Officially, Clean Up Australia Day is this Sunday, March 2nd. The little problem here is that the kids aren’t at school that day. They’re at home, probably sitting in front of their X-boxes, their PS2s or in the corner. Maybe that’s a slight generalisation tainted by the ever-so-slightly-mental Friday I worked my way through today. If I’m honest, I reckon it probably is. But anyway…

Because the kids aren’t going to be here on Sunday (and, most importantly for us, neither are we teachers!), today, Friday, February 29th (and didn’t we talk about Leap Years a lot today!), was Clean Up Australia for Schools Day. Meaning… we dragged the kids around the school ground and the sports oval complex nearby with plastic bags and a shortage of plastic gloves. Yes, plastic is not really environment friendly, but neither’s leaving all that rubbish flitting around in the breeze either.

Lots of glass around, to be honest. The kids thought it was great to find an old VB bottle or two, but I did get a little sick of trying to pick up shattered glasses by the roadside, and I didn’t even bother when the kids found little tiny bits of glass scattered across the asphalt car parks.

The kids seemed to enjoy it, even if it did cut into their Free Time Friday afternoon, which most had to use finishing off their week’s work anyway. Maybe that was why they were happy to stay out there as long as possible…

I don’t think we’re technically allowed to call it ’scab duty’ any more… I think ‘emu parade’ is the more politically friendly and slightly amusing term for it now.

Shame. I always liked the term ’scab duty’.

* Not to do with this post, but if you missed today’s previous short post, read on again. Seems my other site is of Cultural Significance!

I can’t even remember when I first dropped the website a line suggesting that, just maybe, if they were looking for things that might be useful, my little webcomic, School Spirit, may be worth a read through for possible inclusion. Well… it seems whoever runs this Australian government website agreed with me for today, sitting quietly in my in-box between the education newsletter I seem to have subscribed to yet have been unable to successfully unsubscribe from, and the regulation three or so spam emails, was a short note.

Success. School Spirit, the webcomic, has now been linked through an Australian government portal under the criteria of being of cultural and recreational significance to the Australian internet-surfing community. Hooray!

I mean, look! Here’s the School Spirit listing! It’s fair dinkum!

I don’t know how effective this link may be to gathering the niche readership I think the strip deserves, but all the same, I couldn’t see all that many webcomics managing to get themselves into such a site listing. Well, at least, I’m choosing to believe that!

While I’m at it, here’s the latest current strip, part way through a short sequence featuring a bushfire burning near one of the kids’ houses.

Yep, I’m a little bit proud at the moment. Whether anything comes of it is secondary, eh?

In the shadow of the local paper mill, with the smell of acrid chemicals and paper pulp wafting across on the late summer afternoon breeze, and the tic-tic-tic of the high tension powerlines tapping a staccato of mild electrical radiation overhead, our Under 12 cricket team fronted up to play their final match of the season. Their opponents appeared, dressed all in white and looking rather intimidating as they walked by with their five foot of height as most our little blokes ricked their necks looking up to see their faces. A team of grade six and year seven kids striding past them, and our rag tag bunch made up mainly of kids just starting grade four. Could it have been more daunting?

How about we play by Under 14 rules instead, eh? That’d do it. Last week, you’re in with your partner for four overs. If you go out, you get to stay around until your four overs are completed. Today, you can stay in for longer, but once you’re out, tell your story walking, sunshine, because your day at the crease is over, champ!

Even if you’re out first ball.

This is no backyard cricket, my lads.

You mean… you can even go out LBW??

Well… nah, I’m not calling LBW today, that’s just nasty.

So, yes. Today our Under 12s played their final match, with Under 14 rules. If you go out, you’re out. But at the same time, if you make 15 runs, we decided to retire them to give the other kids a hit anyway. If they sat around and blocked everything and I was in danger of falling asleep umpiring at square leg, then they were retired as well. We only had twenty two overs to play with and fourteen kids to get out there.

The kids played with a really good spirit, all said and done. Only one managed to get retired, and that was mainly because he took too long, but he came back at the end to finish his innings after everyone else had gone out. One poor little feller found out cricket’s a mongrel of a game when he was bowled first ball. The rest, even if they went out after only a few balls, seemed to take it fairly well in their stride. They seemed to know that they could get their own back when they bowled after tea.

In fact, the first thing the youngest little feller said when he was run out at the end was ‘okay, where’s the pizza?’

I have no idea if we won or not. We never bother adding up the bowling scores, just our batting scores. It’s Under 12s. It doesn’t matter who wins. Just get out there and have a crack and a bit of fun. The kids ran off the field thinking they were winners anyway, because each time we took a wicket, the batsman was out of the game. Little victories are enormous when you’re ten!

Seeing a ten year old turn bowl a ball to have it snicked by the batsman and caught behind, then turn to appeal to you with the biggest grin you’d ever see on his face… that’s Under 12 cricket.

Seeing the rest of the team play ’stacks-on’ as they all pile on top of him a few moments later… that’s Under 12 cricket.

Seeing the little feller stagger to his feet once the kids crawled off him… that’s just funny.

Here’s to next season… but thankfully not until October!

Related posts: Scoring for basketball… leads me to drink!.

Technorati tags: cricket, kids sport, coaching.

Although I posted this topic a week or so ago, I didn’t realise that the nine points I posted then were just the first nine of a list of twenty one reasons that you know you are a teacher. This Monday, the rest of the list found its way into my pigeon hole via the back of the weekly staff bulletin and timetable. So now, here is the complete set.

Once again, I don’t know where this list originally came from, but there are so many accurate sentences here it’s almost scary.

How do you know you are a teacher? Here you go!

1. You can hear 25 voices behind you and know exactly which one belongs to the child out of line.

2. You get a secret thrill out of laminating something.

3. You walk into a shop and hear the words ‘It’s Ms/Mr ______’ and know you’ve been spotted.

4. You have 25 people that accidentally call you Mum/Dad at one time or another.

5. You can eat a multi-course meal in under twenty-five minutes.

6. You’ve trained yourself to go to the toilet at two distinct times of the day: recess and lunch.

7. You start saving other people’s rubbish because most likely, you can use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the classroom.

8. You believe the teachers’ staffroom should be equipped with a margarita machine.

9. You want to slap the next person who says it ‘must be nice to work 9 to 3:30 and have summers off’.

10. You believe chocolate is a food group.

11. You can tell if it’s a full moon without ever looking outside.

12. You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says “Boy, the kids sure are settled today”.

13. You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behaviour when you are out in public.

14. You believe in aerial spraying of Ritalin.

15. You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.

16. You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own children.

17. You can’t pass the school supply aisle without getting at least five items!

18. You ask your friends if the left hand turn he just made was a “good choice or a bad choice”.

19. You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils.

20. You are secretly addicted to hand sanitiser, and finally,

21. You understand instantaneously why a child behaves a certain way after meeting his or her parents.

All so very, very true…

Personal favourites… numbers 11, 12 and 21. You may have others…

Cheers.

Earlier in the day, when I first thought about posting something after I got home tonight, I was planning on writing about this evening’s Parent Information Barbecue and the bits and pieces involved in this quick, annual event we hold in the first few weeks of each year. The idea is to get the parents in and talk to them as a group (the preps talk to the prep parents, the 1/2 Unit then speaks with their parents next, the 3/4 Unit does likewise and so on). To aid in getting a decent attendance, we also set up the barbecue and give out free snags to any parents and accompanying kids who turn up. Gives us a chance to meet some of the parents for the first (and possibly only) time, as well as speak as a group to those who turn up so we can all get the same message across.

I generally don’t mind the afternoon, even if it does mean we’re at work until about 7:00 PM. It’s a free feed of snags and the half hour presentation to the parents isn’t so bad when it’s split between four or five teachers. I drop a few silly lines and they have a friendly laugh and you’ve won half of them over already.

But that’s not what I’m going to talk about now. When we finished, I ended up talking for a short moment to one particular mum who’s son I’m teaching this year. I taught a daughter a few years back, and the older one was involved in the band for four years previously as well, so we’ve known each other for a while. Not to mention their mother taught me to swim back when I was in primary school myself and they intend to bring in old photos of my from this period blown up to A3 size when they eventually get around to it.

Anyway… I told her I was disappointed her husband hadn’t turned up because he has a habit of smuggling a can of beer in with him each year as well. I was sort of thinking he should shout me one as I was now teaching his final child and his only son. She just answered, ‘drop by now on your way home and drink one anyway’.

Well… let’s run through this quickly. An offer of a free beer (or bourbon) or two, possibly a meal, definitely a few laughs on the table, and the chance to rock up unannounced at the kid’s house for tea and see him squirm when his teacher appears in the hallway.

How could I refuse?

He didn’t believe his mum when she told him, but when the doorbell rang apparently he ran and hid in his room! So far, perfect!

He eventually came out again and dinner was served, then I had another opportunity I couldn’t pass up. ‘Oi, kid, you done your homework?’

He has now!

Third little gem… didn’t want to have his shower so I just casually noted that when we’re on camp later in the year and he doesn’t have a shower I’ll just grab him and throw him in myself, and if he wanted, I could start now. He had his shower!

Enough mild embarrassment and awkwardness for the poor little feller tonight though. When school starts tomorrow though, I think I might ask him to share some news with the rest of the grade… see if he’s willing to tell his mates the special guest that rocked up for dinner and a drink with dad last night.

Mind you, his mum did warn me that it could have a side effect… they all might start asking me to come round for some tucker…

Suppose then it’d depend on what’s on offer, eh?

I read an article today in the current edition of the Herald Sun talking about the number of women now in principal positions in Victorian government schools. Seems that, for the first time, more than half of the principals in Victorian government schools are now female. Well, to be totally precise, 50.9% of them are female. So, yes, there are more female principals than male principals, but it’s pretty close, eh?

I suppose the article jumped out at me today for two reasons. Firstly, we’ve had a change of principal ourselves for this year, and yes, she’s a woman and she’s replaced the man who held the job for 13 years before her after his retirement. That’s all well and good, but to be honest, I’d never really thought about the gender change in the role until this article popped up in the paper. Which probably leads on to the second reason this article popped out at me anyway.

It never even occurred to me that people would keep track of the balance of men and women in principal roles! Yet another apparently important statistic about the profession I was blissfully unaware of! Why hadn’t I thought about it before, I was thinking to myself. Because, I replied with a shrug (I shrug a lot at stuff like this), there’s a bucketful of other things I need to concentrate on first, eh?

It’s good news that there’s real balance in the roles now, don’t get me wrong. From my own point of view, if there’s a woman or a man in the principal and leadership roles at this stage, it makes no matter provided it isn’t me! I was asked the other week by our principal if I was interested in leadership opportunities and various related options in the near future and I pretty well laughed and implies ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me!’ Knowing how I organise my room, my kids and myself, I know I’m better suited in the classroom with 25 kids rather than organising 350!

I can’t see the top of my desk already after four weeks! I’d lose my office if I was a principal!

The other little statistic that slightly surprised me was the balance of female and male teachers in the state. I know it’s imbalanced, but I was surprised the percentage was still as high as it apparently is. One in five teachers are male. I thought it would have been lower. Again, this is from my own experiences, which involve two schools in one country town, not 1500 government schools across the entire state! We’ve got four males on staff (all classroom teachers) out of a collection of 16 grades and three specialists.

Hey… that’s four out of 19… which is pretty well one out of five. Hmm… guess I shouldn’t have been surprised after all!

Today was the final week of the regular local cricket season. For myself, an eternal C Grade player because I’m really not the greatest cricketer going around, and not wanting to play two week matches in B Grade anyway, the season finished a week early with a bye this week. But… that gave us the chance to wander across the district to a little township further north to watch B Grade try to win their match in the hopes of making the finals next week.

More importantly, it was to see off a clubman who retired today after playing 436 matches for the club. And to see him off in style.

They were in to bat last week and made 236, leaving 10 wickets for them to take today while out there fielding. We set ourselves up around the boundary under the trees and away from the main stands with a few coldies in the esky and gave it our all. As the sun fell lower and lower in the sky, we slowly got louder and louder and had a good old afternoon calling out friendly and not so friendly sledges to the opposition and, more importantly, our teammates. Just because they’re out there playing doesn’t mean they’re not fair game to a friendly sledge! A long story short, they bowled them out for 220 and won the game. If results fall our way, they’ll play in the finals next week. But to be honest, that’s secondary.

Our old feller finished the match not out from his batting innings the week before, and fittingly came on to bowl at the end of the day and took the final wicket to win the match. Those of us who were there were quick to gather at the gate before he arrived (because he’s pushing it now and doesn’t move fast when he doesn’t have to) and formed a guard of honour for him to pass through.

One of the best moments I think I’ll ever have at the club.

I only had the privilege of playing one match with him since I joined the club, but looking back, having the opportunity to say I’ve batted with him once and hitting the winning runs in that match myself (of the half dozen I made) is something I can look back on proudly to say ‘I played alongside him’.

A nice, fitting way to send off a legend of the club, but not quite perfect.

We fixed that up tonight back at the club rooms with lots of beer.

Cricket’s a drinker’s game!

Sometime, somewhere, during the first few weeks of the year, when the madness and hooley-dooley of the first few days starts to wear off, there comes a point. One single, prominent point. It’s the point when, during one of those few quiet moments when nobody is pestering you with questions about what to do, telling you a story about their pet rabbit because clearly maths is the perfect opportunity to do so, or giving you the droopy lower lip and the knock-kneed dance of the bloated bladder, you look across the gaggle of kids working at their tables and realise that, yes, the grade is starting to purr.

You’ve done the hard yards through the first few weeks setting your various rules and expectations. You’ve relocated certain sections of your classroom population to a term of service keeping the rubbish bin company. You’ve proven that, just because you’re doing the knock-kneed dance of the bloated bladder, doesn’t mean that the teacher’s going to cave into your boredom and work-avoidance tactic and let you spend five minutes of your handwriting time wandering the slightly stale refuge of the toilets until you think you’ve reached that length of time where, any more and you’re pushing it, and any less and the other boys will think you’ve caved in.

No. This is the point where the kids have woken up to the fact that, despite all the evidence, you’re the teacher and, knock me down with a feather, you’re actually running this sanitised Lord of the Flies tribe of egos and insecurities.

For me, that point arrived at 9:35 this morning, ten minutes or so into our final reading block Learning Centre activity for the week.

All four tables were working quietly, helping each other out with hints and pointers, and if they were talking about something other than their work, they were still working AT THE SAME TIME! Granted, a bit of that might have been because the one table filled with boys were doing the mix and match cloud activity and half of them had spread themselves across the floor to give themselves room to organise their cloud pictures, names and descriptions and were therefore far enough away from each other not to flick each other’s ears while the other poor kid wasn’t looking. Still, they were all working properly, and it was quiet, serene and peaceful in the classroom.

So, of course, there was only one thing I could possibly do.

I gave all four tables about 50 points each over the next twenty minutes until the session was finished.

That point might have arrived, but a healthy dose of blatant bribery hardly ever goes astray, eh?

Whether others may think it morally ethical or not, or grizzle about rewarding kids with abstract things like table points or even, heaven forbid in this age of apparently obese Australian children, give them a lollyroo, the kids kept working well all day. It was a fantastic end to the week, and left me, the poor feller in charge who’s hoping day by day his facade of a teacher who really knows what’s going on will last one more day, feeling quite proud of them all. They think well of me, they want to be here, and they’re enjoy their learning. It can only mean respect.

Then I found the rubber spider on my desk after I’d sent them all home…

The kids weren’t required at school today. We had another professional development day. In fact, we had the first of a four part series of professional development sessions, the last three of which will take place over the next three Wednesday afternoons after school. It was about recognising language learning difficulties and the current ‘best practice’ way to teach around them. Bits and pieces of it were worthwhile, but that’s not really the purpose of this post. Instead, I’m focusing on the teacher’s voice.

The voice the teacher uses when actually teaching and interacting with the kids.

One of the presenters today spoke to us all the way through with her teacher voice. It was vibrant, it was active, it varied in pitch, it over dramatised expression to promote interest.

In short, it got annoying really fast.

Honestly, it was like being back at home in the early 80s watching Romper Room on telly. I really felt as though I was being condescended to by this (granted, very well-meaning) teacher presenting parts of this session by the way she was speaking to us all through the day. It put me in mind of the way my mum used to read books to me when I was two or three, lots of exaggerated expression and over-the-top voices. Which was fine when I was two or three listening to mum read ‘The Pokey Little Puppy’ Golden Book.

It started me thinking about the way I talk to the kids in my grade each day. I’ve got the same level as this presenter, except that she’d come from teaching prep kids the years before. I know it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t stand or sit there in front of them all and rabbit on in this forced teacher voice all day and expect the kids to take me seriously! I know it wouldn’t work because there are times when, for a bit of a laugh, I’ve put on this particular style of teacher voice for certain lessons just to see the effect.

The kids generally just nod their heads lower, look up at me from beneath crooked eyebrows with wry little smiles and say things along the lines of ‘you’ve gotta be kidding us, Mr V’.

Yup. Kids don’t like being condescended to.

Which has left me wondering about it, because apparently all the kids at her own school adore her BECAUSE OF THE WAY SHE SPEAKS TO THEM!

I suppose there’s just different ways of doing things, eh? I guess the kids I work with (who’ve known me for several years already just coming up through the school) expect just the face I’ve always shown and not anything I’m not. This particular person presents to the kids in this way, with this voice and approach, and the kids recognise it as her way of teaching. I rock up and talk to the kids like I’d talk to just about anybody (which usually means pulling their leg several times during the day, granted), and they appreciate me for sticking with who I am.

While such a voice seems to work for others, I just can’t see myself changing my style of delivery. I reckon tomorrow I’ll just keep doing as I have, give them a high-five as they walk inside in the morning and a ‘g’day, Ugly’ by way of greeting and get on with it.

Kids aren’t dumb. They recognise quickly when you’re not shooting straight.

I’ve got a kid in the grade this year who brings an epi-pen to school with him in case of an anaphylactic shock. In fact, there are four kids in the school with such causes for concern. Each has their own epi-pen close by when they are here, and each has their own specific influence that sets off their reaction. For many it’s peanuts or nut products, bee stings, certain medications, eggs and regular cow’s milk. Any exposure to their allergen sets off the allergic reaction and that’s when things get serious.

Fortunately, we had the chance today to be trained once more (for many of us) in the understanding of anaphylaxis (this severe reaction to the above triggers), and the administration of the epi-pen (the small, single-dose medication device that delivers a shot of adrenalin into the child’s bloodstream to counter the reaction). I remember going through the training about three years ago, so I found much of it just a refresher course.

Meaning that much of what I knew but had forgotten I knew was brought back to the front of my mind again. I was pretty certain I knew how to administer the epi-pen and the process with which to handle any such anaphylactic emergency, but at the same time, I’d only done it in a training situation with practice epi-pens, eh? Those little ones you can practice on yourself which have no dosage inside them and, importantly, no little sharp needle to accidentally stab yourself with. It would be a whole new kettle of fish to actually be in the situation where you need to use it in a real situation.

Fortunately we have yet to have such an incident, and while I’m sure we’d handle it properly, you never really know until you’re facing it, eh? Even after today’s session, I know I’d rather not have to face such an emergency myself while wandering outside on yard duty.

All fears and concerns aside though, I think it’s probably the most important professional development session I’ll sit through for the entire year. Hopefully I won’t need to put it into practice, but, in case I do, it’s nice to have that little bit of confidence that you might just help the kid through something potentially fatal and have him home safe and sound that night because you spent two hours after school one evening all those months ago.