phew

well

friday was more interesting

for some reason my energy was pretty high

and i conducted classes with uncharacteristic aplomb

out of the six people i have talked to who responded positively

four turned up

which is nice

with an additional two...

also

there were three students who were teacherless

and so i introduced them to my ideas too

they found it pretty interesting

with one girl engaging with discussion

and this guy listening attentively

and since i allowed them to stay when the adults turned up

he said he thought it was unusual

to hear adults talk that way...

i couldn't get any more words out of him

after all

how could you describe a real mind-buzz when you are only 15/16

we talked about radical ideas

changing education

in fact

society as a whole...

about social dynamics

awareness and how it changes from child- to adult-hood

very interesting

yup

that's what i remember about supply

being able to introduce interesting topics with people

whatever their age...

god i miss it!

and then at the end of the day

i ended up having a bizarre conversation with darren

the boss

who seemed surprised when i said i did not have many strategies to deal with disobedient kids

things like

threaten to phone their parents

that kind of thing...

how could i control classes then

over the last ten years of my teaching

especially doing supply?

and i told him

i seldom if ever relied on invoking authority

it was all about catching minds

drawing attention to things that were interesting

waking them up...

i admit it

i am terrible at discipline systems

terrible!

i have never been good at implementing them

and though i looked forward to this new one

i think it has proven what i first thought:

it is not so much the system

but how it is implemented

there is something about my manner and being

that make its implementation

unfeasible

i gotta laugh

i am just terrible at it

perhaps my mood has also been influenced by listening to russel brand

comedian with his radio 2 podcast

and i laughed out loud

crazy antic

crazy and yet fast...

a hurlyburly of linguistic flight-of-fancy

and it reminded me a little

of the kind of thing mike and i did

though of course not quite so manic...

hmm...

i wonder if this will carry into classes...?

i have wanted to several times

but it has never managed to get into the classroom

it also means

that i have to maintain that energy level every lesson

for months....

and it is a lot easier just being the walking dead

and conserving energy for...

for playing computer games...?

hehehe

defcon is an addictive game

oooh

and armagetron is now on the school server

so we'll see if any of the kids might be interested in forming teams...