Having been amazingly immature and, in addition, startlingly nerdy as a kid, I was, of course, never considered to be cool. I distinctly remember the nearest I ever got at my prestigious and brutal English public school was that St Valentine’s Day, in grade 8 when the Head Prefect, publicly distributing the post at breakfast, handed me a huge and multicoloured envelope drenched to saturation point in a girl’s perfume that polluted the olfactory perception of everyone in a five mile radius. And I was plunged into that past when one of you talked to me about middle aged teachers being considered cool by adolescents. ‘Sad’, I said. ‘In touch,’ you said.
Sever the umbilical
The whole ‘cool’ issue is complex yet simple, important yet trivial, reassuring yet divisive, a statement of individuality in the growing child and yet provocative of a set of actions targeting conformism. It is obvious why when we consider the psychology and biology of puberty where contradiction makes sense, random is logical and the need to sever the umbilical from adult restraint so ‘I’ can express individuality hits a bunch of peer groupers in the same social environment at the same time inevitably, therefore, doing the same thing. And, it is, of course, if allowed to spread uncontrolled like a pandemic, vastly expensive for parents.
‘No!’ is amazingly effective
For cool requires without question next model consoles, iphones, ipods, nanospeakers of the latest capacity and design, trainers, jeans, bags and T shirts with the correct (and genuine - don’t even think about replicas) designer label despite their wearers apparently growing four centimetres a day. A well known electronic retailer holds spares for as little as four years now on expensive micro electronic gadgets and then advises distraught customers to throw it away and buy cheaper for the next three years or maybe it will only be two. Post adolescence, this conformism morphs into membership of correct and astronomically bad value for money clubs and bars with the correct set of oversized, overpowered and overpriced wheels in that year’s hue parked outside. But then at least they, not you, are financing. ‘No!’ is amazingly effective and one can repeat it pretty often without fatigue. Of course, you have to take some antidote against the huge guilt trip they then try to send you on, threatening that major parental nightmare of their being alone, rejected, invisible and derided. After a short time of retreat in Fortress Parents we can reach a reasonably sane compromise that is nearly always accepted when placed with finality on the table.
Budget line
A couple of years ago at ICS there was a refreshing reaction to cool by the students themselves which led them to analyse all that was currently de rigueur. They were then seen not dressed in or attached to or communicating through or carrying or walking on anything remotely fashionable. Migros’ Budget Line was in and its carrier bags replaced over styled backpacks that shout form over function designer statement. I encouraged this movement wholeheartedly and I would again. Indeed, for a while, membership of this group was cool.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Thursday, 29 April 2010
The Dean’s Blog: Hippos and things …
I was becoming reluctantly somewhat of an expert on ‘Big 5’ poo. This was esoteric and not what I expected. The trouble was it was sun-up, say 6.15, in a piece of the Kalahari Desert in northern Botswana rampant with elephants and hippos and things but no-one had told them. So we tracked them on foot for four and a half hours getting closer quite often as the guide could tell from the shape, texture, colour and heat of the aforementioned poo we kept passing or in the case of elephants falling over. By 09.00 I could differentiate old baboon from fresh impala; by 10.30 I could locate elephants’ movements on a timetable down to half an hour just by the… well there’s no need to go into further detail.
‘Shhhhhhhh!!!’ hissed the large guide at me as I aired my views on just getting my boot and my dignity stuck into a hippo’s under swamp foot print (it must have been executing a single footed pirouette at the time to get that deep). ‘There are probably elephants behind that bush!’ he exclaimed agitatedly, ‘and they can hear a voice at a kilometre!’ That impressed me. The danger potential did not as the bush was close but small and it was obvious, again, that no one had told an elephant to go and hide behind it. The sun rose in the burnished blue sky, the steam rose from the rainy season soaked desert and disgruntlement rose in me as we plunged yet again up to mid calf in smelly water and reeds and micro frogs and bugs and underwater slimy things. Later we saw a small splodge on the horizon that we were told was either an elephant or a termite heap – through my bins I think I saw it move but I cannot swear to it so that could rule out the termite heap.
But the following day, a Wednesday, I saw hippos and elephants and giraffes respectively playing submerged submarines, frolicking flirtatiously in the shallows and laboriously folding up legs and cranking wide their stance just to get a drink, from a small and dilapidated motor boat from a distance of less than 30 meters on the Namibian side of the Chobe river. So there you go…
‘And that is a swimming black mamba, very deadly poisonous!’ the guide told us as a dead branch apparently floated by at arm’s reach of the side of the boat.
Earlier, as I hovered in an arthritic little helicopter over the two kilometres of raw power and blunt noise of the Victoria Falls, and later tumbling about in clear air turbulence, approached a grass landing strip about the length of a cricket pitch in a rusty, single-engine plane that had far more people in it than space or oxygen, I was struck by the truism of how different this all was in every conceivable way from teaching the use of the possessive apostrophe on singular collectives to grade 9 at ICS in Zumikon. The plane landed as the extended family of baboons which were lined up like Russian dolls, applauded and I wondered how much of the zillion experiences quite new to me I could relevantly bring back to the classroom. I wondered how much the 360o horizons uninterrupted by anything remotely to do with mankind, and vast, semi-dome skies unsullied by the ubiquitous vapour trails of jets that clog up European skies, would simply fill me with new ideas. I talked to Zimbabweans at the Safari Lodge on the election Saturday and again on Sunday and Monday and they told me that for the opposition ‘no news was bad news. I failed to buy a beer with a 10 million Zimbabwean dollar note. And I studied the profoundly moving Hector Pieterson Memorial in Orlando just outside Jo’burg.
And the following week I spent an intensely professional six and a half busy days on a CIS/NEASC accreditation team in an international school nearby in Gaberone and that was concentrated, relevant, eye opening professional development unavailable in any other medium anywhere. There were different ideas, different methods, a happy and polite bunch of different students with a respectful and open relationship with the teaching staff. And period 1 started at 07.05. Hundreds of international teachers all over the world acquire similar or more profound experiences every year before returning to their teaching and administration duties. And when they return to their own schools the benefit goes to the kids even if at a subliminal level, ohne Zweifel.
‘Shhhhhhhh!!!’ hissed the large guide at me as I aired my views on just getting my boot and my dignity stuck into a hippo’s under swamp foot print (it must have been executing a single footed pirouette at the time to get that deep). ‘There are probably elephants behind that bush!’ he exclaimed agitatedly, ‘and they can hear a voice at a kilometre!’ That impressed me. The danger potential did not as the bush was close but small and it was obvious, again, that no one had told an elephant to go and hide behind it. The sun rose in the burnished blue sky, the steam rose from the rainy season soaked desert and disgruntlement rose in me as we plunged yet again up to mid calf in smelly water and reeds and micro frogs and bugs and underwater slimy things. Later we saw a small splodge on the horizon that we were told was either an elephant or a termite heap – through my bins I think I saw it move but I cannot swear to it so that could rule out the termite heap.
But the following day, a Wednesday, I saw hippos and elephants and giraffes respectively playing submerged submarines, frolicking flirtatiously in the shallows and laboriously folding up legs and cranking wide their stance just to get a drink, from a small and dilapidated motor boat from a distance of less than 30 meters on the Namibian side of the Chobe river. So there you go…
‘And that is a swimming black mamba, very deadly poisonous!’ the guide told us as a dead branch apparently floated by at arm’s reach of the side of the boat.
Earlier, as I hovered in an arthritic little helicopter over the two kilometres of raw power and blunt noise of the Victoria Falls, and later tumbling about in clear air turbulence, approached a grass landing strip about the length of a cricket pitch in a rusty, single-engine plane that had far more people in it than space or oxygen, I was struck by the truism of how different this all was in every conceivable way from teaching the use of the possessive apostrophe on singular collectives to grade 9 at ICS in Zumikon. The plane landed as the extended family of baboons which were lined up like Russian dolls, applauded and I wondered how much of the zillion experiences quite new to me I could relevantly bring back to the classroom. I wondered how much the 360o horizons uninterrupted by anything remotely to do with mankind, and vast, semi-dome skies unsullied by the ubiquitous vapour trails of jets that clog up European skies, would simply fill me with new ideas. I talked to Zimbabweans at the Safari Lodge on the election Saturday and again on Sunday and Monday and they told me that for the opposition ‘no news was bad news. I failed to buy a beer with a 10 million Zimbabwean dollar note. And I studied the profoundly moving Hector Pieterson Memorial in Orlando just outside Jo’burg.
And the following week I spent an intensely professional six and a half busy days on a CIS/NEASC accreditation team in an international school nearby in Gaberone and that was concentrated, relevant, eye opening professional development unavailable in any other medium anywhere. There were different ideas, different methods, a happy and polite bunch of different students with a respectful and open relationship with the teaching staff. And period 1 started at 07.05. Hundreds of international teachers all over the world acquire similar or more profound experiences every year before returning to their teaching and administration duties. And when they return to their own schools the benefit goes to the kids even if at a subliminal level, ohne Zweifel.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
The Dean’s Blog: ‘Warm and Sunny’.
You are probably going to think, ‘Wow! Has he got post Easter vacation blues to start off with a nineteenth century topic like this when all was warm and sunny!’ But it is actually all the fault of the warm and sunny. Warm and sunny, you see, makes kids select lighter, thinner, shorter, briefer, flimsy clothes in the early morning for the day ahead. Lighter thinner shorter briefer flimsy is fine for the lido, disco and other social treffs. But Monday to Friday when school is in session it is not so fine. We are a place of learning where many different cultures squeeze together for around seven hours a day. Learning in a classroom over five days is not always the easiest thing to stay focussed for and so we need to reduce unnecessary distractions that get in the way of equipping our kids to be innovative and influential members of society.
You and us
So your children need reminders from us and especially from you about what they think and what we think is suitable to wear on their bodies for those seven hours. And if in doubt they need to know it is what we think, you and ICS, that counts. (The good news for parents, as I observed in a previous blog, is that they get to own some clothes that you, when they wear them, are happy to be seen next to in public.) But what do we think? To be blunt, too much flesh on display is not acceptable is what we think. Any visible underwear at all is not acceptable. Short shorts and tops that do not meet the lower garment are not acceptable. Saggy baggy jeans worn without a belt that droop towards the knees are not suitable. And these concepts need firmly to be born in mind before new items of leisure wear are selected for purchase with a view to wearing them at ICS.
An opportunity to reflect
We at school reserve the right to make a judgement on sartorial suitability. The students have all been advised. If they decide to ignore our guide lines then, after a warning, they will meet with the Dean for a lunchtime detention to provide an opportunity to reflect on the matter and on the fact that in real life there are times when we just have to do what other people ask us to do. And I will contact you as you will surely want to know that your rules, too, are being flouted. It is not impossible that a child might be sent home to change in an extreme case.
Our community atmosphere of learning
None of this is new. It is not a radical departure from our philosophy or our previous practice. It is merely opportune to raise awareness of the issue now, in the spring, and by being proactive we will prevent unnecessary conflict which, in itself, would damage our community atmosphere of learning.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
You and us
So your children need reminders from us and especially from you about what they think and what we think is suitable to wear on their bodies for those seven hours. And if in doubt they need to know it is what we think, you and ICS, that counts. (The good news for parents, as I observed in a previous blog, is that they get to own some clothes that you, when they wear them, are happy to be seen next to in public.) But what do we think? To be blunt, too much flesh on display is not acceptable is what we think. Any visible underwear at all is not acceptable. Short shorts and tops that do not meet the lower garment are not acceptable. Saggy baggy jeans worn without a belt that droop towards the knees are not suitable. And these concepts need firmly to be born in mind before new items of leisure wear are selected for purchase with a view to wearing them at ICS.
An opportunity to reflect
We at school reserve the right to make a judgement on sartorial suitability. The students have all been advised. If they decide to ignore our guide lines then, after a warning, they will meet with the Dean for a lunchtime detention to provide an opportunity to reflect on the matter and on the fact that in real life there are times when we just have to do what other people ask us to do. And I will contact you as you will surely want to know that your rules, too, are being flouted. It is not impossible that a child might be sent home to change in an extreme case.
Our community atmosphere of learning
None of this is new. It is not a radical departure from our philosophy or our previous practice. It is merely opportune to raise awareness of the issue now, in the spring, and by being proactive we will prevent unnecessary conflict which, in itself, would damage our community atmosphere of learning.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Friday, 11 December 2009
Just another English class with Grade 10.
Wednesday, 11 November 2011, period 7
I want you to look at page 26 in the text I gave out yesterday. Read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it really means. Be ready to tell the class.
Are we going to be doing private reading today?
No, as I just said, I want you to look at page 26 in the text I gave out yesterday. Read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour.
Ok…ok. I was just asking.
Good. Read on, then.
I don’t have a pen, Mr. D. Can I lend one?
You don’t actually need one right now because I asked you to read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it really means. Be ready to tell the class. But it makes a lot of sense to bring a pen to a grade 10 English class. And if you need the pen you ‘borrow’ it and if you give it to someone you ‘lend’ it.
But I thought you just said I don’t need one.
Yes, I know. I did. You’re right. I was teaching you the correct terminology for the concept of borrowing and lending.
Duh…oh…right…whatever.
What page are we meant to read, Sir?
Page 26, and ‘Which page?’ is better…(‘Sir’ is good.)
Do we have to answer the question?
No, as I just said, read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it means. Be ready to tell the class.
Mr. D, do we write our answer?
No need because, as I said a few moments ago, you should read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it means. Be ready to tell the class.
Right.
Good.
I don’t have a book, Mr. Darlington.
Why not? I gave them out yesterday in class and you were here and I gave you one.
I didn’t know we would need it today.
But I told everyone to bring it today.
Oh, really? I didn’t hear that. What do I do then?
And I reminded everyone again before I let you out.
Yeah…ok…but what do I do?
What do you suggest?
Like, can I have another copy?
Well, I don’t have a spare except my own and we’re in a ‘like-free zone’, remember?
Yeah. Umm…so…like…I mean like NOT like…I could share with Jemima?
Well, I guess if she agrees, you’ll have to.
What do we do when we’ve finished, Sir?
You’ve finished already? (YOU again?)
Well, no, I just wanted to know.
Ask me again when you’ve finished.
Ok.
Everyone clear what the task is? You have about another 4 minutes.
We’re done already, Mr.D.
The humanities’ department globe fell off last time
“Keep calm. You are trained to deal with this sort of situation. Your experience will see you through. Resist opening your extensive and descriptive oral lexis box. Turn you back on irony and sarcasm. Put anger down. Do not raise your voice as it is intricately connected to your blood pressure and inversely to your image. Avoid slapping the cupboard (the humanities’ department huge globe fell off last time and was only just deflected by Peter’s quick witted karate chop, from Algernon’s head.) Remember there are 16 teenagers in the room and that is far too many hormones firing on all cylinders in a small space for normality to prevail in this universe. Note that it is predominantly boys flinging questions like darts so that reduces the problem by c.50%. Do your maths now and see that fewer that 31.3% recurring of the students have asked a question and only one has asked more than one question (Yes, but he asked four. Ignore! Don’t go there, not now.)”
It’s called adolescence. Remember?
This is actually quite normal for a high school teacher. It is part of the daily challenge (Teachers’ Dictionary = ‘stress’) but we understand the motives. No one is playing up. No one is seeking a laugh at the teacher’s expense. No one wants to delay the start of the class. Everyone who asks a question genuinely seeks clarification because teenagers are herd animals and want to be in the group and do the right thing. They want to do it first, though, especially boys. And Teacher just for the moment has all the answers, and so all the cards, as to what that right thing is.
Why do they not listen the first time?
Adolescence.
Why do they not listen to the answer?
Adolescence.
Why do they forget information so quickly?
Adolescence.
Why do they go off task?
Adolesc…
Don’t they see there is an easier way?
Maybe next time. Maybe not. They are on ‘short recall’.
But why can’t they…?
It’s called adolescence. Remember?
I want you to look at page 26 in the text I gave out yesterday. Read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it really means. Be ready to tell the class.
Are we going to be doing private reading today?
No, as I just said, I want you to look at page 26 in the text I gave out yesterday. Read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour.
Ok…ok. I was just asking.
Good. Read on, then.
I don’t have a pen, Mr. D. Can I lend one?
You don’t actually need one right now because I asked you to read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it really means. Be ready to tell the class. But it makes a lot of sense to bring a pen to a grade 10 English class. And if you need the pen you ‘borrow’ it and if you give it to someone you ‘lend’ it.
But I thought you just said I don’t need one.
Yes, I know. I did. You’re right. I was teaching you the correct terminology for the concept of borrowing and lending.
Duh…oh…right…whatever.
What page are we meant to read, Sir?
Page 26, and ‘Which page?’ is better…(‘Sir’ is good.)
Do we have to answer the question?
No, as I just said, read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it means. Be ready to tell the class.
Mr. D, do we write our answer?
No need because, as I said a few moments ago, you should read the top instruction and then discuss with a neighbour what you think it means. Be ready to tell the class.
Right.
Good.
I don’t have a book, Mr. Darlington.
Why not? I gave them out yesterday in class and you were here and I gave you one.
I didn’t know we would need it today.
But I told everyone to bring it today.
Oh, really? I didn’t hear that. What do I do then?
And I reminded everyone again before I let you out.
Yeah…ok…but what do I do?
What do you suggest?
Like, can I have another copy?
Well, I don’t have a spare except my own and we’re in a ‘like-free zone’, remember?
Yeah. Umm…so…like…I mean like NOT like…I could share with Jemima?
Well, I guess if she agrees, you’ll have to.
What do we do when we’ve finished, Sir?
You’ve finished already? (YOU again?)
Well, no, I just wanted to know.
Ask me again when you’ve finished.
Ok.
Everyone clear what the task is? You have about another 4 minutes.
We’re done already, Mr.D.
The humanities’ department globe fell off last time
“Keep calm. You are trained to deal with this sort of situation. Your experience will see you through. Resist opening your extensive and descriptive oral lexis box. Turn you back on irony and sarcasm. Put anger down. Do not raise your voice as it is intricately connected to your blood pressure and inversely to your image. Avoid slapping the cupboard (the humanities’ department huge globe fell off last time and was only just deflected by Peter’s quick witted karate chop, from Algernon’s head.) Remember there are 16 teenagers in the room and that is far too many hormones firing on all cylinders in a small space for normality to prevail in this universe. Note that it is predominantly boys flinging questions like darts so that reduces the problem by c.50%. Do your maths now and see that fewer that 31.3% recurring of the students have asked a question and only one has asked more than one question (Yes, but he asked four. Ignore! Don’t go there, not now.)”
It’s called adolescence. Remember?
This is actually quite normal for a high school teacher. It is part of the daily challenge (Teachers’ Dictionary = ‘stress’) but we understand the motives. No one is playing up. No one is seeking a laugh at the teacher’s expense. No one wants to delay the start of the class. Everyone who asks a question genuinely seeks clarification because teenagers are herd animals and want to be in the group and do the right thing. They want to do it first, though, especially boys. And Teacher just for the moment has all the answers, and so all the cards, as to what that right thing is.
Why do they not listen the first time?
Adolescence.
Why do they not listen to the answer?
Adolescence.
Why do they forget information so quickly?
Adolescence.
Why do they go off task?
Adolesc…
Don’t they see there is an easier way?
Maybe next time. Maybe not. They are on ‘short recall’.
But why can’t they…?
It’s called adolescence. Remember?
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
A Poem in honour of Annesty International Write-a-thon
The Prisoner of Conscience
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Manacled chained clamped in a stall
Sun scorching midday skin stripping heat
Questions shout lies whisper brutal repeat
Seeking the truth that he could not recall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
Suicide they said; jumped from the small
Locked and barred window on the seventh floor
Fractures and slashes such signs of ferocity
Tell of untold cruel atrocity
All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men
Plus the secret police, the death squads and then
Paramilitary sadists, intent and uncouth
Professional interrogators suppressing the truth
Squashing and crushing, intolerable pain
Inserting their slander again and again
Could not put Humpty together again
Well, why would they want to?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Manacled chained clamped in a stall
Sun scorching midday skin stripping heat
Questions shout lies whisper brutal repeat
Seeking the truth that he could not recall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
Suicide they said; jumped from the small
Locked and barred window on the seventh floor
Fractures and slashes such signs of ferocity
Tell of untold cruel atrocity
All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men
Plus the secret police, the death squads and then
Paramilitary sadists, intent and uncouth
Professional interrogators suppressing the truth
Squashing and crushing, intolerable pain
Inserting their slander again and again
Could not put Humpty together again
Well, why would they want to?
‘Blame a cow’
You’ve heard, unfortunately, of hate crime and race crime. Here’s a new one to send out tremors within the ICS community, milk crime.
Inspector, last Tuesday week
‘It all started, Inspector, last Tuesday week when I saw the door of the milk fridge was open. I went to investigate and as I did so I saw boys scurrying at high speed away down the corridor. In the fridge there were tell tale empty spaces. And this is not the first time.’
To be filed under ‘next time I have a spare moment’? No. Because this is historical, cultural, arcane and mysterious. This is Jubilee Commemorative Album stuff. Bear with me. Over the years as the secondary school was proposed, founded, added to and completed, a small group of unidentified students have in microcosm proposed, founded, added to and completed a secret society dedicated to illicit lactate consumption, milk prod purloiners, cow juice junkies, if you will.
Like the wind
It is difficult to penetrate this secret society as it has no known leader, no meeting place, no written down membership conditions. Like the wind, you only ever see its consequences. The freemasons and mafia are beginners in comparison. But this group over the years and even generations - well, one generation – have risked punishment and ridicule in order to purloin milk cartons from the primary fridge and consume the contents on campus. In previous iterations of this secret society a rudimentary (and, frankly, pretty gross) pastime was added which involved playing football with an unopened carton and as a strong shot towards goal exploded the cow juice another was quickly substituted, and the game went on virtually seamlessly.
Shadows and silhouettes were glimpsed of post grade 5 size
I thought this year, for the first time, the enigmatic group had ended their sport, that the esoteric hierarchy had failed to pass on its secrets. But, as I say, last Tuesday week, milk was missing. Footsteps were heard. Shadows and silhouettes were glimpsed of post grade 5 size. The Dairy Dean was alerted. Colleagues were consulted. Tales and ideas were swapped in the DSC kitchen over morning break on the Wednesday. But eventually we shrugged our shoulders and sighed our sighs knowing that we could go after the malefactors, again, this time, once more. But our chances were slim of stamping out this noisome phenomenon. Why our collective despair? Because, it was alleged, they were now hiding in cupboards, too.
NB. It IS the primary school’s milk and when secondary students take it, it IS theft so warnings have been given out. We shall not shirk. I will keep you in the loop.
Inspector, last Tuesday week
‘It all started, Inspector, last Tuesday week when I saw the door of the milk fridge was open. I went to investigate and as I did so I saw boys scurrying at high speed away down the corridor. In the fridge there were tell tale empty spaces. And this is not the first time.’
To be filed under ‘next time I have a spare moment’? No. Because this is historical, cultural, arcane and mysterious. This is Jubilee Commemorative Album stuff. Bear with me. Over the years as the secondary school was proposed, founded, added to and completed, a small group of unidentified students have in microcosm proposed, founded, added to and completed a secret society dedicated to illicit lactate consumption, milk prod purloiners, cow juice junkies, if you will.
Like the wind
It is difficult to penetrate this secret society as it has no known leader, no meeting place, no written down membership conditions. Like the wind, you only ever see its consequences. The freemasons and mafia are beginners in comparison. But this group over the years and even generations - well, one generation – have risked punishment and ridicule in order to purloin milk cartons from the primary fridge and consume the contents on campus. In previous iterations of this secret society a rudimentary (and, frankly, pretty gross) pastime was added which involved playing football with an unopened carton and as a strong shot towards goal exploded the cow juice another was quickly substituted, and the game went on virtually seamlessly.
Shadows and silhouettes were glimpsed of post grade 5 size
I thought this year, for the first time, the enigmatic group had ended their sport, that the esoteric hierarchy had failed to pass on its secrets. But, as I say, last Tuesday week, milk was missing. Footsteps were heard. Shadows and silhouettes were glimpsed of post grade 5 size. The Dairy Dean was alerted. Colleagues were consulted. Tales and ideas were swapped in the DSC kitchen over morning break on the Wednesday. But eventually we shrugged our shoulders and sighed our sighs knowing that we could go after the malefactors, again, this time, once more. But our chances were slim of stamping out this noisome phenomenon. Why our collective despair? Because, it was alleged, they were now hiding in cupboards, too.
NB. It IS the primary school’s milk and when secondary students take it, it IS theft so warnings have been given out. We shall not shirk. I will keep you in the loop.
‘Light the Blue Touch Paper’
If the kids do and say nothing outrageous or funny then I run short of the spark that lights a new Dean’s Blog entry. No outrageous means that all is well and the part of the Dean’s job of dealing with poor decisions is temporarily in redundancy. No funny means I have just not been listening to them; I have not made the time. Bad decision on my part; kids are hilarious and a tonic for a ‘Morgenmueffel’ like me.
Lunch provider skills
So there was this blank for the next edition of the ICS Newsletter, (or two), And then I got into a discussion with two colleagues and later on in the same week with some kids, about two words that I find myself using a lot: disrespect and disruption. The first word, in a deanish context, refers to any act or speech that shows disregard of another person’s feelings whether it be a student or an adult in the school. The second refers to the interruption of a student’s or of students’ learning, again, by act or speech. (Unsurprisingly, these are not happening at ICS on a daily basis.) You can subdivide them again into malicious and non malicious which is sort of accidental or merely thoughtless). Again, the first is very rare at ICS. Why would it not be? The second is a little less rare and a Bell graph of events on an age base would show a peak in mid puberty, and a higher frequency among boys than girls as, goaded by their alpha male hunter-killer instincts, they start to hone their lunch-provider skills. A girl audience as part of the peer group clique affects the frequency and intensity, of course.
Either vocal or body or both
Now this can lead to conflict between them and me as one result is we get a bunch of poor decisions. And that is part of my Dean’s portfolio. But when I listen to their explanation (and I do after a short address, either of the ‘rant’ or the ‘guilt trip’ type) I hear a growing note of disbelief and confusion. The disbelief is because the intention was neither to show disrespect nor to disrupt. It just happened, a random coming together in space time of a couple of factors that produced language either vocal or body or both. It was, they assure me, beyond the influence of reason. It was a social event that was almost over before the creator of it was even aware of the waves he was creating. The confusion is based on the fact that adult reaction is so intense by the perpetrator’s assessment scale of likely reactions to the aforementioned random event.
Emotionally pyrotechnic rocket
The consequences laid out by me seem to him to be expanding exponentially to fill a whole universe not yet discovered by this, say, grade 9 boy. The conversation may very well move on to MYP and IB grades and transcripts demanded by colleges for the last four years of secondary school as an indicator of future tenacity and consistency. The need to get excellent university application references from the teaching staff who ‘know you so well because they teach you four times a week for 35 weeks in the year’ will be explored. We’ll talk about social convention and the art of the appropriate, too. And all the time eyes widen in horrified disbelief that a mere gesture of the hand or a muttered, ‘You wish’ could have been the blue touch paper to this particular and awe inspiring, emotionally pyrotechnic rocket.
…And then it’s time to go patrol the lunch queue.
Lunch provider skills
So there was this blank for the next edition of the ICS Newsletter, (or two), And then I got into a discussion with two colleagues and later on in the same week with some kids, about two words that I find myself using a lot: disrespect and disruption. The first word, in a deanish context, refers to any act or speech that shows disregard of another person’s feelings whether it be a student or an adult in the school. The second refers to the interruption of a student’s or of students’ learning, again, by act or speech. (Unsurprisingly, these are not happening at ICS on a daily basis.) You can subdivide them again into malicious and non malicious which is sort of accidental or merely thoughtless). Again, the first is very rare at ICS. Why would it not be? The second is a little less rare and a Bell graph of events on an age base would show a peak in mid puberty, and a higher frequency among boys than girls as, goaded by their alpha male hunter-killer instincts, they start to hone their lunch-provider skills. A girl audience as part of the peer group clique affects the frequency and intensity, of course.
Either vocal or body or both
Now this can lead to conflict between them and me as one result is we get a bunch of poor decisions. And that is part of my Dean’s portfolio. But when I listen to their explanation (and I do after a short address, either of the ‘rant’ or the ‘guilt trip’ type) I hear a growing note of disbelief and confusion. The disbelief is because the intention was neither to show disrespect nor to disrupt. It just happened, a random coming together in space time of a couple of factors that produced language either vocal or body or both. It was, they assure me, beyond the influence of reason. It was a social event that was almost over before the creator of it was even aware of the waves he was creating. The confusion is based on the fact that adult reaction is so intense by the perpetrator’s assessment scale of likely reactions to the aforementioned random event.
Emotionally pyrotechnic rocket
The consequences laid out by me seem to him to be expanding exponentially to fill a whole universe not yet discovered by this, say, grade 9 boy. The conversation may very well move on to MYP and IB grades and transcripts demanded by colleges for the last four years of secondary school as an indicator of future tenacity and consistency. The need to get excellent university application references from the teaching staff who ‘know you so well because they teach you four times a week for 35 weeks in the year’ will be explored. We’ll talk about social convention and the art of the appropriate, too. And all the time eyes widen in horrified disbelief that a mere gesture of the hand or a muttered, ‘You wish’ could have been the blue touch paper to this particular and awe inspiring, emotionally pyrotechnic rocket.
…And then it’s time to go patrol the lunch queue.
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