The Dean’s Blog. ‘Tietying’
Continuing the theme of what they wear, when it’s MUN* time, or there is a final Awards Assembly your children, and our students, look terrific – about five years older and way more sophisticated. Talk to them and they sound better, too. They use a more effective vocabulary. They finish sentences. ‘Duh’, ‘like’, ‘dude’, ‘whoa’ and ‘whatever’ recede into the background of lexical popularity. They look you in the eye. Maybe there is a direct ratio of good conversation to stylish dress (and we are talking about smart not expensive); there will be research out there. I myself have had memorable conversations with kids who dress more smartly on a day when they are asked to look more formal for the occasion.
A misguided act of power sharing
Some studies have indeed shown that behaviour becomes less antisocial when the kids feel smart in their outfits, but not if it is an imposed uniform. Attempts to have kids design their own and then impose the results on the student body are generally unsuccessful; a misguided act of power sharing that ignores the fact that half a dozen students will not satisfy the ideas of hundreds of others. (Strangely, this ratio is precisely what works in the weird world of women’s high fashion.) The girls do this dressing-for-the-occasion especially well. The style and colours they choose to combine create an elegance that is really effective – (even if they should have to pass a driving test to operate those ultra high, thin heels.) But too many boys ignore the advice and just do the jacket and the shirt that hangs out thing. Or it’s a smart suit and shirt and tie with old trainers. Or they turn up baggy and saggy anyway. But those guys could make a formal school uniform in anthracite and silver striped tie, look dishevelled in two moves. They don’t get it or they don’t want to get it, or they are making a statement. I remember greeting a graduating student at the Gemeindehaus just before the Graduation ceremony and commenting on his jeans + T shirt + sun goggles in the hair look. He was hurt. He pointed out that it was a clean white T shirt. We just didn’t get through to them …yet.
Chaps just don’t
As the opening ceremony of the Science Debate approaches, a few boys ask politely if I can help them knot their tie. And I introduce them to the stylish, arcane and endangered world of the Manhattan, the Cross aka Christensen, the Half or Full Windsor and the Prince Albert; and these are not outlandishly priced cocktails at a Zurich in-club with a French name. The knot matters. James Bond once spotted a villain not just because he ordered full bodied Claret with his fish but because he was sporting a Windsor knot and no gentleman would think of tying one of those. Chaps just don’t, so he knew him for a cad. And the choice of knot depends on the tie; extra long tie can take a Windsor, a woven fabric will take a half Windsor, and avoid a Manhattan on a skinny - better to go for the Prince Albert especially if it’s silk(don’t tighten) or light fabric. Being given yet another tie on your birthday becomes interesting as you try various knots at the birthday dinner table.
Impress their elders
And this, at last, is my point. There are occasions when our students’ appearance will count for them, or against them. There are times when dressing up and doing it within current convention is expected by the controlling generation above them – it’s part of personal marketing at, say, interviews for college or job. ICS offers an increasing number of occasions which prepare in many different ways for this expectation, speaking persuasively to an adult audience, maybe an unknown audience, taking questions with assurance from the floor, prepping a formal speech in a limited amount of time with students from other schools. Our recently introduced end of year Award Assemblies have been formalised in this spirit. And if the boys continue to take it seriously someone will have to offer tie tying as an after school activity.
* Model United Nations
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Dullington Diddlington
Deans Blog
“‘That, Mr. Dullington, was in my 40 years experience of teaching Jurisprudence, the most inadequate, immaterial and…ah… insubstantial essay I have had to listen to, exploring as it did, such previously uncharted depths of legal irrelevance and…erm… vacuous pomposity!’
Silence as the antique grandfather clock ticked accusingly in the corner of my tutor’s dusty old room. ‘Oh…Well…Where exactly would you say I went wrong, Professor H---? I thought I had explained fully the legal implications of your unlikely scenario of a storm sweeping away a hunk of my land and adding it to my neighbour’s across the river…’
‘Mr. Diddlington, ‘rather well’ cannot be utilised to describe anything in that essay except, perhaps, your belated use of the…erm… final full stop. Your style is both obtuse and pretentious, your points are obfuscated and random, and your use of legal precedents is…ah… unprecedented.’*
Rumpelstilzkin’s rage
And so on. One pulls oneself together, shrugs off the temporary impasse and switches to ontological bio-metachemistry and gets a first ‘summa cum laude’ in the remaining two years. Or not. Actually this one felt humiliated and very depressed. One tries not to fall to the ground screaming and drumming one’s heels on the floor in a five year old’s hysterical passion of humiliation complete with protruding lower lip. In comparison, Rumpelstilzkin’s rage when the miller’s daughter, now promoted queen consort, refused to give him her first child despite showing her how to spin gold in commercially viable quantities, was sub beginner level.
For five days at a stretch
And on a smaller scale our students meet what they may see as obstacles, pitfalls, hurdles, dreaded events and personal humiliations quite often, as they try to be both what their friends expect and what also the adults in their lives expect without the instructions booklet. ‘Well, it was no different for us and did it do us any harm?’ Maybe. Only, we forget the details over the years or we now re-label all the anxiety as ‘challenge’ and assess our kids’ perseverance skills. But so few of we humans are all-rounders, and so few are they, able to produce our very best in an alien language in eight or nine dissimilar subjects in 50 minute time chunks one after the other for five days at a stretch. They have come from PE or Spanish or mathematics and after my 50 minutes will progress to I.T. or humanities or physics with little chance to adopt the correct mindset for the discipline and the idiosyncratic teacher in the five minute change over time.
Because kids learn.
But most of the time most of them manage this well. Because kids learn. It is what they are for. You cannot stop them. I, myself, tend to forget, caught up in the frenetic rhythm of a school day, that I teach only English and I think and teach in only English all day. I am marinated in my academic expectations and seasoned in the skills and knowledge involved in my next class. What I need to do regularly is to try imagining having to do this in my third language. I do not have a third language. I sometimes even now dream I am in Swiss Gymi and the bell has gone for a double advanced math class in Schriftdeutsch. Fortunately, up to now, I have woken up. What I need to do is to get out of the comfort of my classroom.
Soooooo dull
The classroom, though, is not a natural place to learn with passion. But we use it only for learning. For lively maturing students it can be sooooo dull despite our best efforts to showcase work and pin up posters. (If you look at the original illustrations, the girl Rumpel assists is spinning gold in an old classroom.) And that is why our new facility Mettman is so important. And all our Activity Days and the full Field Week programme and the plethora of sport and training weekends all through the year. And suspended days for the Group 4 Science project and MUN. And the Global Issues conference. And all the other conferences. Yes, they play havoc with the timetable and our schedules and comfortable routines and the life of those who plan and deliver. But thank goodness they do because we teachers need to get out of the classroom, too.
***
DoZ update. Can SUVs, generally recognised to be environmentally iffy, be taught by their owners not to park on the small grassy piece of natural environment to the right of the drive especially when there are plenty of their spaces on the parking lot. It is not a parking lot. This little strip of green is there for us all to enjoy unchurned up by monster tyres and unpolluted by drips of engine oil. Oh, and mini cabrios, you speak to your drivers, too.
*The initial conversation really happened. The full version is at nickydarlington.blogspot.com
“‘That, Mr. Dullington, was in my 40 years experience of teaching Jurisprudence, the most inadequate, immaterial and…ah… insubstantial essay I have had to listen to, exploring as it did, such previously uncharted depths of legal irrelevance and…erm… vacuous pomposity!’
Silence as the antique grandfather clock ticked accusingly in the corner of my tutor’s dusty old room. ‘Oh…Well…Where exactly would you say I went wrong, Professor H---? I thought I had explained fully the legal implications of your unlikely scenario of a storm sweeping away a hunk of my land and adding it to my neighbour’s across the river…’
‘Mr. Diddlington, ‘rather well’ cannot be utilised to describe anything in that essay except, perhaps, your belated use of the…erm… final full stop. Your style is both obtuse and pretentious, your points are obfuscated and random, and your use of legal precedents is…ah… unprecedented.’*
Rumpelstilzkin’s rage
And so on. One pulls oneself together, shrugs off the temporary impasse and switches to ontological bio-metachemistry and gets a first ‘summa cum laude’ in the remaining two years. Or not. Actually this one felt humiliated and very depressed. One tries not to fall to the ground screaming and drumming one’s heels on the floor in a five year old’s hysterical passion of humiliation complete with protruding lower lip. In comparison, Rumpelstilzkin’s rage when the miller’s daughter, now promoted queen consort, refused to give him her first child despite showing her how to spin gold in commercially viable quantities, was sub beginner level.
For five days at a stretch
And on a smaller scale our students meet what they may see as obstacles, pitfalls, hurdles, dreaded events and personal humiliations quite often, as they try to be both what their friends expect and what also the adults in their lives expect without the instructions booklet. ‘Well, it was no different for us and did it do us any harm?’ Maybe. Only, we forget the details over the years or we now re-label all the anxiety as ‘challenge’ and assess our kids’ perseverance skills. But so few of we humans are all-rounders, and so few are they, able to produce our very best in an alien language in eight or nine dissimilar subjects in 50 minute time chunks one after the other for five days at a stretch. They have come from PE or Spanish or mathematics and after my 50 minutes will progress to I.T. or humanities or physics with little chance to adopt the correct mindset for the discipline and the idiosyncratic teacher in the five minute change over time.
Because kids learn.
But most of the time most of them manage this well. Because kids learn. It is what they are for. You cannot stop them. I, myself, tend to forget, caught up in the frenetic rhythm of a school day, that I teach only English and I think and teach in only English all day. I am marinated in my academic expectations and seasoned in the skills and knowledge involved in my next class. What I need to do regularly is to try imagining having to do this in my third language. I do not have a third language. I sometimes even now dream I am in Swiss Gymi and the bell has gone for a double advanced math class in Schriftdeutsch. Fortunately, up to now, I have woken up. What I need to do is to get out of the comfort of my classroom.
Soooooo dull
The classroom, though, is not a natural place to learn with passion. But we use it only for learning. For lively maturing students it can be sooooo dull despite our best efforts to showcase work and pin up posters. (If you look at the original illustrations, the girl Rumpel assists is spinning gold in an old classroom.) And that is why our new facility Mettman is so important. And all our Activity Days and the full Field Week programme and the plethora of sport and training weekends all through the year. And suspended days for the Group 4 Science project and MUN. And the Global Issues conference. And all the other conferences. Yes, they play havoc with the timetable and our schedules and comfortable routines and the life of those who plan and deliver. But thank goodness they do because we teachers need to get out of the classroom, too.
***
DoZ update. Can SUVs, generally recognised to be environmentally iffy, be taught by their owners not to park on the small grassy piece of natural environment to the right of the drive especially when there are plenty of their spaces on the parking lot. It is not a parking lot. This little strip of green is there for us all to enjoy unchurned up by monster tyres and unpolluted by drips of engine oil. Oh, and mini cabrios, you speak to your drivers, too.
*The initial conversation really happened. The full version is at nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Thursday, 20 August 2009
‘Why can’t we have a dress code?’
The Dean’s Blog
‘Why can’t we have a dress code?’ asked a 10th grade boy randomly but with energy, as though I had just forbidden such a thing on pain of excommunication from the student body, as a few of us were chatting in the Bistro at lunchtime. This seemed like, ‘May we have some more rules?’ or, ‘Can you restrict our freedom further by telling us what we may not do?’ or ‘We want people at least 25 years older than ourselves to increase their criticism of us.’ But I recovered pretty quickly as it soon transpired that he really meant, ‘Can people who dress in a way we do not like be told not to?’ What these guys did not like, apparently, was the other gender in ‘scanty style’ when the sun was out. (Please see a recent Blog for comment on male sunshine scanty sartorial style.) I counter proposed a ‘Style Tuesday’ club where those participating would be so irresistibly gorgeous that everyone else would follow this new trend and the problem of flashing the flesh would evaporate. They did this. It lasted one week. The few looked good (but confused style with formality, so the ‘black suit uniform’ reappeared.) No one followed suit (sorry…). It was clearly not cool (see recent Blog on the Code of Cool.) The next Tuesday it had died.
Vitriolic abuse
School uniform or dress code is a secondary educational chestnut, good for vast lengths of noisy and opinionated verbal mileage from a wide range of participants, including, in the past, the Dean of Students. The topic has ended so many silences in staffrooms all over the world which might otherwise have lead to teachers getting home earlier. The topic can agitate and transform the usually retiring and liberal. I have witnessed insane, acerbic arguments for regulating the length and weave of girls’ white sport socks from an otherwise mild, mature teacherette who was usually only a little dinosauric.
Moral turpitude
The reasons for revisiting the debate were the same then as now: suitability to a place of learning, danger in a science/technology lab, distraction to other students in the fiery frenzy of puberty, an invasion of rights, a leveller of social and financial inequality, a pressure release valve for the parental purse, an opportunity for the developing teen to express individuality, an opportunity for staff and parents to be, as well as appear to be, in utter harmony and thus invincible, we are a multicultural all age school on a space challenged campus usw. Very recently, a couple of our primary children astonished by the exotic and bizarre older female garb as they made their small ways through the secondary labyrinth, asked their teachers if they could also come to school wearing only a T shirt and nothing else; this was referred to me as Dean. And at ICS in 2009 there are occasionally such discussions where, however, we would all have to agree that murky moral turpitude and vivid laboratory maiming as a result of unwise clothing decisions have not stunted the moral and physical growth of our young students. We have had dress codes. We still do.
Who will measure?
The problem is not just whether any of the aforementioned justifications for a point of view can be empirically founded. The problem is also enforcement. Children are far tougher than our generation and so the first draft from the Student Council contained draconian examples of acceptable limits and consequences. But is it three or four centimetres? And who measures? Who defines the frontier where the apparent implication and probable inference of a T shirt text is unsuitable? Who is going to provide the cover up shirt or jeans that are to be donned instantly by an offender? Where will they be kept? Who will launder them? Which budget will that come out of? The mire gets very quaggy now. Committees will get created and sub committees will break out to define issues of sub decency or sub safety. And this is before some bright student starts arguing human rights or asks why the teachers don’t appear to have a dress code.
No apoplectic outbursts
So we return, pro tem, to a generally agreed and generally accepted and generally applied interpretation of common sense. No big deals. No apoplectic outbursts. The extreme T shirt gets covered or turned inside out. The extremes of dress length, saggy pant revelation or spray on tights will be refused entry to the premises as from tomorrow and so on. And everyone goes away more or less happy. Until someone somewhere within hearing of someone else says something about someone that morning who correlated a glance at the weather with the content of the clean section of their wardrobe and ‘like, turned up at school looking whoah...!’
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
‘Why can’t we have a dress code?’ asked a 10th grade boy randomly but with energy, as though I had just forbidden such a thing on pain of excommunication from the student body, as a few of us were chatting in the Bistro at lunchtime. This seemed like, ‘May we have some more rules?’ or, ‘Can you restrict our freedom further by telling us what we may not do?’ or ‘We want people at least 25 years older than ourselves to increase their criticism of us.’ But I recovered pretty quickly as it soon transpired that he really meant, ‘Can people who dress in a way we do not like be told not to?’ What these guys did not like, apparently, was the other gender in ‘scanty style’ when the sun was out. (Please see a recent Blog for comment on male sunshine scanty sartorial style.) I counter proposed a ‘Style Tuesday’ club where those participating would be so irresistibly gorgeous that everyone else would follow this new trend and the problem of flashing the flesh would evaporate. They did this. It lasted one week. The few looked good (but confused style with formality, so the ‘black suit uniform’ reappeared.) No one followed suit (sorry…). It was clearly not cool (see recent Blog on the Code of Cool.) The next Tuesday it had died.
Vitriolic abuse
School uniform or dress code is a secondary educational chestnut, good for vast lengths of noisy and opinionated verbal mileage from a wide range of participants, including, in the past, the Dean of Students. The topic has ended so many silences in staffrooms all over the world which might otherwise have lead to teachers getting home earlier. The topic can agitate and transform the usually retiring and liberal. I have witnessed insane, acerbic arguments for regulating the length and weave of girls’ white sport socks from an otherwise mild, mature teacherette who was usually only a little dinosauric.
Moral turpitude
The reasons for revisiting the debate were the same then as now: suitability to a place of learning, danger in a science/technology lab, distraction to other students in the fiery frenzy of puberty, an invasion of rights, a leveller of social and financial inequality, a pressure release valve for the parental purse, an opportunity for the developing teen to express individuality, an opportunity for staff and parents to be, as well as appear to be, in utter harmony and thus invincible, we are a multicultural all age school on a space challenged campus usw. Very recently, a couple of our primary children astonished by the exotic and bizarre older female garb as they made their small ways through the secondary labyrinth, asked their teachers if they could also come to school wearing only a T shirt and nothing else; this was referred to me as Dean. And at ICS in 2009 there are occasionally such discussions where, however, we would all have to agree that murky moral turpitude and vivid laboratory maiming as a result of unwise clothing decisions have not stunted the moral and physical growth of our young students. We have had dress codes. We still do.
Who will measure?
The problem is not just whether any of the aforementioned justifications for a point of view can be empirically founded. The problem is also enforcement. Children are far tougher than our generation and so the first draft from the Student Council contained draconian examples of acceptable limits and consequences. But is it three or four centimetres? And who measures? Who defines the frontier where the apparent implication and probable inference of a T shirt text is unsuitable? Who is going to provide the cover up shirt or jeans that are to be donned instantly by an offender? Where will they be kept? Who will launder them? Which budget will that come out of? The mire gets very quaggy now. Committees will get created and sub committees will break out to define issues of sub decency or sub safety. And this is before some bright student starts arguing human rights or asks why the teachers don’t appear to have a dress code.
No apoplectic outbursts
So we return, pro tem, to a generally agreed and generally accepted and generally applied interpretation of common sense. No big deals. No apoplectic outbursts. The extreme T shirt gets covered or turned inside out. The extremes of dress length, saggy pant revelation or spray on tights will be refused entry to the premises as from tomorrow and so on. And everyone goes away more or less happy. Until someone somewhere within hearing of someone else says something about someone that morning who correlated a glance at the weather with the content of the clean section of their wardrobe and ‘like, turned up at school looking whoah...!’
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Monday, 20 April 2009
The Dean’s Blog ‘Windows – Part Two’
“18 hours a day and I am certainly not addicted…
Maybe there is some confusion though for the parent generation after all. The second article I read included an interview with, not a teenager, but with a young middle aged professional, a business man, who is temporarily out of work. This particular man alleges that he often plays computer games up to 18 hours a day, usually Second Life where he creates an existence more successful and therefore more personally satisfying than his first life. He maintains he can stop at any time. It is not like being addicted to cigarettes or alcohol, he affirmed. He claims to have several acquaintances with similar time allocations. But he has time for friends, partner, family. On 18 hours a day? Plus sleeping?
Imho url8 ttyl
Professional educators discuss at conferences trends they notice in the students over the recent years which coincide with the regular and frequent use of some of these technologies. This was happening at the ECIS conference in Nice before Christmas, too. They discuss the role of MSN and SMS with their ‘mobile speak code’ where letters or symbols replace fully spelt words and syntax, deliberate misspellings to shorten the time needed to write (‘imho ur l8 ttyl’). They note dwindling attention spans, the need for instant information and entertainment, the ability to process only sound bites with confidence, inability to process extended pieces of text, huge distractibility, the need for very short activities, minimal expressive vocabulary.
The first oil painting is no masterpiece
There are key issues here and they are being discussed in many a forum. Whether individuals are in denial of the power of these windows and how to combat this. Achieving a balance of recreational activities that includes regular reality checks. How to make attractive to the young face-to-face communication that is caring and sincere. How to inject more passion into real life for a growing section of the community. How to react to passive and made-by-others activities which for a small but growing section of society are threatening to replace the personal, creative hobby. Sounds old fashioned. Grumpy Old Man on a rant.Hobbies!But that is where passion is, and individuality, and creating and risking and being challenged. This is the home of Homo Faber, and through it bunches of pure pleasure. Even if the first oil painting is no masterpiece.
Maybe there is some confusion though for the parent generation after all. The second article I read included an interview with, not a teenager, but with a young middle aged professional, a business man, who is temporarily out of work. This particular man alleges that he often plays computer games up to 18 hours a day, usually Second Life where he creates an existence more successful and therefore more personally satisfying than his first life. He maintains he can stop at any time. It is not like being addicted to cigarettes or alcohol, he affirmed. He claims to have several acquaintances with similar time allocations. But he has time for friends, partner, family. On 18 hours a day? Plus sleeping?
Imho url8 ttyl
Professional educators discuss at conferences trends they notice in the students over the recent years which coincide with the regular and frequent use of some of these technologies. This was happening at the ECIS conference in Nice before Christmas, too. They discuss the role of MSN and SMS with their ‘mobile speak code’ where letters or symbols replace fully spelt words and syntax, deliberate misspellings to shorten the time needed to write (‘imho ur l8 ttyl’). They note dwindling attention spans, the need for instant information and entertainment, the ability to process only sound bites with confidence, inability to process extended pieces of text, huge distractibility, the need for very short activities, minimal expressive vocabulary.
The first oil painting is no masterpiece
There are key issues here and they are being discussed in many a forum. Whether individuals are in denial of the power of these windows and how to combat this. Achieving a balance of recreational activities that includes regular reality checks. How to make attractive to the young face-to-face communication that is caring and sincere. How to inject more passion into real life for a growing section of the community. How to react to passive and made-by-others activities which for a small but growing section of society are threatening to replace the personal, creative hobby. Sounds old fashioned. Grumpy Old Man on a rant.Hobbies!But that is where passion is, and individuality, and creating and risking and being challenged. This is the home of Homo Faber, and through it bunches of pure pleasure. Even if the first oil painting is no masterpiece.
Dean’s Blog ‘If I were a crocus…’
Dean’s Blog ‘If I were a crocus…’
If I were a crocus I would give up too. Snow, sun, wind, frost, fog, on-the-terrace sunshine, rain, snow, sunburn etc etc. And that is before lunchtime. So the swathes of Cerulean blue and Cadmium yellow croci, or crocuses for non classical scholars, that edged the lawn, finally capitulated. Under this onslaught of the elements they have packed up and retired into their bulbs deep in the earth until next year. So? The point of a long, hard and unexpectedly winterish winter is to move on, into spring, and get practising and into the mood for summer. A few April showers are ok – Chaucer approved of them, too. ‘When that April and its showers sweet The drought of March hath pierced to the root’ he wrote with his English obsession with the weather. Interestingly enough, T.S.Eliot having soaked up the English climatic culture after 25 years in the US and anxious to fit into the local culture of his adopted home, also ranted on about ‘April is the cruellest month’.
Tropical shortie pyjamas
But enough is enough. You can overdo capricious and warmth makes the kids get ants-in-their-pants edgy. So that at the first spark of sun in the morning they decide to reduce to a sartorial minimum that can look like a set of tropical shortie pyjamas and then in the ‘Bise’-driven snow with wind-chill of minus 7 at break time, get boiling hot dashing about on the Red Top playing Killer Ball or soccer or something. After this they return panting to the classroom where it is 21 degrees centigrade min. Period 3 my G9 English class sounds like the understaffed casualty ward in Grey’s Anatomy, with full sensory sneezes, professional and comprehensive coughs, wide ranging throat clearing and methodical nostril renovation exercises taking the edge off the pathos of Juliet’s final goodbye to Romeo as he descends from her balcony. Iambic pentameters don’t have a chance. Romeo, I might add, is meanwhile dressed in warm woolly tights, a linen shirt and a sensibly baggy and lined, heavy weight velvet blouson jacket. And he could always unlace the removable sleeves when the sun came out. Dead practical and not a designer label in sight.
Withering teenage looks
So I’m outside on duty at lunchtime dressed in enough warm woollies that if I stand still I resemble an Oxfam jumble sale collection point and a kid in a skinny T shirt skids by as a colleague asks me if we are allowed to send him in to get more clothes on. And I think what a sensible duty companion I have. We don’t because I am too cold to be in the mood for one more of those withering teenage looks that says, ‘Duh! Like, you what?’
Meteorological myth
Later on in the week you can bet that many of these same kids have felt mildly unwell in class and even missed school for a day or even two with a bad cold or hacking cough or a painfully sore throat. And when that happens and I am feeling just fine, I register no Schadenfreude of course, but I do feel a little more morally justified in teasing the scantily dressed for being a zombie to convention and fashion and the meteorological myth that the sun is durable and hot.vv
If I were a crocus I would give up too. Snow, sun, wind, frost, fog, on-the-terrace sunshine, rain, snow, sunburn etc etc. And that is before lunchtime. So the swathes of Cerulean blue and Cadmium yellow croci, or crocuses for non classical scholars, that edged the lawn, finally capitulated. Under this onslaught of the elements they have packed up and retired into their bulbs deep in the earth until next year. So? The point of a long, hard and unexpectedly winterish winter is to move on, into spring, and get practising and into the mood for summer. A few April showers are ok – Chaucer approved of them, too. ‘When that April and its showers sweet The drought of March hath pierced to the root’ he wrote with his English obsession with the weather. Interestingly enough, T.S.Eliot having soaked up the English climatic culture after 25 years in the US and anxious to fit into the local culture of his adopted home, also ranted on about ‘April is the cruellest month’.
Tropical shortie pyjamas
But enough is enough. You can overdo capricious and warmth makes the kids get ants-in-their-pants edgy. So that at the first spark of sun in the morning they decide to reduce to a sartorial minimum that can look like a set of tropical shortie pyjamas and then in the ‘Bise’-driven snow with wind-chill of minus 7 at break time, get boiling hot dashing about on the Red Top playing Killer Ball or soccer or something. After this they return panting to the classroom where it is 21 degrees centigrade min. Period 3 my G9 English class sounds like the understaffed casualty ward in Grey’s Anatomy, with full sensory sneezes, professional and comprehensive coughs, wide ranging throat clearing and methodical nostril renovation exercises taking the edge off the pathos of Juliet’s final goodbye to Romeo as he descends from her balcony. Iambic pentameters don’t have a chance. Romeo, I might add, is meanwhile dressed in warm woolly tights, a linen shirt and a sensibly baggy and lined, heavy weight velvet blouson jacket. And he could always unlace the removable sleeves when the sun came out. Dead practical and not a designer label in sight.
Withering teenage looks
So I’m outside on duty at lunchtime dressed in enough warm woollies that if I stand still I resemble an Oxfam jumble sale collection point and a kid in a skinny T shirt skids by as a colleague asks me if we are allowed to send him in to get more clothes on. And I think what a sensible duty companion I have. We don’t because I am too cold to be in the mood for one more of those withering teenage looks that says, ‘Duh! Like, you what?’
Meteorological myth
Later on in the week you can bet that many of these same kids have felt mildly unwell in class and even missed school for a day or even two with a bad cold or hacking cough or a painfully sore throat. And when that happens and I am feeling just fine, I register no Schadenfreude of course, but I do feel a little more morally justified in teasing the scantily dressed for being a zombie to convention and fashion and the meteorological myth that the sun is durable and hot.vv
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
The Dean’s Blog ‘Windows – part one’
“I guess reality is just not my best window.”
This is, for me, an awful statement. It speaks of an experience of living quite alien to me. It was not said by one of your students, but it was a teenage boy; he was being interviewed about his perception and use of the various current technologies a few weeks back. What did the boy really mean? This first article explained that this particular boy said he functioned better in situations where he felt empowered to make important decisions. Our reality was just another window that usually closed for him late afternoon. It was not so tragic; as long as he functioned well elsewhere.The thesis was that as there are more worlds for the teen to get involved in then ‘reality’, the real one, may become less vital and less interesting compared with MMORPG games, the media world of ipod and mp3 as well as the ability to chat and react through msn, myface, myspace, youtube and so on. John Mangelaars, vice president, consumer and online, Microsoft EMEA, said, "Today's 'web generation' are increasingly living out their lives in the digital arena.” (Telegraph 10.02.09)
For us currently the Parent Generation…
As teenagers are anyway confused and confusing at the peak of puberty, their ability to judge the relative value of activities that absorb their focus and their sensory perception, may be weakened. This phenomenon is neither rare, nor is it surprising to the teen; only to the anxious parent for whom there is still only the real world with its social and financial stresses for which our offspring must be prepared as well as they possibly can be. And then for the current Parent Generation there are in addition films, books, TV and the web which we hold clearly as secondary –undoubtedly useful, entertaining and important in their place but we can prioritise them. There is little confusion for us. I exclude the male driving style exiting the carpark after watching a James Bond movie or ‘The Fast and the Furious’.
Moody and unpredictable months
So it follows that it may be difficult for us to understand and mediate successfully. Confiscating computer privileges at home may well not be the answer but a reassertion of parenting authority. Moving the computer to a communal space rather than letting it reside in the bedroom to be used till and at all hours may be more effective. However, a source of reassurance and confidence boosting for the teenage years should not merely be dismissed when the ardent aim of parents is to get through these dark, moody and unpredictable months(virtual years?) when the child is at times almost unrecognisable and the parent is aching to solve issues within the family. But what about the transfer of ethics from window A where the desirable culture is retribution, violence and license to speak and act without consideration to others, to window B where the code requires just the opposite?
Over 200kph on the autobahn?
It is perhaps a take on the old chestnut, ‘Do violent films engender violence in impressionable viewers?’ Do several hours at the console of sophisticatedly realistic driving simulation software, for example ‘GTA’, have anything at all to do with the allegedly growing number of young, male ‘Rasers’ who, willing to risk injury and death to themselves and others, race in a pre-owned EvoIX or WRX sti or M3 (the very cars that are popular in games) at, say, 100kph in 50 kph limits or over 200kph on the autobahn? It regularly happens in Kanton Zurich to the extent that such an act at such a speed now gets only one column inch in Tages Anzeiger. Unless, that is, there is total Blechschade or death. (The Kantonpolizei immediately take their license away but interestingly they are reporting that increasingly often these young males have already lost their license but go on driving nonetheless.) These rapid machines can easily be rented by kids in their late teens and early 20s. But then again maybe they would race and chase anyway, just the ‘guy thing’, of finding another adrenaline rush when testosterone kicks in, ‘boys in toys’ as it were.
A second statement made by an educated adult will stimulate the next Dean’s Blog.
.
This is, for me, an awful statement. It speaks of an experience of living quite alien to me. It was not said by one of your students, but it was a teenage boy; he was being interviewed about his perception and use of the various current technologies a few weeks back. What did the boy really mean? This first article explained that this particular boy said he functioned better in situations where he felt empowered to make important decisions. Our reality was just another window that usually closed for him late afternoon. It was not so tragic; as long as he functioned well elsewhere.The thesis was that as there are more worlds for the teen to get involved in then ‘reality’, the real one, may become less vital and less interesting compared with MMORPG games, the media world of ipod and mp3 as well as the ability to chat and react through msn, myface, myspace, youtube and so on. John Mangelaars, vice president, consumer and online, Microsoft EMEA, said, "Today's 'web generation' are increasingly living out their lives in the digital arena.” (Telegraph 10.02.09)
For us currently the Parent Generation…
As teenagers are anyway confused and confusing at the peak of puberty, their ability to judge the relative value of activities that absorb their focus and their sensory perception, may be weakened. This phenomenon is neither rare, nor is it surprising to the teen; only to the anxious parent for whom there is still only the real world with its social and financial stresses for which our offspring must be prepared as well as they possibly can be. And then for the current Parent Generation there are in addition films, books, TV and the web which we hold clearly as secondary –undoubtedly useful, entertaining and important in their place but we can prioritise them. There is little confusion for us. I exclude the male driving style exiting the carpark after watching a James Bond movie or ‘The Fast and the Furious’.
Moody and unpredictable months
So it follows that it may be difficult for us to understand and mediate successfully. Confiscating computer privileges at home may well not be the answer but a reassertion of parenting authority. Moving the computer to a communal space rather than letting it reside in the bedroom to be used till and at all hours may be more effective. However, a source of reassurance and confidence boosting for the teenage years should not merely be dismissed when the ardent aim of parents is to get through these dark, moody and unpredictable months(virtual years?) when the child is at times almost unrecognisable and the parent is aching to solve issues within the family. But what about the transfer of ethics from window A where the desirable culture is retribution, violence and license to speak and act without consideration to others, to window B where the code requires just the opposite?
Over 200kph on the autobahn?
It is perhaps a take on the old chestnut, ‘Do violent films engender violence in impressionable viewers?’ Do several hours at the console of sophisticatedly realistic driving simulation software, for example ‘GTA’, have anything at all to do with the allegedly growing number of young, male ‘Rasers’ who, willing to risk injury and death to themselves and others, race in a pre-owned EvoIX or WRX sti or M3 (the very cars that are popular in games) at, say, 100kph in 50 kph limits or over 200kph on the autobahn? It regularly happens in Kanton Zurich to the extent that such an act at such a speed now gets only one column inch in Tages Anzeiger. Unless, that is, there is total Blechschade or death. (The Kantonpolizei immediately take their license away but interestingly they are reporting that increasingly often these young males have already lost their license but go on driving nonetheless.) These rapid machines can easily be rented by kids in their late teens and early 20s. But then again maybe they would race and chase anyway, just the ‘guy thing’, of finding another adrenaline rush when testosterone kicks in, ‘boys in toys’ as it were.
A second statement made by an educated adult will stimulate the next Dean’s Blog.
.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Fire and Brimstone
Ok – this is going to be a bit random…no concrete walls, purple prose, car parks, DOZs or even Jemima this week. First I want to thank all you parents out there for the vast improvement to the drop off scene (whoops – sorry!) since I last wrote. I have only been able to use one single sticker, and that one slid off the window of the L**** Coupe because of the driving rain. Also, nearly everyone is using indicators to show which direction they are suddenly going to change to and most drivers are pulling up at the end of the DOZ to enable others to fit in behind. It is a cheering place to be other than the cold and gusting wind driving the damp, grey drizzle across the late Autumn…(Sorry, there I go again.) In fact, the only thing to report is a mum with an active phone in one hand whilst negotiating the bend by the crosswalk with the other hand at peak hour, maximum kid movement 8.30. She waved at me. No, I can’t remember which hand she used.
We have had some graffiti in and around the building and I need your help in getting the kids to see that this is not only criminal (something the equivalent of trespass and damage to third party property with malice aforethought in German) but antisocial and indeed selfish. Logos for football clubs are the rage at present. My message is that we call the professional painters in and the bill goes home. Have I caught anyone yet? Yes. Has the bill gone home? It will. Indeed, I learned that graffiti of this sort is appearing all over Zumikon and the Gemeinde has contacted the ICS Administration. It has appeared in areas close to the school as well as others that our students and to be fair other people not connected with the school, use regularly.
Moving on to another quite unrelated topic that is pretty dull – we are also in danger of having a plague of stickers appearing all over the school’s doors, door handles, walls, windows, pillars and so on. They are difficult to remove and waste a good deal of our hardworking caretaking team’s energy and time. So if you happen to see your child taking a sticker or two to ICS please step in. And that leads on smoothly and logically to setting fire to things.
There are basically two sorts of things you can set fire to in school, cigarettes and other things. I am referring to the latter. Too many children are bringing matches or cigarette lighters to school. They are banned for obvious reasons. Young children in grade 6 – that is not a typo - have been caught. They have had an uncomfortable conversation with either Mr. Hall or with me. One incident was potentially extremely dangerous and might have led to serious injury if indulged in for another minute or two. Please rest assured we will continue to take a hard line for the sake of your children’s safety. I would ask you to do what you can to check they are not leaving home carrying these things; does that mean a Front Door Frisk? Yes, absolutely, if that is what you judge to be needed.
The school buses; this I have never mentioned before so, can of worms, let’s go. The drivers are all trained, tested, qualified and experienced. This is a great relief to you and a cause for peace of mind. As part of their training they must bring the bus to the soonest possible stop if a child leaves its seat or releases its belt at any point on the journey. Sometimes your children leave their seats or release their belts. This is despite knowing they should not do this. The driver will normally warn them not to do this again. If they do, then the name and incident is passed to Mr. Penny or to me. I will email you with the facts as related by the driver of that bus. We tend not to contact you the first time. You have to trust our judgement on when to bring parents in as we do not want to worry you at too early a stage when it is a school matter nor do we want to leave you out of the loop. However, recently parents have taken the school to task for the timing of their being told rather than focussing on the issue that their child created in the first place. My message is simply let’s work together on this for a positive outcome that will benefit all the constituents of our community.
Finally, yes, I did have strong words in English and then in Schwiitze-Tuuetsch (sp?) with the driver of the Asian food delivery truck that blocked the entire DOZ the other icy, foggy morning. All our supply companies have been instructed and have agreed not to deliver to the school between 8.00 and 8.45; if they arrive earlier on no account are they allowed to enter the school drive but must circle the block until 8.45. But occasionally a rogue delivery ignores this and that was the case. This one assured me he would not do this again. Thank you for your patience that nasty morning!
We have had some graffiti in and around the building and I need your help in getting the kids to see that this is not only criminal (something the equivalent of trespass and damage to third party property with malice aforethought in German) but antisocial and indeed selfish. Logos for football clubs are the rage at present. My message is that we call the professional painters in and the bill goes home. Have I caught anyone yet? Yes. Has the bill gone home? It will. Indeed, I learned that graffiti of this sort is appearing all over Zumikon and the Gemeinde has contacted the ICS Administration. It has appeared in areas close to the school as well as others that our students and to be fair other people not connected with the school, use regularly.
Moving on to another quite unrelated topic that is pretty dull – we are also in danger of having a plague of stickers appearing all over the school’s doors, door handles, walls, windows, pillars and so on. They are difficult to remove and waste a good deal of our hardworking caretaking team’s energy and time. So if you happen to see your child taking a sticker or two to ICS please step in. And that leads on smoothly and logically to setting fire to things.
There are basically two sorts of things you can set fire to in school, cigarettes and other things. I am referring to the latter. Too many children are bringing matches or cigarette lighters to school. They are banned for obvious reasons. Young children in grade 6 – that is not a typo - have been caught. They have had an uncomfortable conversation with either Mr. Hall or with me. One incident was potentially extremely dangerous and might have led to serious injury if indulged in for another minute or two. Please rest assured we will continue to take a hard line for the sake of your children’s safety. I would ask you to do what you can to check they are not leaving home carrying these things; does that mean a Front Door Frisk? Yes, absolutely, if that is what you judge to be needed.
The school buses; this I have never mentioned before so, can of worms, let’s go. The drivers are all trained, tested, qualified and experienced. This is a great relief to you and a cause for peace of mind. As part of their training they must bring the bus to the soonest possible stop if a child leaves its seat or releases its belt at any point on the journey. Sometimes your children leave their seats or release their belts. This is despite knowing they should not do this. The driver will normally warn them not to do this again. If they do, then the name and incident is passed to Mr. Penny or to me. I will email you with the facts as related by the driver of that bus. We tend not to contact you the first time. You have to trust our judgement on when to bring parents in as we do not want to worry you at too early a stage when it is a school matter nor do we want to leave you out of the loop. However, recently parents have taken the school to task for the timing of their being told rather than focussing on the issue that their child created in the first place. My message is simply let’s work together on this for a positive outcome that will benefit all the constituents of our community.
Finally, yes, I did have strong words in English and then in Schwiitze-Tuuetsch (sp?) with the driver of the Asian food delivery truck that blocked the entire DOZ the other icy, foggy morning. All our supply companies have been instructed and have agreed not to deliver to the school between 8.00 and 8.45; if they arrive earlier on no account are they allowed to enter the school drive but must circle the block until 8.45. But occasionally a rogue delivery ignores this and that was the case. This one assured me he would not do this again. Thank you for your patience that nasty morning!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)