School Spirit

The month of June has just drawn to a close, and once again it’s a bit of positive news regarding my webcomic School Spirit, the hobby that spawned from the primary school musical I wrote, which in turn eventually spawned this blog. While June wasn’t the strongest ever month in regards to number of viewers, it was only a handful off. For the second time running, and the second time ever, it has gathered in 4000 views across a single month, which turns out to be an average of about 130 views a day, and about 900 views each week. While for four years of input, effort and continual regular production these numbers may not be fantastic (it can frustrate you when you see relatively new strips pop up and apparently gather these sorts of figures - and not be as good as yours - my opinion, granted!), it means the strip is moving along now on its own, which is a bit of good news, eh?

July begins today, and while I’d love to see it continue to grow each month, I’ll be happy to see it break through that 4000 mark a third time running. Let it settle a bit before I start entertaining thoughts of 5000, eh?

Back with more over the next few days, and this time focusing more on teaching and education themes again. Holidays have just started and reports and parent / teacher interviews are all done now, so there’s probably more time to share around again.

Technorati Tags: webcomics

‘The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, inate, untold,
Of being only four years old.‘
- Christopher Morley, To A Child

Four years ago today, I officially launched my little webcomic, School Spirit. I’d never read a webcomic before, I’d never even heard of them. A friend had just told me ‘I’m writing a webcomic and you’re drawing it for me’. I said ‘where am I going to find the time to draw a webcomic, whatever that is?’ and half an hour later had emailed him a quick sketch of what would become the first School Spirit strip.

On June 12th, 2004, School Spirit was officially launched and here it is, four years later with 580 regular strips, 57 special ones, three new strips a week and an unblemished updating record.

Now it’s even spawned this blog site!

As you’d probably guess, it revolves around kids at primary school, with spirits living in the cemetery next door. It originally grew out of a primary school musical production I was writing at the time but since then has taken on a story and life of its own. If you’re interested in reading it, or at least having a look, go right ahead. I’ll let you decide whether you think it’s worth your time or not. I’ve been here four years now… I’m well past that ‘look at me and love me’ drivel.

Leave that to those who think they’re going to be the next best thing, eh?

Cheers.

The month of May has just concluded, and for the third month running, my webcomic School Spirit, the hobby that spawned from the primary school musical I wrote, which in turn eventually spawned this blog, has had it’s most successful month. Also, that’s a really long sentence. For the first time it has gathered in 4000 views across a single month, which turns out to be an average of 130 views a day, and about 880 views each week. I’ve tried hinting that there’s this blog site as well when I’ve posted things across there, but at this point it hasn’t been bringing many of those readers across. Will have to work on that later, eh?

June begins today, and I’m thinking it may be a bit of an ask to expect the strip to continue growing each month. We’ll just have to see how things go. 130 or more readers a day is a fair ask, considering just last December it was still only getting about 80.

Mind you, it will reach four years online on June 12th, so with a little bit of extra publicity I might manage to wrangle up, just maybe it will repeat the effort this month. However it goes, all I can do is keep those three strips coming out each week and enjoy spending my free time on it, eh?

Technorati Tags: webcomics

Here’s a little poem that’s been a favourite of mine for a while. It was written by one T.S. Watt in the Manchester Guardian, which I assume is a newspaper from Manchester. As to the date, I don’t know. I’ve got it published in a hard cover book about the crazy language of English. It probably works best if you read it out loud - but be warned! Just because it’s using the same letter patterns for words, don’t expect them to all use the same sounds! I’ll just let you read it for yourselves!

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead -
For goodness’ sake don’t call it “deed“!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s dose and rose and lose
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned by fifty five.

No wonder kids have trouble spelling, eh?

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

Technorati tags: teaching, tutorial, cleaning

In response to the events of our recent Easter Fair, and the Easter Ferret which somehow managed to bite one of my kids on the back of the leg and draw blood, the next morning between finishing my breakfast and getting in the car to drive to work, I wrote this quick little song for the kids. They thought it quite amusing. Yes, it’s four chords repeated over and over, but what do you expect for a ten minute song writing session when you’re technically already late for work?

The chords are C / Am / F / G, with the fourth line changing to F / G / C / C. Easy! The first part is slow, and the rest of the song follows the same tune and quicker speed of the second half. The little Ab / Bb / C ending you can also add in after each chorus if you wish.

The Ferret Song

Small, sharp teeth, beady eyes,
Whiskery nose twitching side to side.
Stalks its prey without a sound,
OUCH! I should have turned around, ’cause

Chorus
I got bitten on the leg by a ferret,
I got bitten yesterday at school!
I got bitten and it’s not really fair, it
Should have bit my friend as well!

The lady said, ‘What? It’s got a lead on!
If you don’t believe me then take a look!
It could’ve been worse, you could’ve been weed on!
Don’t be such a sook! But…

Chorus

Next time I see a ferret, gonna chop it half and
Kick it across the netball courts!
Or if my best friend won’t stop laughing
I might stuff it down his shorts! ‘Cause…

Chorus

It should have bit my friend as well!

Anyway, the kids thought it was amusing. The young feller who was actually bitten by the ferret the day before was so chuffed he actually substituted his own name into the lyrics instead. That’s all for now… more original songs next time something out of the ordinary happens at school, eh?

Cheers.

Related topics: The Easter Ferret, the School Spirit webcomic Easter Ferret story.

Technorati Tags: ferrets, Easter, songs, music.

Easter Sunday brings the beginning of a new storyline to School Spirit, the webcomic version of this site. Originally I intended this strip to be a stand alone Special (larger edition) as I usually do for events like Easter, Christmas, ANZAC Day, etc, but it was such a small, regular sized strip that I decided it could just be, well, a small, regular sized strip.

Either way, here’s the beginning of the latest storyline, The Easter Ferret. For those who’ve read this blog a few times in the last week or so, yes, this will feature a few of the events of our own Easter Fair during the last week of term - especially the events recounted in my previous post of the same name - The Easter Ferret.

Clicking the strip will take you to that particular strip on the site. Incidentally… I packed away my Christmas stuff earlier than this. I took it all down on Easter Saturday.

Technorati Tags: Easter, webcomic, ferrets.

The latest storyline in the School Spirit webcomic, Fire!, has just concluded in time for the Easter break, so now we feature a Good Friday special strip. Just a one off joke but probably one that most people returning to the shops for a Boxing Day special are aware of - the ever earlier appearance of Easter goods on the shelves.

The cartoon to the side is clickable, as always, and will take you to the School Spirit website. Specifically, it will take you to the page of this particular strip.

Meanwhile, the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal will run again today so no doubt I’ll have the telly running in the background so I can pop my head in and out and keep up with how much money Victoria has raised this year. I think they’ll looking at about $14 million or some amazing total this year. We keep seeming to beat the previous record each and every time lately.

Anyway… enough for now. Hope you enjoy the Good Friday humour, and all the best.

I don’t actually think I even have any hot cross buns in the house today…

Technorati Tags: Good Friday, Easter, hot cross buns.

We held our annual Easter Fair this afternoon and one of the activities our grade organised and ran was what has become my staple Easter Fair event, Whack-a-ferret. In this case the burrow is a dirty great piece of white polypipe with a bend at the bottom, the kid waiting at the end is holding aloft a little wooden mallet to belt the snot out of the ferret as it comes out of the pipe, and the ferret itself is a soft yellow ball with eyes, whiskers and a tail drawn on in permanent texta. If they manage to whack the ferret on the way past they win a little solid Easter egg. If they don’t, then they’ve donated 20c (or three turns for 50c!) and generally come back to try again later and give us more money.

Nothing all that dastardly, eh? Nothing really dangerous except maybe a squashed finger if anybody nearby isn’t paying attention. It’s not like it’s a real ferret, eh?

Which is what turned up today.

Yup. While dropping our ferret down the polypipe and watching kids belt the life out of the asphalt as it rolled past, a mother held a real ferret down where I could see (on a leash with a little seat-belt harness, naturally…) and with a grin suggested they were here to protest the unfair treatment of ferrets. I thought nothing much more of it and gave a friendly chuckle while wondering why you would bother bringing what is basically a hairy snake with legs to a primary school anyway.

At least, until the cunning little blighter bit one of my kids…

Yup. It’s not everyday you write up a sick-bay incident report when the incident involves a kid getting bitten by a ferret. What more could I do than get him to clean the blood away and whack a bandaid on?

Fortunately, Mum was quite okay with the whole deal when I approached her with the story at the end of the day. Turns out they actually see this woman every now and then walking her ferrets down the street! It was only last night when they joked that he’d be coming to school to help run Whack-a-ferret and wouldn’t it be funny if a real one bit him. He’ll get a proper clean with some Dettol or something tonight and she’ll let me know if it causes any more trouble, so I’m appreciative of her good humour and understanding.

But honestly… bringing a ferret to an Easter Fair…

At least I can add that to my list of ’strangest things I’ve had to tell parents’, eh?

Related Posts: The Ferret Song

Technorati Tags: ferrets, Easter, parents, teaching

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?