And then there are our neighbours…I spend a good deal of time working on this issue with students as Dean of Good Neighbourly Relations. Sometimes it’s observational as I stroll at break time around by Waltikon station, past the filling station, across to the Denner loading bay via the Kusnacht bus stop, back to the DSC and then along the rear path to the Annexe checking in ‘Smokers’ Bikeshed’ on the way, greeting our students cheerily and encouraging them to unblock the pavement and retrieve the litter just dropped. How do I usually get involved if there is a formal complaint from a neighbour? Well, last time it was a sunny Thursday morning as a fresh but tepid, early spring wind ruffled the crisp sycamore twigs when a phone call ruffled my desk …
Basically we had the following problem: A very noisy, nervous, small, black dog tethered near to the outside door of Migros was fed popcorn by a student who felt sorry for it. Its enraged owner apparently received less than a handsome apology from the student concerned (though it was admitted by her that neither spoke the other’s language – the humans not the dog.)
But in the previous two weeks a few of our students had also taken a short cut through neighbourhood industrial premises and a very few had trespassed on private land in order, in the unseasonably pleasant sunshine, to eat lunch or even smoke a cigarette. (Clarification: ICS is a No Smoking Zone for adults and students on, and to and fro the main geographic campus (MB, DSC, Stables, Academy, Annexe, pool, sports fields and gyms being borrowed and at lunchtime around Migros Island) during the school day or at school events periods as well as on Field Trips and Field Days.) Students were accumulating in noisy and apparently financially negligible groups at the entrance to and in the foyer of Migros at 1.05 and 3.30 and occasionally leaving a mess. None of these are heinous crimes. Not all of them are committed by ICS students. None of them are committed only by ICS students. But they are all irritating to our neighbours living and/or earning their living nearby.
I am either phoned directly (‘Gruezi, Herr Darlington. Hier ist die Migros Central Administration Stadt Zurich…’) or notified by email (‘Nick, please phone Frau Huerlimann on 012 345 6789…Our students are trespassing at lunchtime.’)
What do I do? Well, I start with a few controversial comments way under my breath, in that secret place we all have at the back of our mind – this is good for a calmer Karma I was told, because this is going to take time and diplomacy as I defend the basically excellent behaviour of our ICS students whilst acknowledging the presence of a rotten apple, or an apple tempted into making a rotten decision. Then I telephone to make an appointment.(‘Ja, gruezi wohl, Frau Huerlimaa! Saged sie, wie labed Sie?Wie gaht es Ihre Maa?) Then I make a visit to assess damage and effect its limitation control. Afterall, some of these circumstances could really be annoying, for example in excess of 300 children traipsing past your door twice a day (and in some cases up to 60 teenagers traipsing up to 10 times a day). On the other hand these are Normal Teenagers which all adults presumably once were. Maybe our neighbours even now own a NT but do not want the added aggravation of dozens of them; yet not every single noisy or careless teenager in the neighbourhood is from the ICS any way. (You spotted I was getting a little defensive there of our students.) Furthermore, an inability to find a common language in a moment of stress can tighten the tension (see reference to small dog above.) Then there is the not eccentric view that four or so assorted large teenagers lounging even sprawling, eating even smoking next to your garden gate whilst speaking loudly in an unfamiliar tongue can be intimidating. And then when they go if they leave their litter there on your ground…well, apoplexy is excusable.
Now I have to find the culprits (I am quite good at this); I speak at an assembly; I ask the tutor to address the students; or I have a Deanish one-on-one depending on the circumstances. Maybe an apology is written or delivered orally, maybe some useful community chores are added to the recipe so that there is an opportunity for reflection and reparation. Several factors dictate which and how much. Whatever, the kids have to see we are in a Swiss community and that big bunches of noisy, extrovert kids might be irritating in certain circumstances so we need to be squeaky clean, therefore, in order to maintain or establish a popular image and reputation. And I am going to push this, they know (or do now.) We are all ambassadors, I say, even when we think we are out of sight or earshot. And stepping aside to let a senior Swiss citizen walk by on the pavement of her own village rather than, say, continuing up Strubenacher in a wide, progress-blocking and frankly intimidating noisy mixed group of 60 ninth graders thus forcing her to step out into the Strubenacher Grand Prix, is a sign of good manners, too.
And this generally does the trick (until the next time), because our ICS students are nothing if not amenable to an appeal to their common sense and good upbringing (but are so involved with the present and the ‘me’).
So now in order to complete the purge I appeal to the few parents and few teachers who short cut across Rinspeed’s courtyard and through the Opel garage behind Waltikon FB station to rethink this decision as it is trespass as well as dangerous. Like the proprietors say to me, big vehicles will be backing out with drivers only cursorily using their rear view mirrors. And I did point out to a close neighbour that we expected their Administration to do something about their customers who park in the DSC parking places whilst going shopping. And they did.
Monday, 19 May 2008
'PDP'
If a school were to develop a perfect Personal Development Programme for students (PDP) ‘Deans of Students’ might very well become obsolete, extinct, sort of museum pieces. I am thinking of a pedagogical equivalent of the Tyrannosaurus Rex; to be reckoned with but dead.. This assumes that the main function of a DoS, traditionally, is to be reactive in situations of poor decision making, making decisions about who to alert and how the student should make good, to do ‘blame’ rather than ‘no blame’. In old eduspeak this was ‘punish’; now it is probably ‘enjoy a constructive conversation about restitution’. A PDP that involved all students drawing them ineluctably into a desire to know all about the dangers of…well…dangerous things and that made them incapable of failing to apply actuarial logic rather than ‘it can’t possibly happen to me’ so that such behaviours were abandoned before being tried… If…Of course, students would still need access to advice and encouragement but not to a confessional. They would analyse the facts and lead safer lives that counselling would then help them to fine tune.
I have been excited to be working this year with a team of enthusiastic colleagues designing a new PDP for implementation next academic year in grades 6 to 12. It builds on what we have done successfully over the past few years and reaches out to other schools’ experiences. It uses the expertise of experienced tutors, it seeks collaboration with experts beyond the school and embraces latest research and models across the globe. It places the student and the students’ social, emotional and intellectual development and all available information at its core. To increase transfer and relevance it will not be encountered just in a dedicated weekly lesson labelled PDP but will appear through collapsed days, through events, through the MYP curriculum already taught in academic curricular, through Inter Disciplinary Units (IDUs) taught at each grade combining the skills of several academic subjects, through sport and service and clubs and activities…
It will open up sympathetically both for discussion and for instruction the vital topics educationalists believe students need expertise in at their age and it will allow timely attention to vital, relevant current events. It will have input from the students, in fact from peer groups and from older students, not just from adults. It will be communicated to parents so that they can contribute and support and at the same time be reassured.
What it will not do is to replace behavioural expectations and consequences in the school. It will not obviate poor decision making either, not because the PDP will not be excellent but because it will be designed for teenagers. And they are volatile and unpredictable as well as being at the centre of their own universes; pre-Copernican a literary figure once dubbed them. So they will not give in to the concept that they do not need to experiment merely because an adult can tell them in advance and save the pain. That will take away the thrill and risk, indeed the whole point of being an adolescent on the way from dependant child to independent adult. We couldn’t stop that even if we wished as this quest is built-in and hard-wired. But the cliché is true that their world is developing so fast and in so many directions in addition to the obstacles to success that we all knew such as college degrees, competition, seeking employment, unemployment, inflation, supply and demand. So it behoves us as educators to ease this rite of passage in order that your children are as well equipped as it is possible to take on their role of improving our planet. And that is what the ICS Secondary School’s team of PDP writers, deliverers and coordinators will endeavour to do.
I have been excited to be working this year with a team of enthusiastic colleagues designing a new PDP for implementation next academic year in grades 6 to 12. It builds on what we have done successfully over the past few years and reaches out to other schools’ experiences. It uses the expertise of experienced tutors, it seeks collaboration with experts beyond the school and embraces latest research and models across the globe. It places the student and the students’ social, emotional and intellectual development and all available information at its core. To increase transfer and relevance it will not be encountered just in a dedicated weekly lesson labelled PDP but will appear through collapsed days, through events, through the MYP curriculum already taught in academic curricular, through Inter Disciplinary Units (IDUs) taught at each grade combining the skills of several academic subjects, through sport and service and clubs and activities…
It will open up sympathetically both for discussion and for instruction the vital topics educationalists believe students need expertise in at their age and it will allow timely attention to vital, relevant current events. It will have input from the students, in fact from peer groups and from older students, not just from adults. It will be communicated to parents so that they can contribute and support and at the same time be reassured.
What it will not do is to replace behavioural expectations and consequences in the school. It will not obviate poor decision making either, not because the PDP will not be excellent but because it will be designed for teenagers. And they are volatile and unpredictable as well as being at the centre of their own universes; pre-Copernican a literary figure once dubbed them. So they will not give in to the concept that they do not need to experiment merely because an adult can tell them in advance and save the pain. That will take away the thrill and risk, indeed the whole point of being an adolescent on the way from dependant child to independent adult. We couldn’t stop that even if we wished as this quest is built-in and hard-wired. But the cliché is true that their world is developing so fast and in so many directions in addition to the obstacles to success that we all knew such as college degrees, competition, seeking employment, unemployment, inflation, supply and demand. So it behoves us as educators to ease this rite of passage in order that your children are as well equipped as it is possible to take on their role of improving our planet. And that is what the ICS Secondary School’s team of PDP writers, deliverers and coordinators will endeavour to do.
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
'But everybody else can...!'
“But Jemima Gruntfuttock’s mum always lets her stay out in town after 12.00! In fact I’m the only one who…and she’s got the Noki Sonyson P7000 with digital 4 mp toastmaker and doesn’t have to pay the abo…”
This is a tricky one, and right now you are thinking ‘You are telling us?! There are actually two issues here. One is to do with parents of teenagers always being wrong in the latter’s eyes when parents do not agree with them. This is to do with growth hormones. The young lion surveying the sun soaked savannah grass washing this way and that in the hot breeze, or chimpanzee if you will, and wanting more power, challenges the established symbol of authority, takes more personal risks until it feels powerful enough to chase away the current (and in his view obsolescent) leader. This urge is something that does not really fit into our urban jungle lifestyle scene. So the teen needs to be presented instead with worthwhile, authentic opportunities to feel a sense of increasing and real responsibility that is not imparted merely by a bigger spending allowance or more freedom later at night downtown with friends.
The second issue is to do with the paradox of a teen wishing to be different whilst wanting at all costs to be an accepted and identifiable part of the pack, the gang, the group; hence the odd and challenging fashions even if they are cold or uncomfortable, or the virtually incomprehensible and rapidly changing jargon they use, in micro soundbites, to communicate. These rituals exclude or include as the teen requires. For the teen wants to be an individual and respected for being such on the teen’s terms as well as to be loved enormously and included in everything at the same time.
So what is the answer for responsible parents of teens who wish to continue so to be, rather than the increasingly attractive alternative of simply going mad? First, be there! There is absolutely no substitute for the parents’ love and interest, involvement and concern, boundary setting and boundless love. This role connects the reassuring past common to all members of that family, to the launch pad to independence where informed decisions will be made. There is no substitute.
Next, find out what other teen parents are really doing and saying to their children, to get the information first hand rather than through a frankly biased messenger. Another idea is for grade parents to pool ideas about the dynamite issues of, say, the amount of spending money, the time of last train home (yours, not the SBB’s), sleeping over, attitude to alcohol (beer as opposed to spirits?), smoking (‘My parents let me at home…’) and so on. Only the G9 (or G10 or G8) pool of parents will be able to come up with the full spectrum of issues relevant to international teenagers growing up now in the city.
Now, come up with a set of agreements or procedures (‘If she says she’s sleeping over at Muriel’s I’ll check with Muriel’s mum there will be someone there. I’ll also check if another adult in the next room watching TV would be a help.’) Check out the clubs and pubs that some of these teens go to and where, by the way, they can access alcohol whatever the law might state (‘I just ask the first young adult who comes by and give him the money…’ was quoted to me this month.) Use the Web to check the sites. If they do go out in a group insist that you know exactly where they will be at all times; avoid the random as it hides the unknown. And so on…your pool of parents will cover all of this and more.
And will an increase of knowledge (you), or interference (them), cause more stress in the family? Maybe for a moment, but it will eventually just prove your loving concern. It did for me with my teenager.
This is a tricky one, and right now you are thinking ‘You are telling us?! There are actually two issues here. One is to do with parents of teenagers always being wrong in the latter’s eyes when parents do not agree with them. This is to do with growth hormones. The young lion surveying the sun soaked savannah grass washing this way and that in the hot breeze, or chimpanzee if you will, and wanting more power, challenges the established symbol of authority, takes more personal risks until it feels powerful enough to chase away the current (and in his view obsolescent) leader. This urge is something that does not really fit into our urban jungle lifestyle scene. So the teen needs to be presented instead with worthwhile, authentic opportunities to feel a sense of increasing and real responsibility that is not imparted merely by a bigger spending allowance or more freedom later at night downtown with friends.
The second issue is to do with the paradox of a teen wishing to be different whilst wanting at all costs to be an accepted and identifiable part of the pack, the gang, the group; hence the odd and challenging fashions even if they are cold or uncomfortable, or the virtually incomprehensible and rapidly changing jargon they use, in micro soundbites, to communicate. These rituals exclude or include as the teen requires. For the teen wants to be an individual and respected for being such on the teen’s terms as well as to be loved enormously and included in everything at the same time.
So what is the answer for responsible parents of teens who wish to continue so to be, rather than the increasingly attractive alternative of simply going mad? First, be there! There is absolutely no substitute for the parents’ love and interest, involvement and concern, boundary setting and boundless love. This role connects the reassuring past common to all members of that family, to the launch pad to independence where informed decisions will be made. There is no substitute.
Next, find out what other teen parents are really doing and saying to their children, to get the information first hand rather than through a frankly biased messenger. Another idea is for grade parents to pool ideas about the dynamite issues of, say, the amount of spending money, the time of last train home (yours, not the SBB’s), sleeping over, attitude to alcohol (beer as opposed to spirits?), smoking (‘My parents let me at home…’) and so on. Only the G9 (or G10 or G8) pool of parents will be able to come up with the full spectrum of issues relevant to international teenagers growing up now in the city.
Now, come up with a set of agreements or procedures (‘If she says she’s sleeping over at Muriel’s I’ll check with Muriel’s mum there will be someone there. I’ll also check if another adult in the next room watching TV would be a help.’) Check out the clubs and pubs that some of these teens go to and where, by the way, they can access alcohol whatever the law might state (‘I just ask the first young adult who comes by and give him the money…’ was quoted to me this month.) Use the Web to check the sites. If they do go out in a group insist that you know exactly where they will be at all times; avoid the random as it hides the unknown. And so on…your pool of parents will cover all of this and more.
And will an increase of knowledge (you), or interference (them), cause more stress in the family? Maybe for a moment, but it will eventually just prove your loving concern. It did for me with my teenager.
OPEC - It is very important...
It is very important that I address around 12 to 14 specific students in G11 right now. They told me most of the Dean’s blogs seem aimed at parents and/of middle school students and why did I never mention them? So, hello, the G11 Oil Painting Class (aka OPEC but we have yet to decide what the ‘E’ is for) that meets mainly Thursdays after school but also Wednesday and Tuesday have not been ruled out occasionally either. I suggested I hadn’t mentioned them because they seemed to be making appropriate decisions on campus and that was silly of me because it lead instantly into the ‘Yes, but, you know, what would you do as Dean if, supposing, I’m like…’ And this idea of flirting with the dark side looked like it was going to kill interest in Leonardo’s colour loss theory of perspective. So, I said, ‘OK, I’ll write something.’ Now you are up to speed.
We start with a few exercises, actually three specifically, to get accustomed to the tactile nature of painting with oils by smearing brightly coloured toothpaste look-alikes together and then spreading the resulting creamy self-made colours over canvas textured paper and finally onto real stretched canvas on a wooden frame that needs eight wooden pegs hammered into it, in a special sequence that we know, to get the cloth as taut as a drum skin which is then very responsive to pressure and thus great to paint on. Twelve or so boys and girls (I always set the maximum I can teach at six but as usual the maths of it seems to have gone wrong) doing this together in a smallish classroom produces theoretically the greatest mess I have seen since breaking up a grade 6 chocolate yoghourt fight in the top corridor of the primary school across the lake where I taught a while back now. Yet by around 5.00 or so they clear the place up to almost perfection (you probably can’t have, semantically, ‘almost perfection' as it’s an absolute but this is fine art not English). One of the reasons they do the dreary clearing up so responsibly is that the palettes and brushes today will be the same ones they have to use next week so don’t let them go spiky and hard. And at the same time and in the same spirit they no longer squeeze out Titanic painting potential amounts of titanium white when just a centimetre will do. But that makes it sound so self interested and that’s not fair as the spirit of the group is really mutual support with advice, admiration, consolation and gentle constructive criticism being the hallmarks.
To go back to the process, the three exercises lead on to attempting to forge a Van Gogh of their choice in order to get the energetically applied impasto effect of how corn or sunlight or wind feel rather than how they faithfully look in our megapixel age of exactitude, on to the canvas textured paper in a fast but fun exercise. These results are added to the display on the wall in the DSC as they show spontaneity, originality and enthusiasm as a result of loads of courage of which I am absolutely sure VG himself would have approved.We have observed, however, our next challenge which is that the artists tend to be more pleased with the displayed colour sketch than with the final canvas. Hmmmm! Treat the canvas as the first sketch medium? Remedies, anyone?
We start with a few exercises, actually three specifically, to get accustomed to the tactile nature of painting with oils by smearing brightly coloured toothpaste look-alikes together and then spreading the resulting creamy self-made colours over canvas textured paper and finally onto real stretched canvas on a wooden frame that needs eight wooden pegs hammered into it, in a special sequence that we know, to get the cloth as taut as a drum skin which is then very responsive to pressure and thus great to paint on. Twelve or so boys and girls (I always set the maximum I can teach at six but as usual the maths of it seems to have gone wrong) doing this together in a smallish classroom produces theoretically the greatest mess I have seen since breaking up a grade 6 chocolate yoghourt fight in the top corridor of the primary school across the lake where I taught a while back now. Yet by around 5.00 or so they clear the place up to almost perfection (you probably can’t have, semantically, ‘almost perfection' as it’s an absolute but this is fine art not English). One of the reasons they do the dreary clearing up so responsibly is that the palettes and brushes today will be the same ones they have to use next week so don’t let them go spiky and hard. And at the same time and in the same spirit they no longer squeeze out Titanic painting potential amounts of titanium white when just a centimetre will do. But that makes it sound so self interested and that’s not fair as the spirit of the group is really mutual support with advice, admiration, consolation and gentle constructive criticism being the hallmarks.
To go back to the process, the three exercises lead on to attempting to forge a Van Gogh of their choice in order to get the energetically applied impasto effect of how corn or sunlight or wind feel rather than how they faithfully look in our megapixel age of exactitude, on to the canvas textured paper in a fast but fun exercise. These results are added to the display on the wall in the DSC as they show spontaneity, originality and enthusiasm as a result of loads of courage of which I am absolutely sure VG himself would have approved.We have observed, however, our next challenge which is that the artists tend to be more pleased with the displayed colour sketch than with the final canvas. Hmmmm! Treat the canvas as the first sketch medium? Remedies, anyone?
‘Were they thinking at all?’
I was walking past the Red Top the other morning at about 08.40, a blustery and icy wind whipping noisy orange leaves into a tumble at my feet, when I nearly fell over a car. It was very large and metallic anthracite. That’s last year’s cool so it was not that that attracted my attention. What did was the fact it was neatly parked on a ‘no parking’ sign under a ‘no parking’ sign explaining that there was ‘no parking’ in English and German and giving an excellent reason why. Within normal human visibility from this point was the car park with several spaces obviously not full of car.
I thought to myself… no, we won’t go there… I’ll think something I might regret. But it did get me thinking about why some of our students sometimes do something that defies all logic and reason to adults. Sometimes they seem…how shall I say?... non conformist. Deliberately they seem at that moment to ignore established social convention, common sense, everything we told them, safety, hygiene and the laws of physics and do something breathtakingly ununderstandable. And the answer to my apparently inappropriate (I have learned this and so have you) question: ‘But what were you thinking of?’ often said with just a tincture of exasperation, is: ‘I don’t know!’ And they don’t! Really! Because they weren’t. Thinking, that is.
I went to a superb workshop, twice it was so good, given by a venerable lady professor, at the ECIS Conference in Nice last year, on the adolescent brain and she came to the same conclusion after years of tests and studies and trials and observations including a wonderful and hilarious anecdote involving her own son, her husband who was a police officer and a gigantic marihuana plant. The adolescent brain at certain moments in its development, for explicable chemical reasons, can motivate its owner to do something who has no explanation for the motivation thereof and therefore for the subsequent action. It’s not that the memory was conveniently in its short term mode; Jemima was simply not at that time thinking. (Two days ago I had to see some students who had made an unwise decision. 15 minutes before I needed them in my office, I happened to see them and reminded them. 14 minutes later they had forgotten and in my office I waited in vain. When they remembered they were genuinely mortified, jumping up and down and beating their sides with frustration and self directed anger that memory had malfunctioned so inexplicably. After just a small explosion I remembered the above and as a result had a much more constructive discussion as I decided not to get distracted from our main topic by the annoyance of this adolescent aberration of memory.)
So, on the positive side you could say it does produce a wonderful moment of togetherness as you and your teenager both are bemused at the same time by the same thing. Childhood is a different world; it is smaller, more magical, more flexible, more controllable by the kids and a very often lot more fun than ours as we get older. But we cannot get in there. We cannot share it. We cannot speak the language anymore. The codes and cues and prompts are forgotten. If we try we embarrass them. We just secure it, I think. Adolescence is like this but there are no rules nor signposts there, not even for its inhabitants.And my point? So they do want help and guidance as much as we teachers and we parents do. Again, that throws us onto the same side about something very important to all participants. It takes away the conflict.
I thought to myself… no, we won’t go there… I’ll think something I might regret. But it did get me thinking about why some of our students sometimes do something that defies all logic and reason to adults. Sometimes they seem…how shall I say?... non conformist. Deliberately they seem at that moment to ignore established social convention, common sense, everything we told them, safety, hygiene and the laws of physics and do something breathtakingly ununderstandable. And the answer to my apparently inappropriate (I have learned this and so have you) question: ‘But what were you thinking of?’ often said with just a tincture of exasperation, is: ‘I don’t know!’ And they don’t! Really! Because they weren’t. Thinking, that is.
I went to a superb workshop, twice it was so good, given by a venerable lady professor, at the ECIS Conference in Nice last year, on the adolescent brain and she came to the same conclusion after years of tests and studies and trials and observations including a wonderful and hilarious anecdote involving her own son, her husband who was a police officer and a gigantic marihuana plant. The adolescent brain at certain moments in its development, for explicable chemical reasons, can motivate its owner to do something who has no explanation for the motivation thereof and therefore for the subsequent action. It’s not that the memory was conveniently in its short term mode; Jemima was simply not at that time thinking. (Two days ago I had to see some students who had made an unwise decision. 15 minutes before I needed them in my office, I happened to see them and reminded them. 14 minutes later they had forgotten and in my office I waited in vain. When they remembered they were genuinely mortified, jumping up and down and beating their sides with frustration and self directed anger that memory had malfunctioned so inexplicably. After just a small explosion I remembered the above and as a result had a much more constructive discussion as I decided not to get distracted from our main topic by the annoyance of this adolescent aberration of memory.)
So, on the positive side you could say it does produce a wonderful moment of togetherness as you and your teenager both are bemused at the same time by the same thing. Childhood is a different world; it is smaller, more magical, more flexible, more controllable by the kids and a very often lot more fun than ours as we get older. But we cannot get in there. We cannot share it. We cannot speak the language anymore. The codes and cues and prompts are forgotten. If we try we embarrass them. We just secure it, I think. Adolescence is like this but there are no rules nor signposts there, not even for its inhabitants.And my point? So they do want help and guidance as much as we teachers and we parents do. Again, that throws us onto the same side about something very important to all participants. It takes away the conflict.
Snowballs
Allow, say, two hundred and forty mixed teenagers between the ages of 15 and 18 to spend three or so hours of an evening after school, Friday for example, in a large room decorated with imagination, flair and partying spirit by the kids themselves, with up to the minute, loudness to the max music mixed by a cool teenage deejay and you have a recipe for chaos. Right? Right! But not all recipes work out – think soufflé, for example.
This was the SnowBall ( no, I am not back on that topic again – ever probably) – I am referring to the Winter Ball organised by the student council reps of G10 in particular and helped by some very effective senior students, that started the new year. At least half a dozen teachers gave up their evenings to proctor the event. I was there, admittedly only to 23.55 - some adults were helping to clean up for another ¾ of an hour – and had a privileged glimpse at kids really creating, enjoying and then dismantling an event that they had ownership of at all stages. They turned the, let’s admit it, very dreary dining hall into a breathtakingly beautiful and romantic club with a stage and dry ice, tables dressed in white and strings of soft lights draped across edges. They dressed up themselves to kill and arrived in style (I’m glad the snow white and immensely long stretch limo did not try to negotiate the exit drive of the car park, though). The boys wore tailored shirts hanging outside, of course, their immaculate suits. They behaved impeccably, enjoyed themselves a great deal (they said) and then, when it was over and the last slow dance had dwindled away into the chill night air, left with dignity.
Just as well the Dean was there? Well, in a strange sense, yes, because I love to see our/your kids getting it so right. This should be an annual event – it brings a whole new positive meaning to SnowBall… Posted by The Dean's Blog at 2:15 AM 0 comments Thursday, December 20, 2007
This was the SnowBall ( no, I am not back on that topic again – ever probably) – I am referring to the Winter Ball organised by the student council reps of G10 in particular and helped by some very effective senior students, that started the new year. At least half a dozen teachers gave up their evenings to proctor the event. I was there, admittedly only to 23.55 - some adults were helping to clean up for another ¾ of an hour – and had a privileged glimpse at kids really creating, enjoying and then dismantling an event that they had ownership of at all stages. They turned the, let’s admit it, very dreary dining hall into a breathtakingly beautiful and romantic club with a stage and dry ice, tables dressed in white and strings of soft lights draped across edges. They dressed up themselves to kill and arrived in style (I’m glad the snow white and immensely long stretch limo did not try to negotiate the exit drive of the car park, though). The boys wore tailored shirts hanging outside, of course, their immaculate suits. They behaved impeccably, enjoyed themselves a great deal (they said) and then, when it was over and the last slow dance had dwindled away into the chill night air, left with dignity.
Just as well the Dean was there? Well, in a strange sense, yes, because I love to see our/your kids getting it so right. This should be an annual event – it brings a whole new positive meaning to SnowBall… Posted by The Dean's Blog at 2:15 AM 0 comments Thursday, December 20, 2007
A Poem for Two Students
Shy She
She…suffers no fools, rules the cool,
Shares her cares, wears pairs of
Old rolled gold
Creole rings in her ears
(Bling!), sings ‘Wings’’ songs
Longs for the throng’s wrongs to be righted
Far sighted, rarely delighted by the
Noise of boys’ joy in their toys –
But inside she sighs soft cries
For ties wise guys would die for.
She knows she could and should, indeed would say to him:
'Please talk to, walk with me, see how I plea; bended knee
Is not beyond me for one smile, stop awhile,
Don’t let my guile rile…’
He…walks past fast, hopes at half mast,
Memory still aghast at last laughs
But thinks, ‘Her? Lonely? If only!’
Posted by The Dean's Blog at 2:20 AM 0 comments
She…suffers no fools, rules the cool,
Shares her cares, wears pairs of
Old rolled gold
Creole rings in her ears
(Bling!), sings ‘Wings’’ songs
Longs for the throng’s wrongs to be righted
Far sighted, rarely delighted by the
Noise of boys’ joy in their toys –
But inside she sighs soft cries
For ties wise guys would die for.
She knows she could and should, indeed would say to him:
'Please talk to, walk with me, see how I plea; bended knee
Is not beyond me for one smile, stop awhile,
Don’t let my guile rile…’
He…walks past fast, hopes at half mast,
Memory still aghast at last laughs
But thinks, ‘Her? Lonely? If only!’
Posted by The Dean's Blog at 2:20 AM 0 comments
The day I gave up Jurisprudence at Oxford and read English Literature instead.
‘That, Mr...errmm...Didlington, was in my 40 years …ah…experience of teaching…ah… Jurisprudence, the most inadequate, immaterial and…ah… insubstantial essay I have had to listen to, exploring as…ah… it did, the previously uncharted depths of…umm… legal irrelevance and vacuous pomposity!’
Silence gave in only to the antique grandfather click ticking accusingly in the corner of my tutor’s dusty rooms on the first floor of the New Building.
‘Oh…Where exactly would you say I went wrong, Professor Hale? You see, I thought I had explained quite fully the legal implications of a storm flooding a river and thus sweeping a piece of my ground away and adding it to my neighbour’s across the river…’
‘Mr...errm...Dullington, ‘rather well’ cannot…ah… be utilised to describe anything in that essay except, perhaps, your use of the...umm…full stop.’ Professor Hale regarded me dryly over the rim of his frameless reading glasses, with distaste, such an affectation I used to think, as though I was a piece of invasive putrefaction adhering inappropriately to his Chinese rug.
The late afternoon summer sun slanted through the huge, old oak trees and across New Meadow, illuminated in a golden yellow a bald patch of faded rug near my left foot.
He continued, as though with an effort of will to focus at all on such minimal pusillanimity. ‘Your style is both obtuse and…ah… pretentious, your main points are obfuscated and random, your reasoning is…ah…feeble and inconclusive, your reference to obiter dictum impertinent, your use of legal precedent is…ah…unprecedented, your…ah… understanding of the Roman law, frankly, leaves me…’
The voice, dry as brown winter leaves, rustled its wounding way through the literary critique. For a moment I ceased to listen, caught up suddenly in a burst of literary self congratulation at my seasonal metaphor.‘Ok…ok… I understand!' I interjected after a while, showing just a smidgeon of damaged pride through which self pity oozed. ‘Ermm…What would you recommend I do then?’ My voice wanted to crack and my eyes seemed to peer through hot tears of shame.
‘Well, Mr…ah…Doodlington, that is an intriguing question. You see, I ask myself after witnessing that inane…ah…verbiage, what indeed CAN you do? And the answer is clear to me…little!…ah…very little indeed…!’
The evening sun seemed to hurry now on its way across the floor and flat surfaces of too much furniture, to clear the room and illuminate another, leaving me in the dust and silence and gloom of academic inadequacy.
Silence gave in only to the antique grandfather click ticking accusingly in the corner of my tutor’s dusty rooms on the first floor of the New Building.
‘Oh…Where exactly would you say I went wrong, Professor Hale? You see, I thought I had explained quite fully the legal implications of a storm flooding a river and thus sweeping a piece of my ground away and adding it to my neighbour’s across the river…’
‘Mr...errm...Dullington, ‘rather well’ cannot…ah… be utilised to describe anything in that essay except, perhaps, your use of the...umm…full stop.’ Professor Hale regarded me dryly over the rim of his frameless reading glasses, with distaste, such an affectation I used to think, as though I was a piece of invasive putrefaction adhering inappropriately to his Chinese rug.
The late afternoon summer sun slanted through the huge, old oak trees and across New Meadow, illuminated in a golden yellow a bald patch of faded rug near my left foot.
He continued, as though with an effort of will to focus at all on such minimal pusillanimity. ‘Your style is both obtuse and…ah… pretentious, your main points are obfuscated and random, your reasoning is…ah…feeble and inconclusive, your reference to obiter dictum impertinent, your use of legal precedent is…ah…unprecedented, your…ah… understanding of the Roman law, frankly, leaves me…’
The voice, dry as brown winter leaves, rustled its wounding way through the literary critique. For a moment I ceased to listen, caught up suddenly in a burst of literary self congratulation at my seasonal metaphor.‘Ok…ok… I understand!' I interjected after a while, showing just a smidgeon of damaged pride through which self pity oozed. ‘Ermm…What would you recommend I do then?’ My voice wanted to crack and my eyes seemed to peer through hot tears of shame.
‘Well, Mr…ah…Doodlington, that is an intriguing question. You see, I ask myself after witnessing that inane…ah…verbiage, what indeed CAN you do? And the answer is clear to me…little!…ah…very little indeed…!’
The evening sun seemed to hurry now on its way across the floor and flat surfaces of too much furniture, to clear the room and illuminate another, leaving me in the dust and silence and gloom of academic inadequacy.
Out There
For a second out there it was like Lord of the Flies as Jack and his tribe chased and kidnapped another littl’un, picked him up and took him back to their stronghold, The Fort.
I was on duty at lunchtime out near the Red Top on a breezy, mid October day as cream coloured clouds moved purposefully across a steel blue sky. But this kidnapping was safe, a game…just.
Lunchtime is there for teenagers to use up pent up energy and to tank up on new energy. Younger teenagers tend to seek physical excitement, to take risks, to look for extremes; that’s why the new adventure playground is a loser some grade 6 boys confided in me. The school’s job is to find a safe environment for this where common sense and firm boundaries meet with supervision.
So what was the game? The G9 boys were kidnapping G6 boys who in their turn were rushing in to snatch a hat and then withdrawing at speed to regather and celebrate their trophy. G9 then moved in with cunning and strength to recapture their lost honour and humiliate the enemy as a warning. Accompanied by an amazing amount of noise and swift lateral movement across Green Island, the Red Top, the Basketball Place and the Rugby Ball Area, this was fine spectator sport. Screams of delight, shouts of warning, yelled instructions merged with bellows of outrage and whoops of victory. When the bell went there was time to assess the damage: one grazed knee and one torn item of underwear (!) – That was all. ‘Typical boys!’ muttered Jemima with disapproval, but she’ll soon change her tune…
Boys need to be boyish and a little collateral damage they take in their stride. But they have no idea about their strength at this age and nor the fine motor coordination skills to moderate it correctly. The littl’uns in their turn have no concept of this danger and how much of their provocation is necessary to release a powerful reaction. The game was a safe way for these two ages to discover these limits.
I expect the same discovery to take place when the first snow arrives, and I expect to be besieged with calls to ban snowballing which I will resist. Yes, it could be dangerous if the snow turns icy or too many children gang up on too few or face rubbing happens. But in the first case we close the Field and in the others, these are banned types of behaviour and the tutors talk to their students carefully about the safety rules. Break the rules and the student is sent inside for the remainder of lunchtime. Break it again and the student meets me, not to be advised. The Duty Team, now four teachers instead of three, will need to be vigilant. And after a fresh fall of snow extra observation will be called for; I certainly will be there and so will Mr Hall whenever he can. Within these careful limits, within this risk assessment, however, we must allow this age group their challenges and their excitement. And I for one am pleased that snow, provided free and unpredictably by nature, at least is not operated electronically.
PS And no, I am not condoning violence nor am I encouraging war games nor am I suggesting girls have little space by right in the playground. I am describing an event I observed where no actual school rules were being broken...
I was on duty at lunchtime out near the Red Top on a breezy, mid October day as cream coloured clouds moved purposefully across a steel blue sky. But this kidnapping was safe, a game…just.
Lunchtime is there for teenagers to use up pent up energy and to tank up on new energy. Younger teenagers tend to seek physical excitement, to take risks, to look for extremes; that’s why the new adventure playground is a loser some grade 6 boys confided in me. The school’s job is to find a safe environment for this where common sense and firm boundaries meet with supervision.
So what was the game? The G9 boys were kidnapping G6 boys who in their turn were rushing in to snatch a hat and then withdrawing at speed to regather and celebrate their trophy. G9 then moved in with cunning and strength to recapture their lost honour and humiliate the enemy as a warning. Accompanied by an amazing amount of noise and swift lateral movement across Green Island, the Red Top, the Basketball Place and the Rugby Ball Area, this was fine spectator sport. Screams of delight, shouts of warning, yelled instructions merged with bellows of outrage and whoops of victory. When the bell went there was time to assess the damage: one grazed knee and one torn item of underwear (!) – That was all. ‘Typical boys!’ muttered Jemima with disapproval, but she’ll soon change her tune…
Boys need to be boyish and a little collateral damage they take in their stride. But they have no idea about their strength at this age and nor the fine motor coordination skills to moderate it correctly. The littl’uns in their turn have no concept of this danger and how much of their provocation is necessary to release a powerful reaction. The game was a safe way for these two ages to discover these limits.
I expect the same discovery to take place when the first snow arrives, and I expect to be besieged with calls to ban snowballing which I will resist. Yes, it could be dangerous if the snow turns icy or too many children gang up on too few or face rubbing happens. But in the first case we close the Field and in the others, these are banned types of behaviour and the tutors talk to their students carefully about the safety rules. Break the rules and the student is sent inside for the remainder of lunchtime. Break it again and the student meets me, not to be advised. The Duty Team, now four teachers instead of three, will need to be vigilant. And after a fresh fall of snow extra observation will be called for; I certainly will be there and so will Mr Hall whenever he can. Within these careful limits, within this risk assessment, however, we must allow this age group their challenges and their excitement. And I for one am pleased that snow, provided free and unpredictably by nature, at least is not operated electronically.
PS And no, I am not condoning violence nor am I encouraging war games nor am I suggesting girls have little space by right in the playground. I am describing an event I observed where no actual school rules were being broken...
‘Just another morning at around 8.20…’
“We are so like going to be chillaxing ‘cos the guy he’s so like wow!” I looked encouragingly at the speaker as we sat in the Dean’s ‘Open Office’ round the table under the stairs on level 3 before first period, for a chat; smilingly, bemused, as one does when faced with the unknown content of a sentence in a foreign language, especially if, like me, you are English. Jemima waited coolly in controposto for approving admiration, expertly flicking one huge earphone in matt black plastic and brushed aluminium backwards off her left ear for a second. “And I am so like totally not going with that…” And I am so totally not going there either as it is eliminating adjectives and lumping words into verb phrases that become adjectival when the ubiquitous, emphatic adverb ‘so’ is placed in front proceeded perhaps by the negative which is stressed as in ‘I am so not going to go there.’ Then you have the apparently random but actually quite deliberate ‘like’ to place in the new sentence and it’s its deliberation that distinguishes it from the non semantic discourse markers such as ‘er’ or ‘um’.
But communication is obviously carried in the new syntax; it is semantically valid and obviously culturally very, very cool. In this way today’s teenage speakbites mimic the explosive spread of ‘ok’ a generation or two back, and then the suffixed tag ‘you know’. Plus ca change plus c’est still very irritating as it tempts us, the oldies, to imitate (Do not go there, into that good night…) or scoff and both ways lead to exclusion and derisive laughter from the teens.
In my open ‘office’ under the open stairs on level 3 some days at 08.20, a sharp chill draught sweeps a few shredded umber leaves along the spotted grey stone floor as the double glass doors squeeze in some bundled students. A few of these students, in grade 9, boys and girls both, managed to convince me that smsing in mnemonics actually saves time whilst communicating accurately. Well, until Jemima in hysterics informed me that LOL in my sms did not mean ‘lots of love’ as I had fondly thought with a warm glow. Omg gets a bit of the way round offending when mildly swearing. And rofl, cya and imho are no more offensive than asap or ok, after all. So at the white round table beneath the open stairs I get my unique opportunity to learn and even try out these unfamiliar idioms that must for my own credibility remain uncomfortable.
But what a fascinating conversation it was and so many more students dropped by to add a view or disagree. And if you are going to have a conversation at 08.20 then why not about the meaning of the words that code this meaning? Metalinguistics was never so fun at university and I am so like not stopping this now…
But communication is obviously carried in the new syntax; it is semantically valid and obviously culturally very, very cool. In this way today’s teenage speakbites mimic the explosive spread of ‘ok’ a generation or two back, and then the suffixed tag ‘you know’. Plus ca change plus c’est still very irritating as it tempts us, the oldies, to imitate (Do not go there, into that good night…) or scoff and both ways lead to exclusion and derisive laughter from the teens.
In my open ‘office’ under the open stairs on level 3 some days at 08.20, a sharp chill draught sweeps a few shredded umber leaves along the spotted grey stone floor as the double glass doors squeeze in some bundled students. A few of these students, in grade 9, boys and girls both, managed to convince me that smsing in mnemonics actually saves time whilst communicating accurately. Well, until Jemima in hysterics informed me that LOL in my sms did not mean ‘lots of love’ as I had fondly thought with a warm glow. Omg gets a bit of the way round offending when mildly swearing. And rofl, cya and imho are no more offensive than asap or ok, after all. So at the white round table beneath the open stairs I get my unique opportunity to learn and even try out these unfamiliar idioms that must for my own credibility remain uncomfortable.
But what a fascinating conversation it was and so many more students dropped by to add a view or disagree. And if you are going to have a conversation at 08.20 then why not about the meaning of the words that code this meaning? Metalinguistics was never so fun at university and I am so like not stopping this now…
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