23, 24, 25, 26, 27…31, 32…“STOP! KEEP TO THE SIDE! CAN’T YOU SEE THE COFFEE? YOU’RE STEPPING IN IT! WHY DOESN’T ANYONE AT LEAST PICK UP THE CUP?” Pretty loud this, odd noises crescendo con brio growing to fortississimo grandioso. As I remarked in my last blog.
The maths was me counting the senior students walking up and down the stairs at lesson change through a dripping lake of cafe latte that was making its own independent way down the narrow stair case in the DSC. It was still warm. It was a full plastic cup, well had been a full one. Now it was on its side, a bit stepped on, with the lid on the next step down.
Of course, they looked at me as if I was from a parallel and frankly far less developed universe. Get off the stairs they did not. Walk to one side they tried but as there were four classes of our gigantic teenagers on the deck above out of sight (out of earshot I do not entirely think) they kept turning the corner and pushed from behind came down into the mess.
A teacher had discovered this event a minute or two earlier and grumbled, rightly, about the lack of clearing up responsibility by the coffee dropper. So I went to see. I was actually rather shocked (see a previous blog at the end of last year on nickydarlington.blogspot.com, again about senior kids busy not clearing up their lunch mess as it was not their job, and again my proto-apoplectic reaction.) Trouble is that they are so big they eat huge amounts all the time and leave tons of evidence in the form of crumbs and spillage, packets and boxes, cups and cartons, plastic forks and teaspoons, tissues and wrappers everywhere!
Ok, there’s some hyperbole there – maybe – a bit. But you want to know what happened back at the stairs. Well…
I pushed through hundreds of vast adolescents carrying jumbo sized bags full of bulky packs of teenage stuff, to get to the bathroom and grab handfuls of paper towels. These I dumped in the brown lake, having pushed through the ever increasing throngs of big kids anxious to get up or down that staircase in order, obviously, to help it in its endeavour to get an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the greatest surface area AND number of stairs ever covered by a one half litre of cafe latte. (They have such stupid entries now.) The paper disappeared sadly into the thick gluey beige morass and Mr Schlehuber and Mr Malcolm gallantly and energetically helped contain the spillage that started to look like a recent ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Bits of us got stepped on but eventually paper vs. coffee was won 1:0 by us, the paper wielders. The combined skills of the coffee, the staircase and the kids lost. We teachers, battered, exhausted, bespotted and bespeckled in Migro’s finest, moved on in triumph to our next class.
But I do have a serious point. We teachers felt very depressed for a moment after this incident because of the reaction of the students – nonchalance. And only one student stopped and offered to help. It was a girl. The Co-Chairperson of the Student Council. Bravo to her, I say!
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Birth of a Blog (by email)
(Me) ‘I need to write a Blog for the next Newsletter but I haven’t been provoked into purple prose by student decisions this week. So over the weekend, maybe something about gardening as a metaphor for tending children.’
(Editor of Newsletter) ‘There’s a great extended metaphor in ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Othello’ about gardening. Doesn’t Iago tell us if we plant weeds, we will reap weeds or something? It will be a great topic for a Blog.’
‘Yes and Ophelia witters on in her scary, pastoral way about, ‘There's rosemary, that's for remembrance…and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.’
‘Drippy Ophelia goes to DEFCON 5 when Hamlet has a little joke with her about a nunnery. The fact that she gets upset with loser Hamlet enough to drown herself tells you something about her inherent lack of nous.’
‘IMHO, some Shakespearean heroines just have no sense of humour – they go all feminist on you just when you are deciding on important male things like whether to kill your Royal Scottish Banker, burn the Turkish fleet, perform invasive surgery to reclaim 0.453592 kilos of flesh or divide your kingdom into three Kantons. But as Shakespeare could only write about flowers, toads and weeds and not, say, about garden strimmers going melt down I might have a small advantage.’
‘Contemplating strimmers is far more exciting than contemplating life and death.’
Ok, I’ll start with something like…
Cutting the grass was a job I had put off because it was so hot, around 34 degrees C at about 5.30 in the afternoon and it now seemed almost knee high to my English ‘lawn-as-liquid-emerald’ eye. I started to strim an area somehow full of ‘noisome weeds…things rank and gross in nature’ (but here young Will was, I’m afraid, talking about Denmark) ‘…which without profit suck The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.’ Until, that is, I noticed that the strimmer I had bought last year to suck the noisome weeds from our soil's fertility, on the advice of a professional I might add, had become totally ineffective. It was getting meltdown hot. It was starting to make odd noises. And it was issuing acrid, dark grey smoke. Like me last week in class. Let me explain…
An assessed assignment was due in to me at the start of class after a two week lead-in, and so, again, the owners of a chorus of waving hands (and some not bothering to do that traditional classroom semiotic cue) told me, with authoritative finality, that they couldn’t hand it in ‘because the school printer has jammed’/ ‘our printer ran out of ink’/ ‘the school’s email system bounces my mail’/ ‘the disc got wiped’/ ‘I can’t access my account’/ ‘there wasn’t a free computer at break time’/ ‘my computer crashed’/ ‘the document’s been corrupted’/ ‘it’s here on my memory stick’/ it's the browser'/'there’s a fault with Windows 7’ - all ending with ‘ok?’ stated not really as a question but a fact to be accepted, ok?
‘No!’ I replied. ‘It is not ‘ok’! It is definitely not ‘OK’! NOT!!! ... OK?!?? The IB, the ICS, I, the known universe, simply do not accept lame IT malfunction statements as excuses for failing to…etc.’’ Pretty loud this, odd noises crescendo con brio growing to fortississimo grandioso. And then melt down with acrid, dark grey smoke …’
(Editor of Newsletter) ‘There’s a great extended metaphor in ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Othello’ about gardening. Doesn’t Iago tell us if we plant weeds, we will reap weeds or something? It will be a great topic for a Blog.’
‘Yes and Ophelia witters on in her scary, pastoral way about, ‘There's rosemary, that's for remembrance…and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.’
‘Drippy Ophelia goes to DEFCON 5 when Hamlet has a little joke with her about a nunnery. The fact that she gets upset with loser Hamlet enough to drown herself tells you something about her inherent lack of nous.’
‘IMHO, some Shakespearean heroines just have no sense of humour – they go all feminist on you just when you are deciding on important male things like whether to kill your Royal Scottish Banker, burn the Turkish fleet, perform invasive surgery to reclaim 0.453592 kilos of flesh or divide your kingdom into three Kantons. But as Shakespeare could only write about flowers, toads and weeds and not, say, about garden strimmers going melt down I might have a small advantage.’
‘Contemplating strimmers is far more exciting than contemplating life and death.’
Ok, I’ll start with something like…
Cutting the grass was a job I had put off because it was so hot, around 34 degrees C at about 5.30 in the afternoon and it now seemed almost knee high to my English ‘lawn-as-liquid-emerald’ eye. I started to strim an area somehow full of ‘noisome weeds…things rank and gross in nature’ (but here young Will was, I’m afraid, talking about Denmark) ‘…which without profit suck The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.’ Until, that is, I noticed that the strimmer I had bought last year to suck the noisome weeds from our soil's fertility, on the advice of a professional I might add, had become totally ineffective. It was getting meltdown hot. It was starting to make odd noises. And it was issuing acrid, dark grey smoke. Like me last week in class. Let me explain…
An assessed assignment was due in to me at the start of class after a two week lead-in, and so, again, the owners of a chorus of waving hands (and some not bothering to do that traditional classroom semiotic cue) told me, with authoritative finality, that they couldn’t hand it in ‘because the school printer has jammed’/ ‘our printer ran out of ink’/ ‘the school’s email system bounces my mail’/ ‘the disc got wiped’/ ‘I can’t access my account’/ ‘there wasn’t a free computer at break time’/ ‘my computer crashed’/ ‘the document’s been corrupted’/ ‘it’s here on my memory stick’/ it's the browser'/'there’s a fault with Windows 7’ - all ending with ‘ok?’ stated not really as a question but a fact to be accepted, ok?
‘No!’ I replied. ‘It is not ‘ok’! It is definitely not ‘OK’! NOT!!! ... OK?!?? The IB, the ICS, I, the known universe, simply do not accept lame IT malfunction statements as excuses for failing to…etc.’’ Pretty loud this, odd noises crescendo con brio growing to fortississimo grandioso. And then melt down with acrid, dark grey smoke …’
Number 49
Dean’s Blog Number 49.
Many of you have been generous enough to tell me you welcome the chance once a fortnight to peek through the window of ICS and see what your kids get up to during an average day, through the Dean’s Blog. You comment on the humour that the Dean seems to find when he talks to students about decisions made on a shaky basis. Was it the result of hyperbole? I was asked and the truthful answer is, No, it really happens – just as it says on the tin. But you have to listen. You have to signal very clearly, ‘I am listening with enormous interest and undivided attention and I will take what I hear very seriously indeed and reflect on it and join in a dialogue,’ even if you know the printer just destroyed your IB English A1 Standard Level criteria rubric for examination paper 1 commentary that you need to get over to a class in the DSC null comma ploetzlich as we Swiss like to say.
Do all critical nouns start with the Dean’s ‘D’?
I am constantly charmed (whilst simultaneously driven to distraction, dismay, despair, disappointment or mere disbelief – do all critical nouns start with the Dean’s ‘D’?) by a student’s confident expression of a candid point of view where a totally different take on the reality of a situation contradicts mine with something approaching the finality of a check mate. Of course they are right; it is their reality so it is their (cliché) truth. The charm almost always continues to the next stage when I introduce my reality which is the ICS’s truth, which nearly always has to take precedence as the one to be believed if a harmonious and safe society is to be enjoyed on (and off) campus. They listen wide eyed giving me the attention I gave them and neither of us is condescending nor patronising as we do this routine. They read the cues, offer the apology, look contrite, and accept their punishment like a woman (gender thing there). Of course, we do not speak of punishment, that is P.I.. Instead, it is what I call ‘a community act of restitution offering time for reflection’.
Unfeigned enthusiasm
And so they wander around the Red Top for 20 minutes at lunchtime if it isn’t pouring cats n’dogs, after eating their lunch for the supplementary energy soon to be needed, collecting the community’s litter into a large black plastic refuse bag - with an admirable, reflective, penitent and unfeigned enthusiasm.
I am pretty sure about this last point… I think.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Many of you have been generous enough to tell me you welcome the chance once a fortnight to peek through the window of ICS and see what your kids get up to during an average day, through the Dean’s Blog. You comment on the humour that the Dean seems to find when he talks to students about decisions made on a shaky basis. Was it the result of hyperbole? I was asked and the truthful answer is, No, it really happens – just as it says on the tin. But you have to listen. You have to signal very clearly, ‘I am listening with enormous interest and undivided attention and I will take what I hear very seriously indeed and reflect on it and join in a dialogue,’ even if you know the printer just destroyed your IB English A1 Standard Level criteria rubric for examination paper 1 commentary that you need to get over to a class in the DSC null comma ploetzlich as we Swiss like to say.
Do all critical nouns start with the Dean’s ‘D’?
I am constantly charmed (whilst simultaneously driven to distraction, dismay, despair, disappointment or mere disbelief – do all critical nouns start with the Dean’s ‘D’?) by a student’s confident expression of a candid point of view where a totally different take on the reality of a situation contradicts mine with something approaching the finality of a check mate. Of course they are right; it is their reality so it is their (cliché) truth. The charm almost always continues to the next stage when I introduce my reality which is the ICS’s truth, which nearly always has to take precedence as the one to be believed if a harmonious and safe society is to be enjoyed on (and off) campus. They listen wide eyed giving me the attention I gave them and neither of us is condescending nor patronising as we do this routine. They read the cues, offer the apology, look contrite, and accept their punishment like a woman (gender thing there). Of course, we do not speak of punishment, that is P.I.. Instead, it is what I call ‘a community act of restitution offering time for reflection’.
Unfeigned enthusiasm
And so they wander around the Red Top for 20 minutes at lunchtime if it isn’t pouring cats n’dogs, after eating their lunch for the supplementary energy soon to be needed, collecting the community’s litter into a large black plastic refuse bag - with an admirable, reflective, penitent and unfeigned enthusiasm.
I am pretty sure about this last point… I think.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Higgs Particles
The Dean’s Blog
Welcome back – of course. Everyone here says this but everyone also really means it. And if all the kids think twice before doing something they have not been asked to do and all parents think twice before parking and leaving their car on the drop off zone then that small part of the ICS experience I work in will be quietly successful.
Over the vacation I reflected on Deanish experiences over the past year and selected one that catches for me the fascinating flavour of much of my job. Here it is:
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, that the universe is somehow curved, 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 the summer 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 to check with me if it was ok to do this before they started. 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.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Welcome back – of course. Everyone here says this but everyone also really means it. And if all the kids think twice before doing something they have not been asked to do and all parents think twice before parking and leaving their car on the drop off zone then that small part of the ICS experience I work in will be quietly successful.
Over the vacation I reflected on Deanish experiences over the past year and selected one that catches for me the fascinating flavour of much of my job. Here it is:
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, that the universe is somehow curved, 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 the summer 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 to check with me if it was ok to do this before they started. 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.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Thursday, 10 June 2010
'Homo Economicus'
The Dean’s Blog: ‘Homo Economicus’
It was a joke. Well, they were all laughing. And even Inspector Clouseau could have worked out that they had eaten food and drunk drinks because they had left wrappers, plastic bags, little plastic forks, silver foil, cans, pet bottles, paper towels, leftovers and crumbs all over the table and on the nearby floor. As they do. Some of them. Sometimes. Too often. Ouch - that was my first deanish word of criticism, well two actually. And it was here, in the DSC, that I became deanish with members of a pretty senior grade. I had approached the noisy and good humoured group and reminded them to clear it all away before they left because no one was paid to clear up after them. I could have omitted the mildly provocative subordinate clause starting ‘because’. Maybe I would have if it had not been 3.30 pm after a particularly busy day. I should have, I thought, when they started to play that game of ‘Provoke the Teacher’ by listing, on a scale of wildly increasing irritation-potential, the adults currently employed at ICS who could now match the job description of litter-clearer-upper post that, according to me, needed filling. Hence the laughing. I won - of course - as after the laughter they cleared it up. A little reluctantly. After a seemly, dilatory pause to restore their sense of honour and their dignity. It was, after all, a kind of public climb down before a peer group audience.
Ritual and badinage
Underneath all of this ritual and badinage is, however, a serious thread and it is to do with civic duty. Or a lack of it amongst some of our students. In the past I have been told it is the cleaners’ job, or the janitors’ or the teachers’ who are on duty, in similar situations; and on the occasion when this is meant sincerely then I am shocked. It is this sense of entitlement, misguided because it is not remotely earned at such a young age, that I have in mind when I refer to civic duty or civic responsibility. It is imagined that a position is currently occupied that exempts the young holder from needing a wider view of transactions and their implications for all the personnel involved. It is another example of homo economicus (‘I have more important things to do than you do.’)
Harmony and happiness.
In a recent blog I wrote in a pastiche about the sad, frustrating situation of a child being rejected by its peers at lunchtime, another instance of a lack of civic responsibility. And one of you kindly wrote to me expressing interest and support, modestly, somewhat hesitantly suggesting a scheme designed to obviate such behaviours by involving everyone in a system to eliminate it. It was a good idea that I shared with relevant colleagues. I want to go further now with a scheme next year to help develop this sense of civic responsibility. It will involve, initially, the senior grade in the Main Building at lunchtime. After some training and some modelling they will help patrol and will intervene in unsatisfactory situations within their capability, supported by the teachers on duty, in order to bring increased student harmony and happiness.
‘Wzzup, dude?’
It’s not world peace but it will be a measure to increase empathy, a step that will enable our kids actively to improve the atmosphere for all its inhabitants.
‘Wzzup, dude? Want to talk?’
‘Yeah, you can sit down here.’
‘Let the grade 6 kids have the goal now – it’s their turn!’
‘We’ll find a teacher.’
‘Let’s go see if you left it in a classroom you were in.’
‘Don’t chase about in the library, you’re disturbing other people here.’
And so on. It is not a system of monitors as the whole grade will get involved. It’s not a system of peer counselling. It won’t be done because it gets Community Service credits or count towards Graduation. It’ll get done because it will be blindingly obvious it’s the right thing to do. And I know our/your kids will rise to the challenge magnificently, once again. And it will start with the courage, backed by adults’ support, to say, ‘Please don’t leave your lunch mess here as other IB students will want to study at this table.’ The explanation softens the ‘command’ register to one of ‘reasonable request’ to which no one who is a member of our unique ICS society can fail to respond positively.
It was a joke. Well, they were all laughing. And even Inspector Clouseau could have worked out that they had eaten food and drunk drinks because they had left wrappers, plastic bags, little plastic forks, silver foil, cans, pet bottles, paper towels, leftovers and crumbs all over the table and on the nearby floor. As they do. Some of them. Sometimes. Too often. Ouch - that was my first deanish word of criticism, well two actually. And it was here, in the DSC, that I became deanish with members of a pretty senior grade. I had approached the noisy and good humoured group and reminded them to clear it all away before they left because no one was paid to clear up after them. I could have omitted the mildly provocative subordinate clause starting ‘because’. Maybe I would have if it had not been 3.30 pm after a particularly busy day. I should have, I thought, when they started to play that game of ‘Provoke the Teacher’ by listing, on a scale of wildly increasing irritation-potential, the adults currently employed at ICS who could now match the job description of litter-clearer-upper post that, according to me, needed filling. Hence the laughing. I won - of course - as after the laughter they cleared it up. A little reluctantly. After a seemly, dilatory pause to restore their sense of honour and their dignity. It was, after all, a kind of public climb down before a peer group audience.
Ritual and badinage
Underneath all of this ritual and badinage is, however, a serious thread and it is to do with civic duty. Or a lack of it amongst some of our students. In the past I have been told it is the cleaners’ job, or the janitors’ or the teachers’ who are on duty, in similar situations; and on the occasion when this is meant sincerely then I am shocked. It is this sense of entitlement, misguided because it is not remotely earned at such a young age, that I have in mind when I refer to civic duty or civic responsibility. It is imagined that a position is currently occupied that exempts the young holder from needing a wider view of transactions and their implications for all the personnel involved. It is another example of homo economicus (‘I have more important things to do than you do.’)
Harmony and happiness.
In a recent blog I wrote in a pastiche about the sad, frustrating situation of a child being rejected by its peers at lunchtime, another instance of a lack of civic responsibility. And one of you kindly wrote to me expressing interest and support, modestly, somewhat hesitantly suggesting a scheme designed to obviate such behaviours by involving everyone in a system to eliminate it. It was a good idea that I shared with relevant colleagues. I want to go further now with a scheme next year to help develop this sense of civic responsibility. It will involve, initially, the senior grade in the Main Building at lunchtime. After some training and some modelling they will help patrol and will intervene in unsatisfactory situations within their capability, supported by the teachers on duty, in order to bring increased student harmony and happiness.
‘Wzzup, dude?’
It’s not world peace but it will be a measure to increase empathy, a step that will enable our kids actively to improve the atmosphere for all its inhabitants.
‘Wzzup, dude? Want to talk?’
‘Yeah, you can sit down here.’
‘Let the grade 6 kids have the goal now – it’s their turn!’
‘We’ll find a teacher.’
‘Let’s go see if you left it in a classroom you were in.’
‘Don’t chase about in the library, you’re disturbing other people here.’
And so on. It is not a system of monitors as the whole grade will get involved. It’s not a system of peer counselling. It won’t be done because it gets Community Service credits or count towards Graduation. It’ll get done because it will be blindingly obvious it’s the right thing to do. And I know our/your kids will rise to the challenge magnificently, once again. And it will start with the courage, backed by adults’ support, to say, ‘Please don’t leave your lunch mess here as other IB students will want to study at this table.’ The explanation softens the ‘command’ register to one of ‘reasonable request’ to which no one who is a member of our unique ICS society can fail to respond positively.
'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.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
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.
nickydarlington.blogspot.com
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Dean’s Blog: ‘Cool or sad?’
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)