slow motion

the wind around my exposed cottage/barn

woke me up really early the other day

and i spent most of the night

tossing and turning

while thinking about school

things are ok

i suppose

but i don't feel happy about the quality of my teaching

and the quality of learning in my classes...

i need to talk to darren about my situation

for us to consider what the best step forwards is

it has taken me the best part of a year

to get to grips with the technical side of working at hds

and now that i know where stuff is

i can just about find resources

the kids are getting used to me being there

though i feel that i am not able to play the game i would like to

instead

my playing is rather limited in scope

i am not sure what service i actually provide the school

how helpful i am to the kids

how i actually fit into the maths team

and how i am furthering my own career

i feel that the skills i have developed over 10 years

amount to nothing

i have suggested to colleagues that we split groups wrt attitude

but no-one is going with that

i like proposed at the beginning of the year

that we should develop a more flexible team-teaching arrangement

rather than resorting to the suped-up filing system that is kalaidos

but no-one has followed up on this

i had a kid call me legend today

and i shook my head and said

not in this school

i know the difference

when i was in dunfermline

i think after only two weeks

i had kids stop in their tracks and call me a legend

and they meant it

because i had done something with them in a class

that was show-stopping

the young men had responded so positively

that my reputation had begun to spread around the school

i know what the positive cycle is like

and all i have experienced at hds

is the negative one

i remember

during the first two days there

how every class prevented me from addressing them in my style

how each class had objected in some way or other

with only one class responding positively

to whom i am indebted

i thought i could have learned from the introduction of the discipline policy

but i haven't

since i already knew that it is not a policy that works

but how it is implemented in the classes...

and there is a whole set of skills that i have not practiced

since i have relied almost exclusively

on working with the goodwill of the students in my charge

i have received several letters of complaints from parents

several kids have managed to swap teachers

and i don't have the respect of my colleagues

i shall speak to darren this weekend

while digging a hole in his back yard

to see what he would suggest

i don't have much of a future

though sofia has graciously invited me to stay in london

to try out the brixton thing

but i am not sure how my skill set will fit in

since i am not used to the adult world of work...

if i finish this summer

i shall finish with no more money than i started a year ago

so going to cape verdi is probably out

i started hds thinking i was pretty hot at the teaching thing

not only with kids

but with an idea on how to transform education

i may be leaving feeling like i am one of the worst teachers

not only with the kids

but underconfident wrt working with adults...

still

if it doesn't kill you

it makes you stronger

is that right?