Thank God for the Holidays!

-
My first team leader (we called them department heads then) was a very wise woman indeed. She was old school in the best way - firm, fair, supportive and brooked no nonsense from anybody.

She had the perfect response for anybody who said that teachers were lucky to have such long holidays - she agreed with them.

"You are so right - it's fantastic to have six weeks in the summer."

She would pause just for a beat before saying,  "Why don't you join the profession? We need good people like you!"

Without fail, she got the same response. "Oooh no - I wouldn't have the patience!"

This has been my stock response too for many a long year. I still get that response.

Thank God for the holidays - they make doing the job possible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whatever Happened to General Knowledge?

-
Image
I have read several interesting articles recently on the skills vs knowledge debate with seemingly good arguments put forward for each side. For some time now, there has been a bias in education towards skills. Teach kids how to analyse, evaluate and synthesise (for example) and they will then be able to apply and use those skills whenever they are needed in a range of contexts. Focus on the skills, we are told, and you create empowered, confident and independent learners. The knowledge based approach is often presented as being old fashioned - like something out a Dickens novel. Focus on facts in your classroom, and you might as well change your name to Thomas Gradgrind and don an academic gown and mortar board. But here's the rub for me in my classroom: the skills based approach assumes that learners have a knowledge base to use and my learners generally don't. Here are some things I have needed to teach individual learners this week in order for them to make progress w...
Read more

Why getting stuck is a good thing.

-
Image
If teachers could have a pound for every time we hear, "Miss! I'm stuck on..." we could all retire to the Bahamas. Being stuck is uncomfortable - just ask Pooh - it's frustrating and if you stay stuck too long you can start to feel like a failure. So surely as teachers we should make sure our learners don't get stuck, shouldn't we? And if they DO get stuck shouldn't we pull them out as quickly as possible? I'm going to make the case for being stuck being a good thing. Look at it this way, if your learners never get stuck, how do they learn to get unstuck? How do they develop the resilience to stick at something until they get it? Short answer - they don't. The kids I work with get stuck A LOT. They have missed a lot of school for one reason or another and so have huge gaps in their knowledge and skills. They will hit a point every day where they don't know, don't understand or aren't able to do something. They come to us ashamed, ...
Read more

Help Your Students To Stay Calm Through The Exams

-
Image
The vast majority of students will experience stress during the exam season - in fact something would be strange if they didn't. I am not one of these people who think that all stress is bad - just the opposite. For one thing, the modern world is one of deadlines and accountability for most of us and stress goes with the territory. For another, some of what we call stress is actually what motivates us to try hard and to do our best! However, for some students stress gets out of hand, and rather than driving them on, it paralyses them. That is what we must help our students to avoid at all costs. Here are my 4 P's of exam readiness... 1. Preparation It is vital that students not only are prepared, but that they feel prepared for exams. They need to know what each paper will look like, how long to spend on each question and what they are being asked to do. Preparation is about having no suprises on the day. It also means having a plan if things go wrong. I use things l...
Read more