Alongside your usual suspects of Reading and Writing in the English curriculum, there’s a third partner in crime. Actually, call them partners. There’s two of them. Speaking and Listening. They’re grouped together as one third of the English curriculum we have to report on to the parents in our twice yearly reports. Can your kid talk and can your kid listen.

Usually I’m tempted to respond to this one with one sentence.

‘Yes, he can talk. No, he won’t listen.‘

But I’d probably get in trouble for that, eh?

Anyway, as we’re writing the kids’ mid year reports at the moment, our 3/4 Unit set all our kids a homework task this week. A one minute prepared talk on their favourite place. This may prove a useful post for anyone searching on ideas for assessment tasks for Speaking and Listening at any stage. The topic of course could be altered to fit the required topics, but the way we structured the assessment may be of interest all the same.

In our grade we held them each afternoon as the kids brought them in. On Friday we did everyone who was left, and if they hadn’t prepared anything they sat up the front and rabbitted on about whatever came into their head.

Kids can be really good at that, eh?

I should really give credit where it’s due though. Just about all of them did a top little job of their talks. Only about a fifth of them read from notes, and one or two of those only used them as cues. The rest rattled it all off from within their heads and generally gave a good account of themselves. The shyest kid in the grade actually got up to do his first.

He didn’t really want to, but he was the only kid on Tuesday who was ready. He then spent the rest of the week kicking back knowing he didn’t have to do it again!

Here’s how we ran these Speaking and Listening assessment pieces. The kids would be ranked either ‘Just Satisfactory‘, ‘Good‘ or ‘Excellent‘ on three categories, depending on what particular traits they showed in their speech. The three categories were ‘Presentation‘, ‘Content‘ and ‘Audience‘.

Presentation and Content were pretty straight forward. If they read straight off their notes, they were just satisfactory - if they did it all from memory then they landed in Excellent. If their voice was quiet and mumbled, not so good, if they could go toe to toe in a conversation with the Queen, excellent. If their information was short, quick and pointless, duds - if it was entertaining and detailed, great job. And so on.

Audience was a little tricker. That came to answering questions from the grade as well as how attentive they were. If you were early in the list to present on an afternoon, the audience was better behaved. If you were the eighth person, the audience was getting ratty. I had to go easier on the later kids, eh?

Overall though it was a great success. I’ve told the kids plenty of times that the only thing holding us right back is the fact that they all love to talk, even and especially when they’re really not supposed to. That in mind though, it’s no real surprise at all that they generally all did really well with an assessment piece that was, essentially, talking.

It was quite amusing listening, too. We heard about your usual suspects for favourite places such as Lakes Entrance, Queensland, Merimbula and various holiday places. But we also heard about such more private and intimate places like ‘My Bedroom’, ‘Nan’s Kitchen’ and ‘My mate’s house ‘cos it’s got this wicked as dirt pile bike jump in the front yard! WICKED SICK, EH?’

Honestly, they’re a bunch of little showmen, the whole lot of them!

A few Grade Five kids caught up with me in the school yard while I was on yard duty today.

Well, that’s probably not quite true. They were standing in a long row across the netball court playing ‘Elimination’ together. You know the game - the first person has a shot at goal (on a basketball backboard), and if they get the goal, they go to the end of the line and are still in. If they miss, the next player has their turn and if they get it in, the first person is out. Play continues until one person is left. Well, they were playing that, and half of them were from my grade last year. I wandered across mainly because I noticed the kid who was out lying down on the asphalt so I had to go across and ask if he was out.

‘Yep! HE got me out!!’ while pointing with a friendly accusing finger to one of the other boys.

‘HE got you out? Gee, you must really suck!‘

‘Yep!’

Anyway, this lead to half of them crowding around asking that great question the kids from your previous year always end up asking you…

‘We were your best grade, weren’t we, Mr V?’

How do you answer that?

There are probably new teachers out there right now wondering how you mould the kids into a perfect grade. How you change the behaviour of the whole group to fit that perfect mould. Where they listen intently, work hard, produce great work that all comes out great, don’t talk out of line and behave impeccably all day. Well, to those people, I say ‘don’t fix what ain’t broke‘!

Bad behaviour, yeah, for sure, work on changing that… but who really wants a perfect grade? A perfect grade is what you make of it. Let’s take that question from above again.

‘We were the best grade, weren’t we, Mr V?’

How do you answer that?

It’s true, last year’s group were fantastic. And they quite possibly pipped the grade before that as the best I’ve had, although there are kids in each grade I’ve really enjoyed. Okay, there have been a few grades that have given me merry hell all year, but I take the approach that if you can find one of two kids in each grade that make it absolutely worth your while to come to work every day, then no matter what the rest of the grade’s like, you can still enjoy your job.

Fortunately, the last few years have been very good. It’s been a while since I’ve had what I’d consider a ‘hard’ grade. And boy, was that particular one a doozy! On the plus side though, I still get along really well with one of the kids and keep in touch fairly regularly, so I also see that year as one I wouldn’t have swapped.

But how do you answer the kids when they ask you that? Because you know it’s going to filter back to the kids you’re teaching right now, and probably to the kids you taught the year before, who asked you last year if they were the best. And so on and so on.

I’ve got a really interesting mob this year too. Not a single behaviour problem amongst the whole lot of them. Not a single kid on medication or tablets. And often not a single kid who would rather sit still and listen than have a good old chat with whoever may currently be sitting next to them.

Yep. They’re a great, big, dirty mob of chin-waggers. And it’s taken me until nearly the end of May to regularly get them sitting relatively quietly on the floor to listen to me. It’s only these last few weeks where they’ve cottoned on to the fact that, hey, guess what, I’M the bloke you’re supposed to be listening to, not Noddy sitting next to you!

So yes, each day I’ll work to keep them listening and not carrying on their own conversations or piping up with their own contributions to the discussion without bothering with the process of putting their hand up first and waiting their turn. I mean… that just takes too long, eh? By the time Mr V gets ’round to me it’ll be too late, and besides… what I have to say is so funny it’ll make you all wet yourselves!!

Yep. It’s one of those groups of kids.

But… really… do I need to clamp down on them and turn them into a bunch of quiet, attentive little gnomes sitting serenely before me? They generally work hard, they get along with each other, and they look out for each other. Okay, I had to have a stern little chat with one feller who gave one across the face to one of the girls during lunchtime, but he stood in front of everyone afterwards and told them why our grade wouldn’t get a Yard Behaviour award this week. A one off blue like that doesn’t tarnish the kid for the whole year.

I honestly couldn’t see this group of kids working as well if they sat quietly all day and barely said ‘boo’. It just wouldn’t be right. Actually, it’d be downright spooky!

So no… while they’ll talk the handle off a door while underwater with a mouthful of marbles, I think I’ll put up with that side of them in return for a group that enjoy coming each day, enjoy each other’s company, and make me laugh.

Who wants a perfect grade? I reckon I’ve got one pretty close as it is.

Spend a year teaching kids and you’ll experience in some form the phenomenon of parents behaving badly. If you’re unlucky, you’ll experience it first hand. If you’re a little luckier or maybe have a knack of keeping them on side yourself, you may only experience it second hand, which can be disturbing enough. Fortunately I’ve managed to get through seven and a half years so far without coming face to face with a fuming, angry and generally belligerent parent. I’ve been fairly fortunate. The worst I’ve had is one pair demanding to know at a parent/teacher interview what I was doing about a boy being bullied (while both boys were happily playing together outside the window, I might add!) and the odd parent asking why their child should stay inside for two minutes after school with the rest of the grade (because the whole lot of the little buggers were acting like a right pack of pills all afternoon!). As I said, I’ve been lucky.

It can be rather sad in many cases too. More often than not, you’ll find that the kid in question is often quite a nice, decently good kid. You’ve got to tread a little carefully for the kid’s sake, as (at least still in primary school level) the kid probably really enjoys being taught by you. You enjoy teaching the poor little bugger yourself too, but there’s always that spooky shadow of the ‘ugly parent’ somewhere nearby just over the horizon - and the wind’s blowing your way.

I found an article from the Age newspaper on the staffroom table after work tonight. I don’t read the Age myself (I’m not clever enough to fold it all back together again), but the ‘Challenging Parents: A Spotter’s Guide’ caught my eye and I gave it a look. I actually had a bit of a laugh at it because the list hasn’t actually done a bad job covering the various types of difficult parent you can face. It was pretty true to form.

The rest of the article, The Parent Trap, is an intriguing read as well, and I recommend you give it a look if this topic is of importance to you in any way. It is fairly lengthy, but it covers a lot of interesting points. We’re always under pressure to find ways to rein in the apparent endless bullying that goes on through schools, but the other side is rarely given air time. According to this article one in two teachers are bullied by parents regularly to various degrees. That wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest, but as I said, I’ve been one of the fortunate ones.

Either that or I’ve been too preoccupied or ever so slightly laid back to actually realise it! That’s always a possibility.

The six categories of difficult parents are listed at the end of the article on the sixth page. I’ll list them here for posterity anyway, just keep in mind they’re not my work, eh? I don’t want to get into trouble!

Challenging parents: A spotter’s guide

- Overprotective - always hovering, wanting to know everything about their children. It only takes one story from their child for them to be on the phone and in the principal’s office, often without checking facts.

Want all problems fixed in their child’s favour.

- High maintenance - short-sighted parents who believe their child is perfect and should be the centre of the school’s universe.

Often make a fuss over minor issues. Tend to create a vacuum that sucks in principals who have a strong wish to help others.

- Power trippers - those who use bluff, bluster, threats or power to get their own way at home and work. A bullying parent who can sense fear or weakness and will tackle a tentative, young teacher rather than going to the principal’s office.

- Angry parents - can be aggressive or withdrawn. Can generally be heard before they are seen. Can escalate their anger and be unpredictable. Won’t listen until they calm down. Anger centres on gaining control or damaging others.

- At-risk parents - those going through turbulent and vulnerable times such as a marriage breakdown, business problems or experiencing difficulties with their children. This group includes violent, mentally ill or addictive parents.

- Disengaged - the opposite of the helicopter parents. They don’t come to school, parent-teacher interviews or school events. Often have an immature view of child-rearing and will look to the school to care for and discipline their children.

I recognise all six varieties from my own experiences, but let me also say this. Most of the parents I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, working with and sharing the lives of their kids have been great. I actually enjoy the interaction and a bit of friendly banter between myself and the parents and I think it probably speeds up any issues of trust they may have when you teach their kids for the first time. Here’s just a quick run through of my experiences with parents. As I said, I don’t consider them all that scary in the least, but I’ve probably been lucky.

Every year, usually for the first three weeks, I get lots of parents wandering around, poking their heads in every now and then to see what’s going on in the room. I think these three weeks are that ‘okay, he’s doing a decent job, let’s go home and have a cuppa from now on instead‘ cooling off period. After that, I barely see them anywhere near the room except for when they turn up to tell me about a doctor’s appointment or are dragging their son in by the ear to change his reader before he goes home to play the X-box.

Other than that, I rarely have many issues, but I think that has a lot to do with actively going out to speak with the parents and share a joke with them. Often at their child’s expense! I also enjoy winding down after work some days by cheering some of the kids on at the odd sports game. I’m pretty sure that reputation has passed through the grape vine over the years (although I don’t broadcast it myself!) and I think that aids in the trust issue too.

If there’s one piece of advice I could give on this issue then, I suppose it would be to think about sharing a laugh or two with these parents as a deterrent to any major ‘ugly parent’ incidents in the future. One final example would be this. Several years ago, I taught one particular boy who had a bit of a reputation, as did one of his parents. They turned up at the parent teacher interview but I was ready. When his mum asked ‘Well… tell me about Johnny’ (they’re all called Johnny, eh?), before his old man could draw breath to fuel any rage, I just answered ‘well… I like him at least!’

That sort of knocked any wind out of his sails and he barely said a word for the rest of the interview!

While the following little comic is based on true events (see The Easter Ferret and The Ferret Song entries!), I wouldn’t recommend an approach like this though shown below. Miss Conway can pull something like this off. I don’t think I’d have the guts!

Related Posts: Parents drunk at school events, Scoring for basketball… leads me to drink, The Easter Ferret, The Ferret Song

It’s been a while since the last (and first… and at the moment only…) Teaching Tutorial was posted, that one guiding the reader through the important steps necessary to start your day on the right foot, fit and fighting and ready to take on the world, or at the very least twenty five kids. So I thought it high time another post was added for those of you wondering exactly what this job entails from day to day. A lovely, ordered utopia of sharpened pencils lined in their appropriate tubs, quiet days strolling between the tables while children focus intently on their work, heads bowed in concentration, and not an unsavoury odour on any slight breeze anywhere at all.

And outside the window, an entire flock of flying pigs.

No. A day will come, and if we’re honest, it will come tomorrow, when you will walk into your classroom, fully intent on endowing upon the children new and exciting pieces of knowledge and improve talents, that you look around and… you can’t find your desk.

You know it was there. You saw it yesterday. Or was it the day before. Maybe it was last week. Anyway, you know it’s there somewhere because, I mean honestly, who’s going to pinch a desk? I mean… those things weigh a truckload, eh? Exactly. But still… the fact remains. You can’t see it.

Why? Because it’s submerged under that deluge of paperwork, kids correction, planning folders, kids show-and-tell bits and pieces they’ve left there for six weeks, the odd lonely hair clip (lost as well) and quite probably, somewhere beneath the crust, that ham, salad and beetroot sandwich you were really looking forward to eating last fortnight. What do you do about it? Do you spend your lunchtime and recess and an hour after school sorting through everything with the greatest of care? Rein in some sort of order and file everything where it should be? Correction in a pile by your bag (which you haven’t remembered to take home for the last two weeks anyway, but the intention is always good). Show-and-tell bits and pieces distributed into the corresponding child’s locker tub. Planning folders open in the centre of the desk so you always know what you’re doing.

Or do you sit the bin where your chair usually goes, reach across to the back of the desk, drag everything forward and watch with desperate satisfaction as everything crashes into the depths of that black plastic bin liner and start with a clean slate?

The first one sounds like that utopia again, the second sounds easier. One doesn’t exist, and the other gets you in strife when report writing comes around and you haven’t got anything to report on except your gut instincts. And you can’t really back them up without all that paperwork, eh?

No. So you perform a balancing act. You get yourself through the rest of the term and tackle the desk on a day during the holidays. Yes, much of that day is spent finding it… but once you’ve found it you’re halfway there.

Spend a good hour at least sorting everything into various categories (or, if you want the easy, realistic term, piles) on the floor, and keep that recycling box handy too. Correction there, ready to be done once you’re finished, various learning area books and texts back onto the shelves. It’s amazing how you didn’t have time to put them there when you were finished with them first, eh? Fair dinkum, those kids are a distraction, aren’t they? Eventually you’ll find that your piles have become neater, many of them will have been placed in more appropriate locations (and the bin is generally not one of those places, no matter how tempting it may be - unless it’s old work that’s no longer necessary because you’ve taken down the kids’ results, I suppose. Your decision, I guess).

Finally, when much of your bits and pieces are back into some sort of order and logical locations, set your desk out. Get those pencils into their tub in the corner, straighten out that planning folder (we might have to have a post about that too, eh?) and stand back to admire your clean and sparkling desk… of which you can now see almost half of the surface of! Enjoy the order and the neatness of the piece of art you’ve created, and go home content with the world.

Because next week you’ll be back to the start again.

Those kids are a big distraction, eh?

Related posts: Teaching Tutorial 1: How to start your day

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There’s an art to starting your day of classroom teaching off on the right foot. You can’t just roll out of the car, saunter casually into the room, cast your eye across the impeccable neatness of the room, sit back with the daily newspaper while the last ten minutes tick by before the bag bell rings, and then settle into your big, comfortable teacher’s chair as the kids file in and politely sit in three equal rows before you, eyes fixed intently on yourself and ears alert and eager to drink in the knowledge you are bound to feed them that day.

No. There’s a certain order to things, and the above just isn’t reasonable.

Let’s start with your arrival at the school in the mornings. The first thing you plan to do when you arrive is set up the daily timetable so the kids know what they are expected to do today. But somewhere along any major road you travel to get to work, you’ll find yourself stuck behind some small little hatchback with one of those bobble-headed cats grinning at you like an idiot from the parcel shelf. It will be travelling at half the current speed limit, and there will be no safe opportunity to over take. What’s worse, if you are well enough prepared that morning so that you actually leave early, then your chances of encountering such a hatchback will in fact double. This will mean that, even though you’ve left for work ten minutes earlier than normal, you’ll get to work five minutes later than usual anyway.

Once you’ve managed to park your car, it’s time to get yourself across to your classroom, and then set that daily timetable up. No easy matter. You’ve got your lunch in your hand, and maybe the basket or bag with books you took home to correct the night before. If you’ve found time to actually accomplish this correction, then clearly you’ve forgotten to do something else of major importance which will come back to bite you on the freckle at the most inopportune moment. That’s not the immediate problem though. You will get halfway to your room and realise you’ve left something on the front seat. Do you return to the car and juggle everything in two hands, or sacrifice a little more time to unload in the classroom and then make the trek back?

Neither will work. Juggle everything and you’ll drop it all opening the classroom door, if you even get that far. Decide to stop by the classroom first and you’ll be distracted by the first kid that wanders past (who shouldn’t even be here yet at this hour, but that’s working parents, eh?) and you will forget you ever had to go back to the car in the first place.

If you’ve left something in the car though, it couldn’t have been that important anyway, eh? Unless it’s your key ring and you can’t get into the classroom.

Once you are inside, you’re nearly there. Well, you’d like to think so. Where did the cleaners put the classroom bin this time? In the bag room? On one of the tables? In the classroom two doors down for no apparent reason? What about that daily timetable you update each morning so the kids can keep track of what’s expected of them today? That won’t take long, so let’s do something more important instead. Photocopy today’s maths work. Right. There it is… and right on cue! Paper jam. A paper jam that won’t let you get the paper out unless you spend the next ten minutes up to your elbows in photocopier guts.

Right. The photocopying is done. Better put lunch in the staffroom fridge, pick up the daily paper, and read the bulletin and the staffroom information board (which will be updated the moment you walk outside again). The paper’s haven’t arrived, you’ll have to rearrange the shelf of the fridge so your sandwich doesn’t get squashed by three apples, a plastic salad container and twelve old bottles of sauce that no-one’s thought to pitch out yet.

Okay… after getting distracted by one hundred and thirty seven kids on your way back to the classroom, all wanting to tell you every intricate detail of their latest adventure which usually involves a trip to gran’s, the latest elitist new toy fad, or the state of their dad’s tinia, you arrive with the intention of setting up that daily timetable just as the bag bell rings and the kids pour in.

A few minutes later, after you’ve spoken to a few parents loitering around the door, yelled at Johnno for doing a swan dive off his table, and fobbed off another dozen kids with their little stories, the bell goes again and the kids are falling over themselves on the way to sit on the floor. You’re about to call the roll when one kid calls out that the timetable hasn’t been changed.

At which point you think about stabbing him with your pen, calling it quits and finding something easier to do like run the country.

Instead, because you’ve learnt to keep all that inside and show a chirpy, eager grin, you instead make up a glorious excuse involving something of drastic importance you had to do this morning.

Yes, that’s right. You tell a little white lie because you know the moment the kids find out you’re not actually in complete control they’re going to eat you alive.

And then tomorrow, you’ll do it all again!