe teachers.

the number one thing is tell kids when they are being rude and when their listening skills are terrible and don't expect anything less than the highest from them. and if they fall below your expectations never tolerate it or they have won.

(ps this is exactly what i didn't want to become when i began a pgce, but now i really enjoy it, because it gets results - ie nice classes)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
My nickname amongst Year 7 & 8s is now 'The Doctor'. I get children saying, "hello, Doctor!" to me in the school corridors. It could be a lot worse, I suppose.
 

jenks

thread death
My nickname amongst Year 7 & 8s is now 'The Doctor'. I get children saying, "hello, Doctor!" to me in the school corridors. It could be a lot worse, I suppose.

I'd be more than happy with that! For me it is the rather prosaic Jenks or Jenko. I had a bizarre Y9 who insisted on calling the Jenkinator - rather glad that he left under mysterious circs.

Y11 mocks next week for me too - nice to get rid of them for a few lessons but, dear god, the marking!

Was observed for my Performance Management yesterday - my Lesson Plan a thing of beauty, she turned up late, watched fiftenn minutes and then buggered off - still waiting for feedback.


you seem to be enjoying yourself Oliver.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Some days, Jenks, some days. Other days can be horrible. Your self-esteem either soars or plummets, and it can happen by the bloody hour. 1st period this morning, I learnt something useful. Don't ever try to mix Year 7 and mime. Despite what you think, they are not ready for it. Haiku yes, mime no no no. Oh, and guess where I will be and what I will be doing last period today?
 

don_quixote

Trent End
i finshed with one of them too and then went on a house trip to megazone to shoot some of my year 10s. oh yeah.

i want to sleep and sleep and sleep.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
so as the end of term draws in, how's it been? i had a horrrrrrible afternoon yesterday, but had a really good observed lesson in the morning. so ups and downs. and today will be great again i think.

9 days to go!
 

craner

Beast of Burden
One lesson to go. One lesson to go.

I could survive my first placement. I could survive my first placement.

One week ago, I was this close to a nervous breakdown.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
so as the end of term draws in, how's it been? i had a horrrrrrible afternoon yesterday, but had a really good observed lesson in the morning. so ups and downs. and today will be great again i think.

9 days to go!

9 days? fuck.

My last day today.

The worst of the academic year is over.

Although I've now got to start sorting General Studies and Critical Thinking.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Well done all. I need to have a stern talking to with myself 'cos I've been losing motivation a bit. Love the teaching still but am letting all the supporting/annoying admin-type bollocks suffer.
 
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