We're Gathered Here Today To Witness The Joining Of This Blog Post With The Week-End It Depicts In Awesomely Matrimony...

Well, it was quite a crazy second half to my week last week in which a lot changed around here. First off, as most of you already know I am now a full time Drama teacher! Well, at least until the Christmas holidays. Most likely the position will continue on into the New Year for at least a couple of weeks or so but I’m not going to get my expectations up too much at this moment. I have guaranteed work for the last 15 days of the schools year and I could not have asked for anymore than that J. Once I finish up the two week break for the holidays then I’ll start worrying about how long this position might be going for. I want to also take a moment to thank everyone for their kind words and thoughts. It makes me feel really good to know I have so much support behind me back home and you guys really keep me going over here. So much love!

Alright, so last Thursday I had my last day at Bishopsford of this term. Obviously I was pretty excited for this because the school I’m at now is a lot better in a number of different ways. Going in for my last day this term I just wanted to coast through the day as much as possible, assign the work, supervise, and get back home and ready for my next day at Cheam. Obviously the powers that be could not allow this to happen and thus my most eventful day at Bishopsford had to be my last. The beginning of the day was alright actually….just agonizingly slow. I just had to assign work for my Year 10s to accomplish and then waited the hour each time for the (seemingly) uber slow clock to hit the one hour point in each lesson. My period three class was a bit hectic, it’s a small class that has a lot of bottom set students in it and they were acting out a bit in the class. One student in particular ended up having a football in class and was kicking it around the classroom and heading it back and forth with a different student. I really, really didn’t want to have to go through the process and getting it taken away because that would have ended up keeping me back at the end of the day so I told them to put it away multiple times. Unfortunately they chose not to heed the warning and so I didn’t have any problem solving it fast. I had to call Patrol in to claim the football and the student ended up giving him some serious attitude and getting escorted out of the class. After this class I had the same class again for a Sport BTEC (exams that are less difficult than GCSEs) class. Luckily their regular teacher was there to set up the lesson before heading out and I would supervise them. The student from the previous lesson came into the room and needed to get work to bring with him to do in the Principal’s office. On his way out he decided it might be a good idea to smack another student on the head with his workbook (bad decision number two on the day). The other kid just snapped, got up, and proceeded to punch the student in the face LITERALLY in front of their regular teacher. The other teacher and I snapped into action immediately and took the punched student out into the hallway while I jumped at the door handle and held it shut with one hand whilst holding the punching student back from being able to get out of the door. Luckily the other male students in the class sat him down a couple of times and tried to calm him down before a bunch of senior management came in to take them out of the lesson. Just ridiculous and for something so small. Needless to say I was ready to be heading home by the end of this day.

To be honest I don’t really have that much to report on the events of Friday for school. Apparently the teacher who I am covering has an awesome Friday schedule with only two classes during the day and the first one isn’t until period three. I only a Year 7 and a Year 8 class and they were quite lovely actually. The rest of the time I just chatted and came up with some plans with Alexis and Lucy on what to cover and expect in next week’s lessons. There’s also an Inset Day (PD Day) on Friday next week in which they will be doing departmental planning and I was invited along to get some more information on how the school and department works.

On Friday night the week-end began and it was AWESOME. I was prodded (quite easily I might add) into heading up to King’s Cross with a couple of my flatmates to go to an event known as “Power Ballads”. I feel like this title should tell you everything you know but I’ll give a little music lesson for those of you who I just lost 25 words and one punctuation mark ago. A “power ballad” is pretty much any arm-pumping, head banging, held note dominated, rock out song from the Eighties or Nineties. Basically think bands such as White Snake, Bon Jovi, Meat Loaf, Heart…I’m sure you get the idea. Evidently the guys who were DJ-ing it thought Miley Cyrus belonged in the same category but I’ve been slowly trying to remove that portion of the night from my memory. We were completely pumped for a night of epic singing, dancing, and air guitar awesomeness. As most of you know I have a stupid memory for song lyrics and they came in very handy this evening. The venue itself was actually pretty cool, you wouldn’t expect the club atmosphere that’s inside looking at the outside of the building. This place was completely decked out too with smoke machines, periodic confetti cannons going off, and a female attempting to swallow the entire neck of a blow-up guitar…..I’ll let you visualize that for a moment……..yeah…….take it as you will. We ended up rocking out on the stage, singing to a ton of songs (whilst semi-shredding some vocal chords along the way), and finally heading out at around 2:30AM. Once getting outside of the venue it then became apparent that we really didn’t know how to get back home considering the Tube doesn’t run that late. After figuring out we needed to take three different buses to get home we caved and took a £40 cab to get home and crash.

Saturday rolled around and I woke up with my voice feeling like I just went on three consecutive Bands road-trips. I’m still coughing periodically right now as my throat recuperates….completely worth it though. On this day I was treating my flatmate Brittany to her first (and only) English football experience. She’s been here for over a year and had never been to a match so this was a must for her. We headed into Fulham to catch the Lilywhites take on Birmingham City. After arriving a little early we headed to the pub for a couple of pints and then rolled out to the match. Our seats were AMAZING!! I mean I did pick them out myself online and that’s why I was so excited. We were on the Putney End just to the right of the goal in the very front row. The players were almost directly in front of my face as they came into the box or were gathering for a corner kick. It was amazing to see some of them so close! On the other hand….it was f%&$ing COLD!!!!!! England is currently experiencing some heavy Artic winds blowing down from Russia and it is nasty cold right now (“But isn’t this like summer to you” says every English person I know before I metaphorically punch them in the face). The match ended up a 1-1 draw with Fulham coming back in the second half. An alright score for such a bitterly cold evening. After the match I ended up meeting up with Nate and some other friends for post-match pints in Putney while Brit headed home to warm-up. We ended up home soon after and it was soon to bed.

Sunday I woke up relatively early to run a few errands in the city. First off, I finished my Christmas shopping!! What in the world is up! I just need to figure out how much it’s going to be to ship things back to Canada but at least it’s all bought. In my travels I ended up walking passed the Tower of London. I had completely forgotten that the ice rink of open at the Tower and spontaneously decided to go for an hour skate while I was there. Now…I’m a mediocre skater at best. I’m not amazing but I can take solace in the fact that I am light years ahead of the skating abilities of almost every person living in this country. It was HILARIOUS (in a rather macabre way) watching people falling left, right, and centre. Kids falling, parents falling, parents falling on top of their kids (yeah), and whole families falling together. Almost 75% of the people didn’t let go of the boards so they could keep their balance and meanwhile I’m just kind of trucking along around the rink. It was funny watching their jaws drop when I was doing crossovers while they’re struggling to push off to get some speed. I’m bragging in any way because at home I suck in comparison to other people, but at least I can be a bit cocky while I’m here ha ha ha. In the evening I ended up going to see the new Harry Potter movie (awesome!!!!) with one of my other flatmates, Kim. Once we got back home it was time for a quick Skype with the family and then off to bed.

Overall, quite the epic week-end and definitely one of the best I’ve had since arriving here. I had my first day of my full week at Cheam today but I’ll leave that for the mid-week school blog post. I’m helping out in some directing of their school musical this year, “Bugsy Malone”. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with this show at ALL so I have to sign off and get cracking on reading the script (conveniently located beside me). I’m off to bury my head in a book and until next time:

Cheers and Love Y’all!!

Erik

P.S. if you haven’t heard any of the new Kanye West, Kings of Leon, or James Blunt albums I highly suggest you do because they are quite enjoyable. I’m also seriously into Mumford and Sons and Belle and Sebastian if you get a chance to hear them! 

Teaching and Learning: The White Paper

There are few who would argue that teaching and learning are not the full purpose for having and running schools anywhere in the world. The basic functioning of education requires a building, a curriculum, one who teaches said curriculum, and one who learns it from the teacher and applies it to their own lives. Teaching and learning are at the apex of the educational system. Inevitably the intricacies and implementation of these two pillars changes from person to person and from government to government. Education reform is something that we see all of the time in different countries, people always trying to fix the system to make it more accessible or more equal or to produce better results. Yesterday the coalition government, and mainly the Education Minister Michael Gove, released a white paper outlining their proposals for overhauling the educational system here in the UK. Reading an article in print this morning I was amazed at how in depth they are going to hit every corner of the system in order to balance things out. Although I would like to write up my personal opinion about all areas of the white paper, for the purposes of this post I will keep my focus mainly on teachers and teaching in general.

The first change that many articles about this paper point out are the changes to teacher training. The government will no longer fund graduates who have less than a 2:2 (or second class) degree when becoming teachers and they are going to be encouraging and fast tracking people who want to make a job switch to teaching. Now, as many people who have recently gone into the world of teaching can attest, this occupation is highly competitive as it is. There are always people out looking for teaching jobs (many for full time) and it becomes difficult in the long run sometimes, especially as a new graduate. The fact that the government is going to provide incentives for people who want to switch into teaching and create less work for people who chose to dedicate their lives to it is a bit questionable. Even more so, these incentives include higher leadership positions in schools instead of “starting their careers from the bottom” as many new graduates do. There are people, wonderful people, who have been working in schools for years and have the knowledge of the students and the curriculum to effectively become Heads of subjects. To think that they could be replaced because a highly successful corporate businessperson who suddenly decides to become a teacher is worrisome. I read an article earlier in the week in which Michael Gove specifically states that teachers need to have a high emotional intelligence just as much as academic intelligence in order to effectively deliver lessons and engage youth. Gove is even quoted as saying that there are people who can be successful specialists in a range of subjects but be ineffective teachers and people who get lower degrees can still engage and level with students and make a classroom fun, inviting, and inclusive. His choice was clearly to side with the specialists and hope that their subject knowledge will be enough to keep them afloat. I beg to differ on that one.

Any teacher out there will tell you that it takes a lot more than knowledge of a subject area to be a good at their job. As was drilled into our heads in university; we as teachers act In Loco Parentis or “In Place of Parents”. We are caregivers, social workers, counselors, role models, police officers, organizers, motivational speakers, and so much more on top of our ultimate duties to teach the curriculum and provide students with knowledge. Yes, you need to know how to engage a class, but you also need to be able to gain their trust. You need to be able to show them respect and expect it from them as well. You need to build a relationship with students that foster a truly inclusive and spirited environment that allows students to flourish. Teachers, for eight hours a day and five days a week, are every aspect of a student’s life…and we take pride in that. We take this challenge and we ride head on into it because we want to see every one of those amazing faces staring back at us succeed and in turn face the world without fear. I’d like to see Mr. or Mrs. Corporate Businessperson jump into a school suddenly after years in business and try that.

On top of this, Mr. Gove is proposing an easing of standards allowing schools to terminate ineffective teachers. I don’t agree with this either. Although there are some people out there who may have chosen the educational route but clearly should not have, for the majority of us we are human. We have our own troubles year to year. Students change, atmospheres change, and I think that a higher commitment to professional development and ongoing teacher training should be more at the forefront when it comes to these teachers. Allow them the opportunity to rehabilitate and re-enter the classroom with fresh ideas and a new lease instead of just casting them aside when the going gets tough.

As a teacher I feel that there’s always an element of ongoing training. Every day I enter a classroom I am learning new things about not only my students or my lessons but about myself. I strive to constantly revise and tweak my own teaching practice in order to be as effective as I can for my students. I think that if the government here endorsed and provided elements of training for ongoing development more we would see better products in the schools. You want teachers to create better lesson plans, show them how! Don’t just say it and can the ones who you think don’t live up to the standards. If they expect us to be an example for our students, perhaps they should be an example to us.

Just my thoughts…how about you?

Drama Teacher!

In keeping with my promise of more regular updates here is what’s been going on across the pond so far this week!....it’s a lot.

First off, I’m booked into Bishopsford right now Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The first couple days were, again, quite trying and long days. On Monday I was covering the RE classes for most of the day and had a spare first period to be able to get everything prepared for the lessons. I had the opportunity to plan the lessons this time around and really wanted to give the kids an opportunity to talk about the material instead of drowning them in the endless “read this and answer these questions” work they’ve been getting a lot recently as a result of the constant presence of a supply in that classroom. I was unfortunately way too optimistic about how this was going to go. I mainly had Year 11 classes and when trying to facilitate discussion with them about material before moving into some book work I could not get ANY of them to speak! Either they would say nothing, ignore me, or give me the standard “I don’t know” answer and shrug it off. I knew that these classes liked to talk a lot but as soon as I try to turn it constructive they immediately shut down. It was quite a frustrating day and not because of behaviour issues but I just really wanted to try and get something out of these kids and really teach them something but they were giving me nothing in return. One of the other teachers in the department talked to me about it and told me that it’s difficult because I haven’t built any kind of a relationship with them from not being their normal teacher so it’s difficult to really get them out of their shells. He told me it would be easier to try to get discussion going for a bit and then move on to book work. At least this way the students who are keen to learn the material and get something out of it rather then watch me beat a dead horse. It was deflating for sure but also beyond my control.

When I got home Monday evening I was, deservingly, a little down. That is I was until I received a lovely phone call from Protocol. It turns out that a long term Drama position had opened up in an outstanding school and I was to be booked in for Wednesday and Friday as trial days for the job! This is exactly the type of job and school that I had been looking for and immediately my mood went through the roof (as my flatmates can testify). I was absolutely ready to go and started researching heavily through the school’s website about what to expect and the types of facilities they offer. More on that in a bit.

Tuesday was quite a turnaround day for me going back to Bishopsford. Knowing that I had this trial day lined up for Wednesday I just went in with a good attitude and didn’t let any of the really disruptive behaviour get to me too much. I got through the day unscathed and actually had a couple good lessons (and one nightmare one) but overall no problem. Even more, last night I headed over to Stamford Bridge to watch another Chelsea Champions League match with Neale and Stephen.

The match itself was alright. It was friggin cold but I bundled up and was alright. The Blues ended up going down 1-0 in the first half and SLOWLY worked their way back to a 2-1 victory with the winning goal coming in the 85^th minute. Neale, Stephen, and I ended up going to the pub before and having a couple pints and chatted football for about an hour. It’s nice because they have such a big knowledge of football and are impressed y my own. Plus they ask me a lot about what the fan base is like in North America and I tell them a lot about Toronto FC and how the game is growing in Canada. It’s a great time and once they dropped me off I mentioned that I’d fire them an e-mail in a couple weeks and we’ll get together for drinks around the holidays. They were all for it! It’s kinda funny that we’ve really hit it off and become mates when there’s an age gap but it’s great times so why not?

Today was finally the first trial day at the new school. The school itself is called Cheam High School and is located in Cheam, Sutton. The website for the school really laid out how amazing it is. The school has brand new facilities in almost every department and holds multiple specialist statuses including one for Performing Arts. The OFSTEAD (school ranking board) gave them “Outstanding” ratings in almost all categories including teacher-student relationships, teaching efficiency, student behaviour, and overall effectiveness. Needless to say I was excited to get into this kind of a teaching environment. Once I got in I met the other two Drama teachers in the department who usually work alongside the colleague I’m covering. They are both absolutely fabulous! They’re not much older than myself and clearly have a passion and knowledge of Drama much like myself as well so we definitely hit it off famously. They’re both very open-minded and absolutely hilarious as well. The department is amazingly organized and I actually received a booklet that lays out every lesson for the units all the way to the break! There’s a ton of support and the friendliness of the other staff is outstanding. The students themselves were mostly well behaved. I am going to be teaching mainly Years 7 and 8 so there’s a lot of energy in the room when doing Drama. I’m definitely going to work on being able to manage them when they’re doing their group work. I had some students in the classes that the other Drama teachers found slightly difficult but they observed that I actually had them well under control and engaged which they didn’t expect. A bunch of the students do not have a male role model or influence in their lives so they think that I might actually do a lot of good running that classroom. I also had the opportunity to work with a Year 11 class of only seven students. We were working on characterization through script reading and I ran them through an exercise to get them into the mood and we had a lot of fun. I was able to participate in the game as well to get them motivated and did a lot of modeling to show them what I mean when I’m talking about certain things. They all didn’t have any background in Drama so they found it helpful when I described but also showed them what I meant. They gave me a lot of feedback later to another teacher about how “awesome” I was and that they really enjoyed the lesson. I just feel like there was so much pent up expressive Drama teacher in me that I let it all out today and it felt great! I seemed to make an amazing impression on the department and I had a wonderful day so they decided to keep me on until the holidays! It’s going to feel really good waking up in the morning and looking forward to work. Plus, I’m booked every day for the rest of the term which is wonderful. I’m just excited to finally doing something that I love and have wanted to do more of since I had my practicum experiences at Queen’s. They are also currently working on a musical production and other various extracurricular activities that they welcomed me to get as involved in as I wanted, which I definitely will!

I have to return to Bishopsford tomorrow but I’ll take comfort knowing that I have a great long-term job lined up that I couldn’t be more excited for! I’ll update later on about how the rest of the week goes but until then:

Cheers and tons o’love!!!!

Erik (Mr. Smith the Drama teacher!!!)

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I am truly sorry for the lack of posts this week. Things had gotten quite hectic and I ended up having a busy week overall. It was fun, entertaining, stressful at times, and ultimately quite exhausting. I’ve finally just now gotten the opportunity to get it all written down. Hopefully this will fill you all in to how crazy (yet awesome) my week was.

First off, I worked all of last week at my lovely archenemy school: Bishopsford. Now, I don’t want to sound too much like a broken record or continue to bash this school on my blog. Okay, so there are a lot of students in the school that have behaviour and learning issues and it is quite a difficult school overall. However, the principal has made significant improvements to the school overall and they have done better in recent test results and GCSEs than ever before. The school is on its way up and I want everyone to know this and not think that this school is a complete waste of time. I spent last week mainly covering a Religious Education teacher who has unfortunately been out sick for a number of weeks. This hasn’t helped the students very much because they’ve had a merry-go-round of teachers coming through and giving them book work to do. I ended up being booked for last week and this week to cover all of her classes. I’m hoping that this brings a bit more consistency to the students. One of the biggest issues they face in that school is the fact that it gets judged quickly. Teachers come in from different agencies and have difficult days in the school and immediately cast a judgment. Most of them refuse to ever go back and therefore Bishopsford becomes this school where there are constantly new teachers going in and out. Through my experiences over the last week in the classes there are a ton of amazing students at this school. A lot of kids want to do the work and are quite creative as well. It was a cool experience being able to walk through the hallways and having kids say hello to me and I get to know their names as well. The familiarity helps in controlling some of their classroom behaviour and it builds a bit more trust when I have certain students. Although I’m still not going to be there for the long haul it’s nice to know that if I go back for certain days that at least I’ll still know a lot of the students there. The week itself went really well overall and I won’t get into a ton of specifics about each class but I had a lot of good ones and a few bad ones but great experiences overall. As I said before I’m back at Bishopsford Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday next this week covering the same classes and I actually get to plan the lessons which is pretty cool so we’ll see how that all goes.

The academic side of my life last week as pretty consistent in terms of location but my social life was all over the place! On Monday I realized that the show that I really wanted to see (Krapp’s Last Tape) was closing over the coming week-end so I impromptu bought a ticket and attended the show Tuesday night. I posted a review the next day so please have a look at that for more details about my thoughts.

On Wednesday night I attended the England-France friendly match at Wembley Stadium. As it my second England match I opted not to bring my camera and pay a bit more attention to the match itself. Unfortunately it was quite a bad match indeed. Fabio Capello (England Manager) called up a lot of young players for this match to get some first team experience. As a result they had a lot of problems meshing on the pitch and were outplayed consistently all evening. It was quite cold and raining a bit as well. It got to the point where I was just getting frustrated by the whole deal and left in the 75^th minute. It was nice to attend another football match but hopefully the next one will be a bit better in terms of a result.

Thursday night I attended the Protocol Winter Travel Evening. It was an event held in a pub in central London on Chancery Lane where different tour companies attended and talked about their services. They had a ton of flyers available (of which I took many) and I got a free drink and entered into a raffle. Although I didn’t win anything in the raffle I did win….at a free drink? Sure. Although I don’t think I’ll be heading anywhere specifically just yet it’s nice to have the information for future reference.

Saturday ended up being a really cool day. A couple flatmates and I along with others went on a “Dick Whittington Ale Trail” through the streets of London. These are a series of different pub crawl trails that spread throughout different areas of London. You get a map and a stamp at each pub that you attend and if you get five stamps you trade it in for a t-shirt that commemorates your accomplishment. We ended up taking the Blackfriars Trail which led through the City of London (the old part). We went to a lot of pretty cool and old pubs along the trail, along with a few that were not a part of the trail. I took a few pictures and they’ll go up on Facebook soon.

This week coming up is going to be another pretty crazy week. I’m already booked for Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday in terms of work. I’m also attending a Chelsea match on Tuesday night and a Fulham match this coming Saturday. Busy, busy, busy as per usual but I promise to update a bit more consistently you keep everyone updated!

Cheers and love to you all!!!

Erik

A Bit Of Wisdom

I’m going to take a moment of your time to spread a little bit of wisdom. Since arriving here in the UK I have found it a bit difficult sometimes to really feel at home, mainly based on the incredible distance I am from my actual home. This sometimes becomes very true when I am in the classroom. Classes can go really well for me at times and others can go quite disastrous. Mind you it is usually just a handful of students who cause these situations but I sometimes long for those classrooms that I enjoyed as a high school student myself. Classrooms where students stopped talking immediately when a teacher asked, when we got to work right away when directed, and we learned, asked questions, and were generally non-disruptive. Schools in the UK are just different: they operate differently, students respond to things differently, and they all snicker a bit when they listen to me talk because it is vastly different from the way they talk. Needless to say, it can feel lonely sometimes and this loneliness and turn one to sadness if I’m not careful. Therefore, I have devised a nice little list of ten things that I try to accomplish in my day to add a little happiness and keep me going through some of the more trying times. I share this with you all in the hopes that if you are having a bad day yourself (or want to start a day in a positive way) you can turn to this and it might help you on your way back to happiness. So, here’s my list of ways to brighten your day, enjoy!

1. Acknowledge or say a pleasantry to a complete stranger. I try to acknowledge somebody I don’t know every day. Whether it is on the tube, walking, or on a bus. It could be a “Good Morning” or just a simple head nod, but doing so raises my spirits a little bit. I can’t explain why but it’s nice to be nice I guess. Hopefully it brightens their own day too which becomes a win-win.

2. SMILE! Generally I can seem like a slightly morose person when I’m walking down the street. It’s not that I’m angry or anything but I just don’t have any expression on my face. I find that just by putting a smile (just a slight smile) on my face while walking it just lifts me up a bit and puts me in a good mood. It almost feels like I’m untouchable, which is helpful in the classroom when things get seriously out of hand. I always make an effort to walk into a school grounds with a smile on my face to set the tone for my day.

3. Wake up early. Okay, I’m a teacher and need to be at school early so this is a given. But, on the week-ends I still try to make the effort to wake up as early as possible. I’m at the point in my life where excessive sleeping in makes me feel like I’ve wasted a good portion of the day. There’s a whole world happening out there, why spend it in a dreamland? Plus, there’s something magical about being up when the sun both rises and sets, you feel like that day was truly fulfilling.

4. Maintain a clean living environment. I occasionally let this one slip but I always make the effort to correct it ASAP. When one becomes stressed their living areas tend to become more cluttered because there’s always a distinct lack of caring to put things away. I find that if your living space becomes cluttered and disorganized so can your mind. A nice clean space makes for a nice clean attitude. A little corny but I think it’s true.

5. EAT! And I don’t mean eat to numb the pain. I mean eat properly and often. Too many times in the past have I sacrificed food for time. Nothing helps you get on with your day than eating breakfast, snacking appropriately, having a lunch, and cooking a dinner to enjoy. Food equals energy that will give you the will to press on with your day. If you’re low on energy you’re bound to become sluggish and depressed and that’s just going to make matters worse.

6. Vent when you need to people close to you. I find that when I have my hardest days if I come home and vent it a bit to one of my flatmates I put it more into perspective and it doesn’t feel too bad. It’s insane to try and keep these extreme emotions bottled up and it’s unhealthy too. Just let it all out and you’ll realize that it’s just one day and most of all, that it’s over and you can look forward to a new one.

7. Set weekly goals for yourself. I try my best not to look too far into the future while I’m here. I understand that Christmas break is coming up soon but if all I do is spend my time thinking that far ahead every day will seem so much longer. I try my best just to look towards Friday and the week-end as much as possible. I suggest filling a couple of days with some sort of event. It could be as big as a trip to the theatre or a match (for me anyways) or as simple as a walk. If you work towards those things it breaks your week down into little attainable chunks and makes it a lot easier to get through.

8. Find something you enjoy doing and do it every day. This one sort of ties into the whole weekly goals thing but it’s definitely distinct. During the week for me it gets a bit routine because I really only have a few hours to myself once I get home before I need to get to sleep and start up all over again in the morning. In those few hours though I try to do a bit of writing (blog or otherwise), reading, or just enjoy a cuppa and watch some t.v. By doing these things every day I look forward to them and work towards them, plus they help to sharpen my mind and allow me to express my thoughts in a constructive way.

9. Although this is a cliché, no matter how trying, annoying, stressful, or downright awful you think your day has gone please always remember that there are people in this world who have it a lot worse than you. I hate it when people (myself included) go off about small inconveniences to their days when there are people who would do anything to have them. There’s a lot of injustice in our world and it becomes important not to take them for granted. Sure I have rough days sometimes when I can’t stand some of the kids in my classroom, but at the end of the day it’s putting up with a few brats for a few hours. I have a job, a place to live, and food in my fridge. It’s important not to forget that my days are not so bad when compared to what some people in this world are going through. I try to give back as much as possible to reconcile this as well.

10. No matter what always…ALWAYS remember that tomorrow is a brand new day. Every morning becomes a new chance, a fresh start filled with brand new opportunities, experiences, and people. How cool is that? Take advantage of those opportunities because you never know what they might lead to.

I hope you can take the time to try some of these points, you never know what it could do!

Cheers and Love Always,

Erik

Review- Krapp's Last Tape

Last night, I attended a performance of Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” at the Duchess Theatre in Covent Garden. I had been interested in seeing this show for quite some time as it was on a seriously limited run (eight weeks) after transferring to the West End from Dublin Gate. Unfortunately I had also kept putting it off and realized that the run was due to finish this coming Saturday. As I was only available to see it on Tuesday night because of other events going on, I hastily snatched up a ticket and I do not regret that I did.

This play is strange. Needless to say, it’s Beckett. For those of you who are not too familiar with Beckett’s work he is an absurdist writer who really digs into the crevasses of human nature through very bizarre stage tactics. This is a man who has written an entire play involving two characters buried up to their chests in a hill (Happy Days) and therefore cannot move at all around the stage. This play (Krapp’s) involves one single character on stage for approximately fifty minutes. There are only a few hundred lines in the entire performance and there’s more to see in the physicality of the performance rather than the words themselves. The play begins in complete darkness with Krapp slumped over his desk…and he lays there. For one minute, than another, than another. Until finally there’s a slight movement of a finger…then a hand…and he picks himself up. The tone and tempo for this play is set. You discover throughout the performance that Krapp is a failed writer who takes the abnormal task of recording his voice on his birthday (described as the “awful occasion”) telling the story of the year gone by. He also has a penchant for bananas, in a rather humorous bit at the beginning, and alcohol. The stage is lit by a single light over his desk and the rest of the space is darkness. Krapp himself is disheveled, old, tattered, and slightly pathetic in the eye of the viewer. This makes it so much more intriguing to find out exactly what happened to him. Not a word is spoken on stage until about 20 minutes into the performance as Krapp manages to find his tapes, recorder, and a book chronicling his recordings. It becomes clear as a viewer that he’s looking for a specific tape (one from thirty years ago) as he reads out the exact box and spool with which to find it. The methodic placement of everything on his desk and the playing of the tape take a distinct air of ritual, he’s clearly done this before. Probably every year since he’s made that specific tape. We listen in to his ramblings on about life, his clear love for women, and the many drunken escapades with them. He has since unraveled over the years and he clearly wishes to be that “stupid bastard” he listens to year after year. One hilarious moment comes when Krapp becomes frustrated with the meandering of himself and suddenly becomes enraged and fast-forwards through the tape until finally reaching the part he was searching for. The description of a woman…a special woman of whom he clearly cared deeply for, and lost. As this begins to unravel Krapp even further we get a glimpse of the man he used to be and the man he has become. We empathize with Krapp for his heinous regret and unfathomed self-loathing that is blanketed upon the stage. What happened to him? We’ll never know, the play is over and it’s out of the theatre to ponder the life untold of this sad, old man.

The character of Krapp was played by Michael Gambon (the second Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series). He played this character brilliantly and I have never seen anything like it on stage before. The slightest gesture, idiosyncratic movement, or step had distinct purpose and revealed more of this character than you could ever get from words. He saunters to and fro across the stage fulfilling his yearly routine as one who cannot perform the tasks he so readily tortures himself with as he could years before. This character must be played by an older man. The experience and age needs to be evident on stage. Therefore the usage of stage effects for age would only take away from the overall experience. I envy Mr. Gambon. His amount of stage experience combined with his age (life experience) is poured into the character and you can see Krapp as any person, even someone in your own neighourhood…it’s just that believable. He explores every part of the stage as if he’s been there before yet discovering it for the first time. It’s difficult to truly put into words this superb performance but I highly suggest if anyone reading this has an opportunity to see Michael Gambon on stage to do so, you won’t regret it.

The Duchess Theatre itself was also a wonderful choice to host this performance. It is a slightly older looking theatre on both the inside and out and is quite small compared to others in the area. The confined seating area only added to the richness of the performance. There’s an unrivalled intimacy between the character on stage and the audience watching him. Your immediate surroundings are dark and hollow much like Krapp’s and you almost feel like you are travelling on this journey with him instead of a clear separation between the two. It was quite a comfortable viewing experience and I will definitely be attending a performance there in the future.

I apologize to all of those who cannot have the opportunity to see this play. I’ve tried to do it justice in my words but I feel almost like Krapp himself, a writer failing to capture the world around him. It’s difficult with a play like this because so much of it is visual. To all those drama geeks out there, find this play! Read it, study it, understand it, see it if you can. And then read it thirty years from now and experience how much age comes into the understanding. This play is fraught with perpetual swings of emotion and leaves you with ample opportunity for self-reflection at the end. Krapp represents everything we as humans do not want to become in our old age and thus displays the fragility of life itself. Oh, how quickly life can deteriorate around us if we don’t hold on to what and who we love. We learn not to take advantage of the joys we have every day and leaving the theatre we owe this self discovery to a man who has unfortunately done just that.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...

I’d like to take a moment of your time if I may to discuss one of my new found loves in this glorious city of London…the holidays! I have been absolutely mesmerized in the walking around in London the last few days because the entire city is lit up (literally and figuratively) for the holidays. I had the pleasure recently of going and seeing all of the lights strung up for miles down the main streets and it is dazzling. I highly recommend everybody who has the opportunity to walk down Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Carnaby Street to see some these main displays. One of the best aspects of these lights is how non-denominational they are. London is a fascinatingly multi-cultural city and this reflects in the many holidays that are celebrated in it throughout the year. There are many holidays that are celebrated around this time of the year so it’s clear that the creators of these exhibits do not want to alienate too many of the citizens of the city by being clearly biased towards one religion, and they did a fantastic job at it. The lights down Regent Street reflect a theme involving the Chronicles of Narnia. The third film in this series will be released through the holiday season and these lights reflect that, involving different displays of characters from the films with lights matching a certain tone. The lights are also strung up like a canopy above your head…it almost feels like captured stars above your head that you can reach out and almost touch. It’s quite magical. Down Carnaby Street there is an outer space theme involving planets revolving around each other, stars placed throughout the sky, and even an astronaut towering above it all. I haven’t taken any pictures yet but I’m sure to return to these magical areas and capture them on film eventually.



In a bit of a lesser non-denominational display there will be different Christmas tree lightings going on throughout the city over the next couple of weeks. Every year there’s a large tree donated by the people of Norway that gets placed and lit in Trafalgar Square as well as a particularly unique tree in Covent Garden. The tree in Covent Garden is strung up with lights as most others however it is very interactive combined with a single piece of mistletoe nearby. The tree displays a dazzling light show that lasts approximately one minute every time a couple kiss under the mistletoe. Definitely a unique experience for people around the city to say they did and it would be an amazing sight for people walking through the area to see the tree light up every time knowing that two people are sharing a special holiday moment together.


Besides the decorations there are plenty of other things to enjoy during the holidays. Mulled wine and mincemeat pies are two of my favourite holiday treats (both recently acquired). I highly suggest those of you who haven’t tried either of these to do it at least once. They are both very traditional aspects of the holidays in England and are quite enjoyable separate but more together. There are the many ice rinks that open throughout the city near the end of November. They run through until January and offer a unique skating experience for tourists and city dwellers alike. As a Canadian I am definitely looking forward to this. Skating is almost a patriotic duty and being able to quell that craving will go a long way to dispel any feelings of homesickness I might feel over the holidays. In addition these there are always the countless museums and galleries that tend to put on new exhibits during this time of year and the always amazing West End shows that continue to play. Protocol is also putting on a couple of events throughout the holidays including the Winter Travel Evening this week and a Christmas Meal in the middle of December that I highly look forward to attending.


London truly offers a unique opportunity throughout the holidays and I really anticipate getting out and doing as much as possible when I can. As I’ve said earlier I recommend that everyone who will be sticking around the city for the holidays also take advantage of these opportunities. These events only roll around once a year and with a limited amount of time in this country for some of us it’s worth taking a moment to experience. Oh, and don’t forget to squeeze in New Years on the Thames too!!


Cheers and Love!!
 
Erik

Another Week Gone By

Well, it’s been a pretty good end to my week over her e in foggy (and rainy and cold and windy) London-town. As I mentioned previously I was booked to finish off the entire week at Henry Compton School. It’s fantastic that I ended up getting a full five days worth of work but it was definitely a long week. Not having been used to working every day in the week it got to the point where I was starting to feel really exhausted and worn out but I’m starting to really develop a good routine to make sure that I’m getting myself unwound at the end of the day and making sure to take the time to do something enjoyable every night (be it watching t.v., a bit of a movie, reading, etc.) in order to have some time to myself and relax. It definitely paid dividends because I felt great at the end of the week and into a nice week-end.



On Wednesday I was covering for a Geography and History teacher who also teaches some Public Services courses. Public Services are GCSE courses that show students the world of working in areas such as the military that work in the public sector. I had about three Geography classes that had to work on a crossword and the two PS classes needed to complete some worksheets. The teacher also left me a DVD with some Discovery Channel documentaries on it so I threw those on while the students were working. For the most part the classes were not too bad. I had some disruptive students here and there but generally not that bad. The worst ones I ended up having to have taken out of the classroom because they were just getting too out of control.


Thursday I was covering a Science teacher in the school. I had already met this teacher previously and it was nice that she remembered me when I saw her that day. She was proctoring GCSE exams for Year 10 students so she couldn’t be in her classroom that day. Luckily the Year 8 class I had first lesson were being taught by a student teacher, I just needed to remain in the classroom and make sure they listened and help them with the work. I had a Year 10 class after that who were doing revision for their exams that day so I just let them get on with it. No lesson 3 class (it’s nice having spares every now and then) and lesson 4 was a Year 8 class. This particular class was very bottom set and the students have a lot of special needs. The class itself was only comprised of 6 students but it seemed almost like 60 as soon as they walked into the door. Their regular teacher can usually handle them fairly well but as soon as they saw me instead they started (literally) running around the school. I eventually got them into the class and settled and luckily the teacher ended up checking in half way through the lesson and sticking around to help me out. I had never really experienced any class like that before so it was nice to see what sorts of tactics she used to get them under control. The lesson 5 class was a Year 9 Design Technology class. They were apparently supposed to have been using soldering irons that day to continue on a task but the teacher left me a different design task for them to do. They were upset about that and very vocal about it so they ended up not really working at all. I had to have four of them removed from the class just because they were doing really stupid things and being extremely rude to me which is obviously not tolerable in a classroom.


Friday ended up being a great day to finish off the week. I was covering a different Science teacher this day because he has been having some kidney issues and needed to go in for a check-up. I had one Year 10 class for two consecutive lessons and one Year 9 class for two consecutive lessons. They were both very good classes that ended up completing their worksheets no problem so I gave them some free time to work on other things or chat quietly (it was Friday after all). With no lesson 5 class I ended up getting a jumpstart on my week-end at 2:00!!


The week-end itself ended up being really nice. I started out Friday night by heading to the Tup with Nate for a TGIF pint and ended up getting dinner there as well. The rest of the night we just stayed in and watched some TV and had a couple drinks. After a long week it was nice to just stay in and relax after such a long week of work. Saturday ended being a really long but fun day. I got some errands accomplished early in the morning and then headed into the city for 11:00am for the Lord Mayor’s Parade. The Lord Mayor of London is an ambassador position that is annually bestowed on a member of the London City Council and has been since the time of King John. This particular Lord Mayor is the 682nd in the history of the city. The parade itself was pretty cool with a lot of marching bands and different floats from community organizations. It was a pretty big military parade as well with all kinds of tanks, jeeps, and trucks combined with soldiers from all different branches of the armed forces. It was a really cool parade to watch and it definitely made me miss Queen’s Bands A LOT!! It got me into thinking that the Toronto Santa Claus parade is coming up a week from today and how much fun it’s going to be! Oh well….I had my time! After the parade I went around to some places to get some shopping of the Christmas variety done. I don’t have much more to do and am actually really happy that I have as much done as I have! I’ve even bought wrapping paper and cards and everything! I just need to get it all together so I can get them sent off across the ocean which I assume will take a little while. The sooner the better! That evening I ended up meeting with some people that I had met a couple weeks previously at the Halloween party. They are teachers as well, working in Surrey, and one of them is from Sarnia! Which I thought was quite bizarre at the time so we naturally started talking about that coincidence. Another also went to Queen’s last year for teacher’s college! She was in P/J mind you but still rather bizarre! We met up to watch the Lord Mayor’s Show of fireworks on the Thames and then went out to a couple of pubs and to see the Christmas lights on Oxford, Regent, and Carnaby Streets. A really long day but really nice at the same time, worth it that’s for sure!


Today I haven’t been doing too much…just unwinding again. I read the paper, did some grocery shopping (bought an advent calendar and mince meat pies!!!) and now I just need to get my room cleaned up and dinner on the go!


Not too much else to report on. I’m booked for Monday and Tuesday already this week. It’s unfortunately at Bishopsford (my arch-enemy school) BUT it’s work and at the end of the day that’s what matters. Plus, there’s only 25 school left until Christmas break and with 2 of those already covered that’s not too shabby! Other than that…


Cheers, Love, Rock The World!


Erik

I Remember...

Well, today is Remembrance Day. A day of the year when we take a moment to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of our freedoms and the freedoms of people around the world. Remembering those who have fought in countless wars, conflicts, or boiling point situations and those innocents who have been caught in the crossfire. War has been an unfortunate part of human existence since we started roaming this planet and members of our species have been dying as a result. In comparison to what some people in our history have gone through it isn’t so much to ask to take a moment on one day of the year to remember them. I loved logging onto Facebook today and seeing the number of profile pictures changed to poppies, the number of people sending words of remembrance across status updates, even using an event entitled “A Facebook Field of Poppies” to encourage people to do so. Remembrance Day has been an engrained aspect of our culture in Canada as well as others. I remember attending assemblies, recitations of “In Flander’s Fields”, and the Principal coming over the PA system to ask everyone to stop what they are doing, stand, and be silent to remember the fallen. Unfortunately however, this day has become such a part of my yearly routine that, although I understand and respect the reason for its existence, every time November 11th rolls around it’s almost like I just go through the motions each time. I buy a poppy and pin it to my coat (sometimes two or three if they fall off), I take that moment of silence, listen to the songs and the poems, and get back on with my day. I know that this sounds almost ignorant but it’s the truth. That is, it was the truth until this year.



Being on my own here in the UK has changed my perspective on a lot of things. This sudden and dramatic shift from being a student for so long to coming over here and being a professional teacher has been huge. I’ve learned to quickly adjust my teaching style every day in the classroom to approach situations in new ways. I’m slowly learning every day how to adjust into a similar yet very different society. I’m learning how to adjust to making money and budgeting it. At the same time I’ve grown a new appreciation for everything (and everyone) I left back home. I was really thrown off today when I was talking to the teacher whose classes I covered. I asked her whether the school would be having a moment of silence at 11:00 in honour of Remembrance Day and she looked at me like I was speaking a language she didn’t understand. Apparently that was something she was not aware of nor never participated in before in a school. I couldn’t believe it. For the students not to know something like that is a bit mind-boggling but I suppose that’s just part of the culture that they grew up with and I didn’t.


My brother Dusty wrote me a very touching e-mail today and I’m hoping he doesn’t mind if I share some of the ideas that he sent. Living in this city is very unique in that it was at the centre of some of the largest conflicts known to the human race. London was bombed daily throughout the most active years of the blitz and there are still remnants of that evident today. To actually stand in areas where people were under constant threat is very humbling indeed. Whenever I enter the classroom it can be a real toss-up as to what goes on. The students can be a delight and work through their assignments with no difficulty at all…or they can absolutely raise hell and get nothing accomplished at all. Either way, at the end of the day I usually come home exhausted…which is a good thing. No matter how hard or trying of a day I had…I always make sure to remember that it doesn’t compare to things people before have gone through and what some people are going through right now. I am thankful for the life I have and the people in my life. I am thankful for the peace I have lived in and the freedoms I have enjoyed. I remember those that fought and continue to fight to make these truths so. I remember.

Presenting His Royal Highness, The Duke of...Facebook?

Well, I thought I’d take this moment to discuss a rather funny addition to the wonderful, connected, and slightly addictive world of social networking…I am speaking of course of Her Majesty The Queen. Not only the Queen however, but the entire Royal Family. This doesn’t exactly excite the normal everyday local in Canadia-land…but it is quite a big deal here in the actual centre of the kingdom the Queen presides over. The thought of Queen Elizabeth slumped over a laptop typing her new status updates “Just got back from ANOTHER boat christening…such a good waste of champagne!” or “Phil just broke wind on the couch again! Will need to get the staff on steam-cleaning that spot :S” sort of makes you cringe. Of course…the Queen isn’t actually updating any statuses, confirming her attendance at any events, or commenting on William and Harry’s photo albums…that’s left to staff members to do, much like most official pages for celebrities or politicians. I don’t even know if she knows that she has a Facebook page…or what Facebook is for that matter. However, this new official Facebook page of the British Monarchy has become a hot bed in the news over the last few days. Why is this you might ask? The answer is a simple one…because of the people on Facebook who have joined it.



The page itself can be viewed here. I perused it yesterday and I must say, I was highly impressed at how amazingly boring it really is. I guess this is to be expected from the stiff top flight of the aristocracy in this great country. There’s really nothing the monarchy wants to officially publish other than the various events, openings, races, and dinners they attend as well as the varying official statements to the press. It’s really more of a record of the goings on of the Royal Family. They leave the stories of clubbing, drunkenness, and whether William has proposed to Kate Middleton yet to the Sun and Mirror. Now, this is all wonderful if you either cover the Royal Family for a major news outlet, you are a serious Royal junkie…or you are actually in the Royal Family. For most people this Facebook page doesn’t hold much significance except to impress your friends on their News Feed (of which I’m pretty sure I’m the first of my friends to “Like” it….so there.)


The continued existence of the Monarchy in Britain is a subject for much debate and has been for quite a few years. Some of the countries in the Commonwealth have already either voted to no longer recognize the Queen has their monarch or are debating whether to do so, the most recent of these being Australia. In a world where it is rather rare to find a country ruled as a true monarchy (I’m looking at you Lichtenstein) the viability of having its existence in Britain seems almost pointless. Sure they are descended from a long line of Royals and the monarchy has been the traditional symbol of English stability since the times of William the Conqueror…but what do they actually do now? Besides the aforementioned public appearances the reigning monarch is also the head of the Church of England and holds the privilege of ultimate veto on any parliamentary decisions (which rarely ever gets used). That is unfortunately about it. I’m sure you may be thinking that they’re not exactly harming anybody so why can’t they live out their inherited lifestyles? Well, to the British citizen they are unfortunately harming something…their wallet. The expenses of the monarchy for things such as travel, accommodations, event holdings, etc. are all footed by the British taxpayer you see. So, in desperate economic times such as these, when the Brits are facing some of the harshest budget cuts in decades, the necessity of paying for certain Royals to make good will appearances in foreign countries doesn’t exactly sit well with some.


Which brings us back to the brand spanking new Facebook page (see…there was a point). It seems that this new page has become a centre for decent (and indecent) democratic debate on the existence of the monarchy. It may not be exactly what the Royals had in mind (or at least whoever the brainchild of it is) but it has become that nonetheless. People have been making their opinions known about the monarchy through comment streams on photos, links, and videos. Some of them are tremendous claims of absolute love for the Queen, some serious and intuitive points for debate…and some just downright angry (such as the ever so popular and simple “fuck the queen” comment seen on most page updates.) Don’t even get me started on the irony of having to click on a button that says “Like” in order to completely and unabashedly claim your utter dislike…it hurts my head too much. The point is the debate on the Facebook page has caught the attention of the media and as of right now 204 665 people currently subscribe to it, with more and more joining every day.


Innovations in social networking have given fuel to many fires of social debate. They become mediums and forums for regular people to voice opinions across continents in a mere click of a mouse. Although the debate over the British monarchy as been around for some time it has never held quite a concentrated space in which to exist. No doubt this Facebook page will bring the debate to brand new levels…the question is how high will it go? And for how long? Although I am somewhat of a traditionalist at heart and enjoy the existence of the monarchy, I completely agree with one’s right to free speech and opinions. I understand where a lot of the negative opinions come from but can’t quite empathize with them until I am a British taxpayer myself (soon enough). Only time will tell exactly what this new page will lead to but we watch with open eyes and bated breath in the years to come. The only question that is truly burning in my brain right now is…how long until the Queen's tweeting?

This Time I'll Be Bullet-Proof

Well, it has definitely been quite the action packed week so far for me. I started out this week as I ended last week, at Henry Compton School. This is the all-boys school that I was mentioning before in previous posts. I haven’t had too many issues at this school thus far but I knew I was bound to have a bad day eventually…luck can only hold out for so long ha ha ha. There’s a great student body in this school but there’s also a lot of students that come from difficult or deprived backgrounds, plus when you factor in the “sibling rivalry”-esque atmosphere that lies like a fog over a school of only boys, it’s bound to breed some difficult students.



Monday was actually a pretty good day. I started out the day with a Year 7 Food class which I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately we didn’t get to actually do any cooking at all. The students were assigned to design a three course menu for the school canteen (in practice). The point is to understand a balanced diet and why certain foods are priced certain ways, etc. The only problem was these students were fully expecting to be doing some cooking that day so they weren’t too impressed about the written work. Plus, this was a very small class but full of kids with special needs, mainly ADHD and hyperactivity so they had a hard time to sit still. I had them for two straight lessons so I gave them the chance to get up and stretch their legs between lessons. Giving them the taste however unfortunately unsettled them to the point that I was hard pressed to get them seated and working again. Luckily I had a couple of TAs in the class helping me out and it ended up being an alright lesson overall.


After this class I had a Year 10 Art class for two consecutive lessons. This was actually a pretty good lesson overall. They were working on supplementing their portfolios by taking still life pictures of insects and scaling them up to sketch them on larger paper. There’s some serious artistic talent in the class and I was very impressed. A couple of the students were chatting to me about football during the class while they were drawing which was pretty cool. The kids really like the fact that I can talk to them about the sport and it definitely helps to break some barriers. There were a couple issues with keeping some of them on task through 2 hours but it was an enjoyable lesson nonetheless.


To finish off the day I had a Year 11 Art class. This was definitely the best of the day. These students are working towards their GCSEs in Art and it’s an elective course so they definitely want to be there. They were working on portraits of villains from films and hey just got to work as soon as they were in the room. No problems and once the bell went I packed up and on my way home! It was definitely a great way to start off a week (way better than last week anyways). Once I got home I tinkered around on my computer, chatted with my flatmates, made dinner, and eventually hit the sack.


Now, today was a COMPLETELY different story. Funny enough I ended up back at Henry Compton School today as well. Today was the day my string of luck for classes would end. I had to cover the Head of Department for languages and ended up having four Year 9 Spanish classes and one Year 8 French class…..yeah. The Year 9’s in this school are definitely the biggest handful and are definitely the hardest to get under control and working. I won’t fill up this post with every single detail about the classes but every single class was the exact same routine. It took approximately 15 min just to get them into the class, settled, and quiet so I could just take attendance…amazing. The ones that did get to work were fantastic but most of them thought they could wreak havoc for the simple reason I was a supply. Most students have this notion that there will be no consequences for their actions because they think they’ll never see me again…they were dead wrong. I ended up having to have at least one student removed from each class for extremely disruptive behaviour (one throwing pencils left, right, and centre, two for constantly throwing paper airplanes at me, and one for repeatedly telling to shut-up when I requested him to sit back in his seat and start getting some work done.) It’s definitely just a few kids in the bunch that go too far but there were still a good chunk of kids in each class who were talking and not completing their work. Unfortunately for me a lot of them did not understand the work and I could do nothing to help them because I didn’t understand it myself. I tried my best to channel Casey and Julie for Spanish and French respectively but to no avail. It definitely didn’t help my cause. It’s all good though, I received a TON of help from the Assistant Head and he was very friendly and helped get me set up for the day. He was pretty impressed with my organization (I make detailed notes about each class I cover and leave them for the regular teacher) and thought I handled everything very well. He was going to be talking to the teacher I was covering and told me he would make sure to put in a good word about me. Even better than that I received a call from Protocol asking me if I could go back to Henry Compton for the rest of the week! A silver lining at the end of the day, I get a full five day work week for the first time. It should be interesting when I have some of those students again who think that they’d never have me in their classes again…eventually it should get to the point when I’ll know them very well and hopefully avoid some of these situations. Only time will tell I suppose.


Oh, and when I got home I checked the mail and I get both my ticket for the England-France match at Wembley next Wednesday and the tickets for the Fulham-Birmingham City match at the end of the month! So, not such a bad day after all.


I’ll make sure to update how the rest of the week goes at the school once I get to Friday. It’s only three days away! Ha ha ha ha. Until then:


Cheers, Love, Rock That World Everybody!


Erik

Reflections On A Week Gone By...

Well, as I sit here in my living room, hot shower completed and in my comfy clothes, I figured now would be a good time to reflect back on the last week of teaching yeah?



So, you all caught a glimpse of how my week went from a more event based point of view. I attended a Champions League match in Chelsea, made my opinions known about arts funding in education, and generally had a decent overall week…it didn’t start out that way however. On Monday morning I was told to go to Bishopsford for the day. For those of you who remember (and those of you who don’t) Bishopsford Arts College is my archenemy if one could have an archenemy in an inanimate object. Every time I go to that school I labour to get through my day and try to keep the massively unruly classes in check while I attempt to dispense some strand of knowledge on their impressionable minds. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically, and Monday was no different. I ended up having a bunch of humanities classes, which really boiled down to some RE, and they were quite the bunch. A lot of these students I have had in other classes before so it gives me the advantage of knowing their names from saying them out loud countless times. The year 7 and 8 students and hyper, loud, and they have a very difficult time sitting quietly to even listen to the instructions for what they need to do at the beginning of class. I had two year 11 classes, one of which was actually not too bad because it was a small class, but the other was very trying. One of the obstacles at Bishopsfords is that it caters to an area with a large immigrant population. Many of the kids in the classes speak English as a second language and therefore it is difficult sometimes to communicate with them. The year 11’s also have a nasty habit of always having their cell phones out. While there is a strict policy against the use of phones in class, enforcing it is something else…especially as a supply. I’m supposed to confiscate them and by that I mean ask for them and hope they put it in my hand. After an intense confrontation with one year 11 girl (whom I kicked out of the classroom) things began to settle down a bit and I was able to finish out the day. Definitely a trying day and it was especially difficult to start my week out on that note coming back from Half Term as well. Needless to say I was in a bit of a bad mood for a little while after and went to sleep fairly early.


Tuesday and Wednesday I ended up not working….boooooooooooooooooo. Tuesday I unfortunately didn’t get anything and Wednesday there was a tube strike going on that limited the amount of work coming into the Protocol offices. Quick lesson on the strike (for those of you who know about it, feel free to skip ahead.) Basically, the tube workers have had an ongoing feud with the City of London for well over a year now. The only problem is they can’t exactly all go on strike simultaneously for a long period of time because the entire city would go to shit…people depend upon the tube operating like nobody’s business. Instead they opt to go on strike for one 24 hour period once a month to make their point. This severely disrupts commuting and it’s been happening for so long that it’s almost just a regular part of the month (insert obligatory “that time of the month” joke here). As a result of the strike many schools opt to use other means to cover their classes because they know that supply teachers through agencies depend on the tube to get to a lot of schools and they can’t risk people running late. Long story short, it resulted in me getting no work that day.


On the plus side I got pre-booked to work at a school in Wimbledon the next day! Hooray! Reason #1 why I was excited: it is within walking distance of my house so I had no transit costs whatsoever. Reason #2: it is a performing arts specialist school so I was really keen to check that out. Reason #3: it is an all-girls school and I was intrigued to see how that would go. You see, when one thinks about an all boys school certain stereotypes run through the mind. Boy running around hitting and fighting each other, screaming, yelling, and running rampant…unfortunately a lot of these stereotypes are true. When one thinks of an all-girls school the opposite stereotypes tend to run through the mind. As I found out, those are also really true. I suppose it might just be a result of quicker maturity in girls but the day was awesome. I had a bunch of PE classes (which ended up just being computer work) and I gave the girls the task and they just….did it. Bizzare right? I ended up speaking to the head of the performing arts aspect to the school about potentially volunteering for productions and whatnot, even as just a member of the community. I think it would be great experience for me, I could impart some wisdom on them, and maybe even get an “in” to the school for future use. We’ll see how that goes.


On Friday I did a 180 and ended up back at Henry Compton School, the all-boys school. I had one hell of a time trying to get there too. I opted to take the tube there which unfortunately requires a few changes of lines to get to my destination. When I needed to board the District Line (a notorious one for disruptions) they had signal failures and did not know when it would be up and running again. Another long story short I had to run around London to hop on the Picadilly Line and then hit Hammersmith and then walk down to the school. I missed the first lesson. Luckily the school was aware of my plight and things were covered but I missed one period of the day unfortunately. I received my schedule for the remainder of the day and I was covering a year 7 maths class, a year 8 maths, year 8 english, and year 8….wait for it…DRAMA!!!!!! I was kind of excited about that one…I hadn’t seen the word drama on a cover timetable yet so I was pumped to say the least. The maths and English class went relatively well. The younger boys at this school seem to be a bit of a handful but they also have a large population of kids with special needs and a lot of hyperactivity. The kids seem to respond to me very well and I had a bunch of the same year 8’s throughout the day so there was at least some consistency there. The drama class ended up being a bit of a bust (sorry to disappoint you). Apparently a PGSE teacher (student teacher) was supposed to actually be running the lesson but the lesson plan built upon a previous lesson that these students had not had. So that all went out the window and we ended up combining that class with another year 8 class and bringing them up with the art teacher to his room to do some art instead. He led the class so I was demoted to a TA/damage control duty. It was fine and actually an easy way to schlep into the week-end. It turned out to be a decent week after all .


I didn’t end up getting into too much trouble over the week-end. Saturday I ended up taking a trip up to Kensington and Hyde Park because I hadn’t been up that way in a while and felt like I needed to get back into some London touristy things. I took the tube over to Harrods and get my mind blown by the ridiculously expensive things they have for sale there. Pretty much every major label you could possibly think of and it just made me feel like I needed to win the lottery some time really soon. After that I ended up taking a walk through Hyde Park and past Kensington Palace before heading over to Oxford Circus, down to Covent Garden for some mulled wine (sold right out on the street) and then a tube ride home for the evening.


Sunday I had a bit of a lazy day and spent most of it preparing myself for an audition that I would be having that evening. There’s a community theatre located east of where I live that puts on 22 shows every single year. It’s all a membership based program and being a full time member allows you to participate in shows (acting and production) as well as buy tickets and whatnot. I had been looking into this well before I arrived in London and looked forward to becoming a member and getting involved in shows during my time here. Since the theatre is comprised of all different age levels they can cast characters for shows based on age, not having to rely on younger actors to play older characters. I’ve been waiting for a show to come up that fits me and it finally did a little while ago and I’ve been looking forward to this evening ever since. The show is entitled “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” and it was written by a British playwright in the 60s. There’s also a film of it and it’s enjoyed a number of revivals in British theatre. It’s apparently a well enjoyed dark comedy about a psychopathic murderer (Sloane) who seduces and manipulates a brother and sister pair into convincing them he’s not a murderer all the while avoiding their crazy father who knows exactly who he is. For a plot synopsis you can click here to view the Wikipedia article. You could also YouTube the film if you’re so interested. I auditioned for the part of Mr. Sloane and thought it went fabulously. It was a bit odd because there were only three of us there last night (auditions take place over three evenings) and the director had all of us in the room at the same time doing auditions. We had three scenes to work with and we were sitting in the room as each person went…not exactly what I was expecting. There was a woman who was auditioning for the female part and another man auditioning for Sloane. Needless to say….I had to crush him. I don’t think he’s had any sort of acting training at all, I think he’s just a member of the theatre and thought to try out an audition. He ended up going first too so I took into account where I could adjust my own reading of the scene to make it a little tighter and better….I’m devious. The director seemed to like what I did and was laughing at some parts. He had me perform it in both a British and Canadian accent so I’m not sure how that’s going to work should I get cast. I felt confident after it all. As I said before there’s still a couple more days of auditions to be had so I don’t know any of the other competition for the role and I won’t hear back until next week at the earliest. Fingers crossed!


I think that’s about it! Sorry for having to cram all of that into one post…I should really get on writing these more often to save you and I some time. I’ll write about my day today tomorrow…if that makes sense…it was a good one though. I hope all’s well with everyone reading this and thank you all for the well wishes in regards to the audition. Other than that:


Keep fit and have….wait….that’s not it…


Cheers, Love, Rock That World!


That’s more like it.


Erik