'Higgs Particles'

The Dean’s Blog – ‘Higgs Particles’

There are days when nothing happens. Well, things do of course happen but they don’t bear relating. Not in a Deanish sense. Nor to a large readership. They’re not funny or serious or new, or proof that history repeats itself or that the universe is somehow curved or that Higgs particles do actually exist or that those the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad or have them decide to train as teachers. Just a small, apparently random selection of not severely poor but not optimal decision making continues about the timing of arriving to school or about paying attention in class or ‘borrowing’ another’s property or about milk or computer games or using the lift or personal entertainment centres or shorts that are a little too – that sort of a thing. Quotidian.

The Dean’s best customers
It cannot be because the G12 students have gone because they are never the Dean’s best customers. Nor because G10 have gone on their PDM - well, actually, maybe a little bit as they have been known to cross my threshold occasionally. But generally there is a spirit of cooperation as students get on with their studies inside in class or with their friends outside in free time. Wait. Outside! There! That’s it! It is not cold. There is no howling wind with ‘Sturmboen’ gusting at 115kph. It is not actually snowing here at 700 metres in early June and nor is there hail. The rain and sleet and Scotch mist (so called because after an extended period that is the only possible remedy) have moved east. And so, in the absence of meteorological obstruction, the SUN IS OUT and it is warm and the kids can play outside, at lunchtime. These things so rarely coincide. It is a treat to be celebrated. So, obviously, the whole idea of a mass inter-grade water fight becomes the thing to decide to do.

300 screaming with fun teenagers drenched to the skin
So why, you might ask if you haven’t moved on to read about the new updates to the terminology of MYP assessment procedures as a more lively option, did I not write about that? Because, you see, the kids are canny and they took my advice and, so, took the trouble before they started to check with me if it was ok to do this. I wish they hadn’t. ‘No’ is so grumpy-old-man, spoiling as it does in one’s apparent out-of-touch and even out-to-lunch way the innocent play of many, many children with the natural green elements in a safe environment. ‘Yes’, on the other hand conjures up the image of three hundred screaming with fun teenagers drenched to the skin, deliriously happy wasting said precious green element and arriving to period 6 unfit to be taught or to learn from every conceivable point of view saying triumphantly in the face of a couple of dozen disbelieving and disapproving teachers, ‘Mr. D said we could!’

The best Hollywood Federal interrogators
Boy, did I choose my words carefully…and slowly. The three boys scrutinised me from my door way like the best Hollywood Federal interrogators, hanging onto my every word. The International Diplomatic Corps could have learned a thing or two from me, though. No room for double-entendres or sub text here. No space for misinterpretation or implication. Nuance was banished and so were connotation, puns, asides and irony. Body language and facial expression needed to be locked down as even the raising of a single eyebrow could be interpreted as hinting at a wry affirmation. And so, finally, at last, by my desk clock there were only four minutes to go to the end-of-lunch-time bell and the situation had solved itself. This time.

I hope it rains tomorrow.


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