Today I stood in front of my Year 10 class. I taught a PD session I had given in a COBIS training session in Beijing where I ''taught a wastepaper bin to whistle''. A bit of magic happened. The key characters in the class reacted and laughed, with one contesting me as desired. Through it I demonstrated the difference between teaching and learning, and urge again the need to think and speak independently. Those who had work hard connected to it.
I have done great work this past month. It is time for me to urge the showing off of my mind and skills. The pain of irksome and lazy and feckless colleagues will not leave. Instead, I will accept and move on, and accept it as tedious rather than influential. Their defiance against ambition should not do more than speed bump the planning of my curriculum. The nuancing of my curriculum will be a planned defiance. I do not require praise or even enthusiasm necessarily. I am here 15 years. It is time enough to stand by my values.
That standing needs to be no more than an expression of my values. I do not need to fight or scream.
I am soon to apply for another job. I have the persona and CV and ideals to find a place interesting. I am to read in a matter of moments, and to power my mind. I live for these thoughts I have spent a lifetime playing with. These people have not eradicated me over the three years I have been here: it was never their intention. I have been. I have flourished in ways. I have lost much in others. I am not yet dead.
Wednesday, 30 May 2018
Such different values met and disdained with resolute acceptance
How can you disdain with resolute acceptance?
I first worked in an English department with nice long flowing schemes of work. They weren't so structured: I remember receiving a raft of materials and no real direction in which to take them. I was only teaching five lessons a day maximum but still I was surprisingly busy. I dedicated much into those lessons and got better.
There is another extreme which I experienced now: absolute efficiency with what I'm teaching at the expense of perhaps much actual thought. It is interesting seeing how our curriculum's spirit is to fit everything into uniform times. Our students are to have six assessment days a year whereby they do nothing but assessments for the entirety of that week.
I know better than the question things too much in place. I questioned to the best extent I could: the decision had already been made.
Right now I know that I cannot stay another year beyond this. 401 days remain. There are many great things here, a gratuity that will total my NET annual wage in the UK when I originally qualified for one. Yet the sources of inspiration are flawed as well. There is a negativity in almost everything done here. Yet... I am learning. I am learning to be with people who respond in ways I find abhorrent, and that is making me appreciate my family much more. No longer can I just attack or withdraw: I can sit and be.
Perhaps most useful at the moment I am reading tremendously well (early in the morning, late at night) and I am looking at better ways of understanding how to write texts. Is this too ambitious? Two NEAs is enough. Give key questions... number them in relation to the paragraph. Show how the paragraphs are broken down.
Rise above all this. Read and let your mind wander. Your training began years ago and is in full flow now. Create reputation and skill and progress and realise my friend that this experience is still not as bad as a trapped Wolverhampton primary school or a desperate Hull embattlement. This pain is not mine to suffer forever.
I first worked in an English department with nice long flowing schemes of work. They weren't so structured: I remember receiving a raft of materials and no real direction in which to take them. I was only teaching five lessons a day maximum but still I was surprisingly busy. I dedicated much into those lessons and got better.
There is another extreme which I experienced now: absolute efficiency with what I'm teaching at the expense of perhaps much actual thought. It is interesting seeing how our curriculum's spirit is to fit everything into uniform times. Our students are to have six assessment days a year whereby they do nothing but assessments for the entirety of that week.
I know better than the question things too much in place. I questioned to the best extent I could: the decision had already been made.
Right now I know that I cannot stay another year beyond this. 401 days remain. There are many great things here, a gratuity that will total my NET annual wage in the UK when I originally qualified for one. Yet the sources of inspiration are flawed as well. There is a negativity in almost everything done here. Yet... I am learning. I am learning to be with people who respond in ways I find abhorrent, and that is making me appreciate my family much more. No longer can I just attack or withdraw: I can sit and be.
Perhaps most useful at the moment I am reading tremendously well (early in the morning, late at night) and I am looking at better ways of understanding how to write texts. Is this too ambitious? Two NEAs is enough. Give key questions... number them in relation to the paragraph. Show how the paragraphs are broken down.
Rise above all this. Read and let your mind wander. Your training began years ago and is in full flow now. Create reputation and skill and progress and realise my friend that this experience is still not as bad as a trapped Wolverhampton primary school or a desperate Hull embattlement. This pain is not mine to suffer forever.
Friday, 25 May 2018
Reading when I am stressed or distracted is the discipline of love
I will admit: I feel stressed and distracted. My mind jumps from one consideration to another, often logistical and base. I yearn for greater purpose and richer stimulation. I am not trapped but certainly wearied from such intellectual pattering. Yet I enthused by the idea that reading under these conditions is love: to calm the enraged attention, and to focus it... this is something that I am drawn to do. And this is something I cannot really do.
Socialising and reading when I don't want to, therein lies the rub. For most of my life, as a confident introvert, I find myself seeking my own attention above all else. For various reasons I have responded to the irks of my family by either attacking or withdrawing. When I played hockey, I literally never sat to share a beer with others – or I did perhaps three times in a year. It seems that I desire to simply reject all else to have a clear run at something that I want or need. This cannot really be my approach, especially at 36. Such things I plan for school don't need to be perfect.
In school at the moment I am spending more time than ever in my classroom. Our departmental staffroom has emptied pitifully, with barely anyone spending time there. When people do, it does not feel particularly friendly or fulfilling. Right now I am not really connecting with the young teachers, nor are the leaders really able to nourish these relationships. We need new blood to arrive, and to arrive soon. Such older teachers might change the dynamic of my current place. Yet I am also aware we have about five weeks before the holidays: so all this is sufferable. There is time to change.
One pattern that has not changed, though, is my focus on intellectual work this weekend. It makes me realise the paucity of my sandy life, especially when I read about how I perceive it. It is a lonely life, and one that does not nourish. It is also a life that I embrace, at least for now. I have to.
So if I am to do some work this weekend, alongside chores of going into school and suchlike, then such endeavours need to be about improving my focus. I want to focus without tiring; I want to concentrate without losing sleeping. In practical terms, this means to read and plan NEA and EPQ essays. I need to do this alongside reading the extensive essay writing books that I have purchased. I need to consider whether I read these on OneNote, or via my Kindle, or both. More interestingly, and more to the point, I want to see how others organise, focus or otherwise, through meditation, study methods, and more.
A dangerous realisation at this point is to be frank about my dyspraxia, and how it affects my speech and organisation, of how I must work so much harder to organise my ideas and more. I will read of this. Of the great resources I saw on the UK Dyspraxia Association website, I read a disclosure agreement from that instructed employers to print documents on blue paper while allocating tasks that are simple and repetitive. Blimey. Their warning of weak auditory memory is something I agree with; this is something from which I suffer. But I strive to operate without dispensation.
So to embark upon this mission of improving my focus in a fruitful and sustained way, I want to work with more visual representations of plans on a frequent basis. I want to move things around. I want to have post-it notes, whiteboards, ideas that can be grouped, and moved, and affected. The digital world has somewhat affected my concentration as much as it might have improved it, without doubt. I want to organise my blogposts a little better; I want to organise my time more visually, too. Can I have all the days ready to tick until I leave? Is that possible? I think so. And more immediately, can I write my MA quicker and with more cohesion.
Following from my last written post on organisation, I want to value focus, concentration and discipline. What I call logistics, and I spit on that emphasis, others might call love. To have greater focus and discipline is not a choice to be made – it is a lifestyle to be embraced. The obstacle of organisation, to expression of will, should be the way.
Tuesday, 22 May 2018
Wrenched from reading into distraction
Last night I looked my index funds. I have made 1500GBP since last July. Minus fees (100 for lawyer, 100 for DHL, 100 for bank fees etc) and we have a 1000 pound passive income this year. That's a grand straight into my account. If I continue this until I am older, then I might retire well. With ten times more in my account, I would have a 10k passive income a year.
More importantly than any of this, I want to be reconciled with friends and family a little more than now.
With that, I want to read and write, and to read and write about something worthwhile. I am continually finding myself needing to clear the decks of marking and other irksome tasks. This will not change in this job. I am also finding that I am not dying of stress, on this ridiculous hill. The texts needed to be sorted out for these exams: with that clear, my eyes and mind might strengthen a little. Both have been unduly wearied from the corporate ravages of this lonely plain.
I want to write my main website as a website to aid others. I want to write book reviews. I want to send emails RE: next year, attaching due information. I want to find all the Year 12 students' emails, and the Year 11 students' emails.
I am interested in how such administration leaks into my perception here. To feel the fear of the Starks, of Catelyn's failed negotiations. To read the richness of others.
More importantly than any of this, I want to be reconciled with friends and family a little more than now.
With that, I want to read and write, and to read and write about something worthwhile. I am continually finding myself needing to clear the decks of marking and other irksome tasks. This will not change in this job. I am also finding that I am not dying of stress, on this ridiculous hill. The texts needed to be sorted out for these exams: with that clear, my eyes and mind might strengthen a little. Both have been unduly wearied from the corporate ravages of this lonely plain.
I want to write my main website as a website to aid others. I want to write book reviews. I want to send emails RE: next year, attaching due information. I want to find all the Year 12 students' emails, and the Year 11 students' emails.
I am interested in how such administration leaks into my perception here. To feel the fear of the Starks, of Catelyn's failed negotiations. To read the richness of others.
Another day of reading and organisation
A happy condition of my time here in the sand is that, at last, at the age of 36, I am reading more than ever.
With the distinct awareness of clashing values, of mine wearing away in the face of corporate indifference and logistical disdain, I come to the voice of books. I feel an intellectual breath expel from my mind and into the force of others. My peers do not need to be those immediately in front of my face. My peers can be those who has spoken and thought before.
A seminal essay which I will finish and publish declares a happy synthesis between the essentialism of organisation and the vibrancy of independence, of spirit. That the way I interact with the world around me, the way I organise myself and the immediacy of my surroundings, speaks of my values. And, for some reason, I have good energy at the moment. Choose life. Choose the degradation of compromising values, sometimes for no good reason other than I must. Choose the physical challenge of modern life, of its incessant distractions and spiritual challenges.
Choose 1500GBP of airline tickets.
Each day I decidedly move through these novels. My mind is realising more of the rhythms of the world through different expert voices. Such expressions of thought and experience mean more to me now than ever: that says far more about my previous naivety than anything else.
With the distinct awareness of clashing values, of mine wearing away in the face of corporate indifference and logistical disdain, I come to the voice of books. I feel an intellectual breath expel from my mind and into the force of others. My peers do not need to be those immediately in front of my face. My peers can be those who has spoken and thought before.
A seminal essay which I will finish and publish declares a happy synthesis between the essentialism of organisation and the vibrancy of independence, of spirit. That the way I interact with the world around me, the way I organise myself and the immediacy of my surroundings, speaks of my values. And, for some reason, I have good energy at the moment. Choose life. Choose the degradation of compromising values, sometimes for no good reason other than I must. Choose the physical challenge of modern life, of its incessant distractions and spiritual challenges.
Choose 1500GBP of airline tickets.
Each day I decidedly move through these novels. My mind is realising more of the rhythms of the world through different expert voices. Such expressions of thought and experience mean more to me now than ever: that says far more about my previous naivety than anything else.
Saturday, 19 May 2018
The finite nature of my time here makes it better
I am living on a day to day basis here in the sand with its finite nature making it more bearable. Since I secured a leadership role in KS5 literature, my time has become much more enjoyable. My thought and values are more likely to be lived into being, and I feel a sense of stimulation and interest that was bereft before.
I have also experienced the undue ire of two younger colleagues. I will perhaps write about the typicality of spiked interaction in a person job. For now, such experiences tap against my heart with undue vigour: my mind, however, seems enjoyably sharp. And it is that focus on the thoughts and reasons for my being and my doing that seem to be both balm against ire and momentum for action.
It is almost 90 days since I saw my mother and took her to Sri Lanka. That was a great holiday; it was an expensive holiday. It was also a holiday where I seemingly do rather little, seized as I was a phone dripping in dopamine. It was some time, now, since I passed the half-way point between that day and the day I leave for summer. More than that, I am only two weeks from a half-way point from my birthday and the day I begin to apply for new jobs. The conformist ossification that has caused me to have both gained and lost part of myself will begin to crack and the teacher and man I more desire to be will step forth unto the world! Or at least, I can enjoy conversations at lunchtime that will stimulate and enrich myself and others once again.
More than this, in only 394 days, I can literally leave this place. With the bereavements I have suffered, and the ways I have responded to ills and pains, I am damn proud of what I have done, and how I hold myself. Whether that can move all the way for me to reconcile with some of my family, we might see: small steps, no expectations.
I have also experienced the undue ire of two younger colleagues. I will perhaps write about the typicality of spiked interaction in a person job. For now, such experiences tap against my heart with undue vigour: my mind, however, seems enjoyably sharp. And it is that focus on the thoughts and reasons for my being and my doing that seem to be both balm against ire and momentum for action.
It is almost 90 days since I saw my mother and took her to Sri Lanka. That was a great holiday; it was an expensive holiday. It was also a holiday where I seemingly do rather little, seized as I was a phone dripping in dopamine. It was some time, now, since I passed the half-way point between that day and the day I leave for summer. More than that, I am only two weeks from a half-way point from my birthday and the day I begin to apply for new jobs. The conformist ossification that has caused me to have both gained and lost part of myself will begin to crack and the teacher and man I more desire to be will step forth unto the world! Or at least, I can enjoy conversations at lunchtime that will stimulate and enrich myself and others once again.
More than this, in only 394 days, I can literally leave this place. With the bereavements I have suffered, and the ways I have responded to ills and pains, I am damn proud of what I have done, and how I hold myself. Whether that can move all the way for me to reconcile with some of my family, we might see: small steps, no expectations.
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
Discipline is a rich for a man poor in connection
I am fat. I am fat and I am tired. I have bags under my eyes and a body that does not work as it once did.
It is time to track my fitness again, I think. To track this as once I tracked my money. It is (sadly!) apparent that yesterday I topped over 3200 calories without really meaning to. The simple act of recording this is, at the moment, enough. My face has puffed out. I will do something about this.
Just doing so meant that I have looked to track my money. To think where I was a year ago, and to see where I am now... I am investing tremendously well. I have gone from essentially 3-5k in the bank in my late 20s to a networth almost unimaginable. I have also enjoyed a fair number of holidays this year and will continue to do so later a bit more.
More than any of this, I feel that I could provide a future for myself and others.
Such future can be rich: the riches come from discipline, of course. I can see myself in a small house in a Northern city writing terrible fiction. With the right partner, I could be travelling and teaching well into my later years.
This is a tough time spiritually for many reasons both spurious and substantial. But in all the ways that matter, I am keeping reasonably and happily focused. Not enough, perhaps - but I will never feel my focus is really enough. I struggle to organise the time of myself and others: it is not the way I have lived. But tomorrow is another day...
It is time to track my fitness again, I think. To track this as once I tracked my money. It is (sadly!) apparent that yesterday I topped over 3200 calories without really meaning to. The simple act of recording this is, at the moment, enough. My face has puffed out. I will do something about this.
Just doing so meant that I have looked to track my money. To think where I was a year ago, and to see where I am now... I am investing tremendously well. I have gone from essentially 3-5k in the bank in my late 20s to a networth almost unimaginable. I have also enjoyed a fair number of holidays this year and will continue to do so later a bit more.
More than any of this, I feel that I could provide a future for myself and others.
Such future can be rich: the riches come from discipline, of course. I can see myself in a small house in a Northern city writing terrible fiction. With the right partner, I could be travelling and teaching well into my later years.
This is a tough time spiritually for many reasons both spurious and substantial. But in all the ways that matter, I am keeping reasonably and happily focused. Not enough, perhaps - but I will never feel my focus is really enough. I struggle to organise the time of myself and others: it is not the way I have lived. But tomorrow is another day...
Much better on a week ahead
Having spent 20 hours working on a study leave weekend, I feel happily prepared for the week ahead; as much as a man could be. It is without doubt that I feel a righteous legitimacy in working hard. And that feeling of being in morally right, of being to set boundaries and express reasons, is remarkably important to me.
Experiencing the aggressive defensiveness of an irksome colleague, I appreciate that my leadership will be in comparison. And in that place is simply hard work and the promise of support, and some little expertise.
I have managed to create a better situation for myself in shark-filled waters.
Speak to me in three days, and then a week, and then let's see where we will find ourselves.
Another day and I am reasonably good. I see and feel how much of my spirit needs nourishing and connection. I also realise how happ(ier) I when I work hard on work I feel is useful.
Experiencing the aggressive defensiveness of an irksome colleague, I appreciate that my leadership will be in comparison. And in that place is simply hard work and the promise of support, and some little expertise.
I have managed to create a better situation for myself in shark-filled waters.
Speak to me in three days, and then a week, and then let's see where we will find ourselves.
Another day and I am reasonably good. I see and feel how much of my spirit needs nourishing and connection. I also realise how happ(ier) I when I work hard on work I feel is useful.
Thursday, 10 May 2018
Beginning Study Leave and The Passions of Schooling
I have been writing for an empty audience: that is, I do not expect a specific person to be reading this. Into that receptive space perhaps forms a faceless other, a person who somehow represents what I think might be of estimable worth. Something, or something, outside the eyes in this skull, beyond the hands of my arms.
Today I felt love for, and from, my students. I have taught for fourteen years, and in that time I have led three forms (exactly!). The latest form I have led are particularly interesting: quite dislocated as a whole yet friendly in their individual groups. Today was the end of year assembly. What should be a relaxed and emotional time was surprisingly full of tension. I found myself surprised by my real desire to disappear and not be judged by the stresses of those who ran it.
Yet it ended with many parents speaking with me about the care I have given their kids: that was nourishing, and perhaps the truest purpose of the day. To show and feel gratitude makes us happy. To show gratitude towards your teacher is to be grateful for your community, and your role within it. A teacher, I say, is the chosen representative of authority, both moral and intellectual and more. This is a role with which I feel comfortable. It is a role in which I take both worth and pride. It is also a role that can be undermined by the corporate system of academies, should such school leaderships impose utilitarian systems of governance.
In the next seven weeks, and particularly in the next year or so, I am tasked by self and circumstance to frame a new A-Level Curriculum. I have some help to do this; I am also expected to do this largely from my own back.
Fortunately, for all my musings and contesting thoughts about this challenge, I enjoy a distinct awareness of my values. I believe in cultural capital and dialects, of argumentation and cultural literacy. I believe in knowledge, and knowing the text. I believe in charisma and engagement and of social power. I believe flipping classrooms only after some knowledge has been gained and somewhat secured.
The reality of planning this curriculum for myself, and in planning for others, means that having something in place, regardless of its final veracity, is essential. Planning for people of varied experience is also particularly tricky, save planning for people who are easy to work with and can adapt as they choose. It is this choice of knowing and planning what to adapt in our teaching that is the key skill. In other words, experienced teachers should be fine with a focus on teaching whatever they do.
Yet even experienced teachers need to continually prove themselves, it seems here.
So what is it to work in a place with seemingly no respect for past glories? It is, I summise, of no real consequence. It is an annoyance. To have a few years of skill, or to read a few books is in itself no replacement for decades of top practice and reflection. Support should be given, yes. But such support given to others should be framed with the same expectations as support I receive: it is not a given, and we must be proactive to receive it.
It is within these last few weeks, and perhaps for a fair few years now, that I've become increasingly aware of the challenges differentiating between my associative thinking and cogent thinking. Today I stood in the learning support room supervising a student for three hours after school with an English mock. Marking for dozens of hours over the past four weeks made me realise just how little attention I have paid to cogency. I know I have suffered real issues with concentration. Perhaps in the place of cogency, and the absolute need to be cogent, I have strengthed my associative muscles, enjoying decades of random thoughts and creative expression. Does this make me powerful? Is this just easier for me? Maybe it is more natural? I have no doubt my mind is made in this made. But in thinking clearly, I am perhaps better able to apply frameworks of thought and value to the world around me.
I struggle to apply frameworks of time to myself, let alone to others. I think those two things matter mutually. I struggle to plan my summers, my days, and social life and more. In its place I enjoy 'going with the flow'.
It is this applying of a framework for the world around us that is important for, above all things, mental health. We cannot, I think, simply have values that WE like that benefit us, and smash them into the situations around us. To an extent, those who are socially powerful and personally secure might be able to impart their values unto others. I must be doing this to an extent to which I am unaware. But such values clash and contrast, and I am not built for conflict it seems.
Such conflict has arisen its head this week with a particularly difficult colleague. Fortunately, they are objectively difficult, having several recorded deceptions and a disposition that is tricky to engage with. If they (gender neutral) get their way in anything, then all is good. Any deviation or debate is met with ire. I was surprisingly affected after conversations with them to the extent that I was happy to allow their values to decide what will do next year: to go along with what they want in order to have an easier life. Yet I am happy that I insisted on at the very least a meeting to discuss the planning for next year: something deeply opposed by the current incumbent but firmly insisted upon by me.
This experience of this particular interaction begs those key questions of what exactly is a difficult colleague? Someone aggressive? Someone bullying? Someone delusional? Someone all the above with weakness? How about the weak colleagues elsewhere? Was not the man who refused to speak to me for the last three weeks of my schooling the weakest of the lot (and his current employment speaks of this)? What are my weaknesses? Am I difficult in my desire to speak and write and think associatively rather than cogently? How should I proceed with this knowledge?
Maybe to become a little simpler in my manner, and a little clearer in my speaking. Especially for these people who need it, and particularly at work.
Which leads me to the real passions of schooling and being a literature teacher - what is it to communicate with others? Reading and discovering what I want to influence me is important. To hear those voices that speak of ideas that I admire is perhaps the single greatest thing I do to attain that clarity; to spend time with those voices is essential. There are remarkably few voices here where I am now that I necessarily want to influence me more than they are now.
What is it to read and write when one lacks social power or connection? To write, ultimately, for yourself, and for that narrow audience. The desire as a child to write a book that would influence wider society (like Shakespeare and Plato) was really the desire to write a book to influence my immediate peers, the faceless mass of others at a university.
And now? I want to write a narrow book that interacts with the world in a particular way. What books do I really like?
These are ideas to speak about; these are the ambitions to have.
Today I felt love for, and from, my students. I have taught for fourteen years, and in that time I have led three forms (exactly!). The latest form I have led are particularly interesting: quite dislocated as a whole yet friendly in their individual groups. Today was the end of year assembly. What should be a relaxed and emotional time was surprisingly full of tension. I found myself surprised by my real desire to disappear and not be judged by the stresses of those who ran it.
Yet it ended with many parents speaking with me about the care I have given their kids: that was nourishing, and perhaps the truest purpose of the day. To show and feel gratitude makes us happy. To show gratitude towards your teacher is to be grateful for your community, and your role within it. A teacher, I say, is the chosen representative of authority, both moral and intellectual and more. This is a role with which I feel comfortable. It is a role in which I take both worth and pride. It is also a role that can be undermined by the corporate system of academies, should such school leaderships impose utilitarian systems of governance.
In the next seven weeks, and particularly in the next year or so, I am tasked by self and circumstance to frame a new A-Level Curriculum. I have some help to do this; I am also expected to do this largely from my own back.
Fortunately, for all my musings and contesting thoughts about this challenge, I enjoy a distinct awareness of my values. I believe in cultural capital and dialects, of argumentation and cultural literacy. I believe in knowledge, and knowing the text. I believe in charisma and engagement and of social power. I believe flipping classrooms only after some knowledge has been gained and somewhat secured.
The reality of planning this curriculum for myself, and in planning for others, means that having something in place, regardless of its final veracity, is essential. Planning for people of varied experience is also particularly tricky, save planning for people who are easy to work with and can adapt as they choose. It is this choice of knowing and planning what to adapt in our teaching that is the key skill. In other words, experienced teachers should be fine with a focus on teaching whatever they do.
Yet even experienced teachers need to continually prove themselves, it seems here.
So what is it to work in a place with seemingly no respect for past glories? It is, I summise, of no real consequence. It is an annoyance. To have a few years of skill, or to read a few books is in itself no replacement for decades of top practice and reflection. Support should be given, yes. But such support given to others should be framed with the same expectations as support I receive: it is not a given, and we must be proactive to receive it.
It is within these last few weeks, and perhaps for a fair few years now, that I've become increasingly aware of the challenges differentiating between my associative thinking and cogent thinking. Today I stood in the learning support room supervising a student for three hours after school with an English mock. Marking for dozens of hours over the past four weeks made me realise just how little attention I have paid to cogency. I know I have suffered real issues with concentration. Perhaps in the place of cogency, and the absolute need to be cogent, I have strengthed my associative muscles, enjoying decades of random thoughts and creative expression. Does this make me powerful? Is this just easier for me? Maybe it is more natural? I have no doubt my mind is made in this made. But in thinking clearly, I am perhaps better able to apply frameworks of thought and value to the world around me.
I struggle to apply frameworks of time to myself, let alone to others. I think those two things matter mutually. I struggle to plan my summers, my days, and social life and more. In its place I enjoy 'going with the flow'.
It is this applying of a framework for the world around us that is important for, above all things, mental health. We cannot, I think, simply have values that WE like that benefit us, and smash them into the situations around us. To an extent, those who are socially powerful and personally secure might be able to impart their values unto others. I must be doing this to an extent to which I am unaware. But such values clash and contrast, and I am not built for conflict it seems.
Such conflict has arisen its head this week with a particularly difficult colleague. Fortunately, they are objectively difficult, having several recorded deceptions and a disposition that is tricky to engage with. If they (gender neutral) get their way in anything, then all is good. Any deviation or debate is met with ire. I was surprisingly affected after conversations with them to the extent that I was happy to allow their values to decide what will do next year: to go along with what they want in order to have an easier life. Yet I am happy that I insisted on at the very least a meeting to discuss the planning for next year: something deeply opposed by the current incumbent but firmly insisted upon by me.
This experience of this particular interaction begs those key questions of what exactly is a difficult colleague? Someone aggressive? Someone bullying? Someone delusional? Someone all the above with weakness? How about the weak colleagues elsewhere? Was not the man who refused to speak to me for the last three weeks of my schooling the weakest of the lot (and his current employment speaks of this)? What are my weaknesses? Am I difficult in my desire to speak and write and think associatively rather than cogently? How should I proceed with this knowledge?
Maybe to become a little simpler in my manner, and a little clearer in my speaking. Especially for these people who need it, and particularly at work.
Which leads me to the real passions of schooling and being a literature teacher - what is it to communicate with others? Reading and discovering what I want to influence me is important. To hear those voices that speak of ideas that I admire is perhaps the single greatest thing I do to attain that clarity; to spend time with those voices is essential. There are remarkably few voices here where I am now that I necessarily want to influence me more than they are now.
What is it to read and write when one lacks social power or connection? To write, ultimately, for yourself, and for that narrow audience. The desire as a child to write a book that would influence wider society (like Shakespeare and Plato) was really the desire to write a book to influence my immediate peers, the faceless mass of others at a university.
And now? I want to write a narrow book that interacts with the world in a particular way. What books do I really like?
These are ideas to speak about; these are the ambitions to have.
Saturday, 5 May 2018
Freedom of expression is not a freedom to be heard
I have written in blogs for almost fifteen years. As time has passed I feel that my writing has been read by fewer people. More than that, I feel less inclination to write. The desire to express and influence through writing has waned tremendously.
In its place is a desire to listen and read.
My reading has fluctuated over these years. My concentration span is riddled. So being healthy and reading and moving is needed. These thoughts do not follow easily - my desire to follow one idea after another cogently
Is being heard a kind of connection? Or should I just express reasons? Just expressing reasons in a place that is contentious is ideal...
I have to decide with whom do I want to connect? When? Why? Should I even make those decisions?
These fragmented posts should serve as a judicious warning for the lonely life abroad.
In its place is a desire to listen and read.
My reading has fluctuated over these years. My concentration span is riddled. So being healthy and reading and moving is needed. These thoughts do not follow easily - my desire to follow one idea after another cogently
Is being heard a kind of connection? Or should I just express reasons? Just expressing reasons in a place that is contentious is ideal...
I have to decide with whom do I want to connect? When? Why? Should I even make those decisions?
These fragmented posts should serve as a judicious warning for the lonely life abroad.
Being poor makes dignity a luxury
Granting dignity to others is something that I live by. Mocking others, denigrating others: this does not sit easily with me.
The environment I am in right now resounds with casual mocking and a distinct lack of love. It is a place that does not nourish. It does not nourish because I cannot really figure out how to get the best of it.
My experience is unduly influenced by a desperately small number of people. And they are the boss of me in a place where I, or at least my vocation, can be threatened. They are the face of the institution. In themselves, they are not people I would follow. Yet as the face of the place that pays me, and the place that threatens to remove me, they need me to bend the knee.
And so the dignity of rebellion comes not without price. To challenge an institution, via its human faces, is to invite bias and ire. Timetables can be changed; classes of unruly students can be manifested. If I am to challenge their rudeness, then I am to accept the consequences. And I do not want to suffer those particular consequences.
And yet, in that rebellion, in that contestation, is the inevitability of compulsion: I had to express my perspective. Such wrongness needed to be challenged. Even though I lack the energy to sally forth from a siege of resigned composure, I fired a few chosen-barbs, coated in kindness and class.
And so a few days later I received a message that acknowledged the cynical degradation. Sadly, and as a sign of how small life can become, I expect these groups-that-cannot-be-left to grow to 999+ messages as they must remain unopened for 409 days more.
This the quiet price of a little dignity.
The environment I am in right now resounds with casual mocking and a distinct lack of love. It is a place that does not nourish. It does not nourish because I cannot really figure out how to get the best of it.
My experience is unduly influenced by a desperately small number of people. And they are the boss of me in a place where I, or at least my vocation, can be threatened. They are the face of the institution. In themselves, they are not people I would follow. Yet as the face of the place that pays me, and the place that threatens to remove me, they need me to bend the knee.
And so the dignity of rebellion comes not without price. To challenge an institution, via its human faces, is to invite bias and ire. Timetables can be changed; classes of unruly students can be manifested. If I am to challenge their rudeness, then I am to accept the consequences. And I do not want to suffer those particular consequences.
And yet, in that rebellion, in that contestation, is the inevitability of compulsion: I had to express my perspective. Such wrongness needed to be challenged. Even though I lack the energy to sally forth from a siege of resigned composure, I fired a few chosen-barbs, coated in kindness and class.
And so a few days later I received a message that acknowledged the cynical degradation. Sadly, and as a sign of how small life can become, I expect these groups-that-cannot-be-left to grow to 999+ messages as they must remain unopened for 409 days more.
This the quiet price of a little dignity.
A teacher who does not read... as much as he should
I history of reading is mixed: I can enjoy many months of deep reading, experiencing gritty fantasy to difficult and abstract realism; often I can go for some months with very little reading of anything of note.
I have read and created the historical framework that should have been established when I was younger.
I have transformed my classroom practice into an emphasis on knowledge and argumentation, not just rhetoric and skills. The clarity of that curriculum I once established in Beijing has melted somewhat under the utilitarian sun of Dubai, but its message remains: understanding different directions of analysis is an apt metaphor.
I feel confident that my next school will allow me the space to create a suitably rich and interesting curriculum. Any English curriculum relies upon teachers, and students, to read fully, frequently and diligently. Therefore, the classroom should be set up to encourage deep reading. Tasks that are too quick are dire - quick reading and moving on too fast... these are anathema to actual thinking.
The strength of my reading, at the age of 36, is that I can call upon a rich landscape of culture both high and low. As a teacher I can direct the attention of my students to many things to stoke interest and, ideally, wonder. To appreciate how folk tales use gore as a manifestation of psychological conflict might link to the narratives that SkySports uses in its Premier League weekly summaries: the revealing of psychological conflict through violent manifestation fits well with themes of repression in literature, especially late-Victorian and Gothic.
Being international, though, makes me aware that most of my reading is digital, and necessarily so. I threw thousands of books upon my departure from the UK. I have purchased and acquired thousands more, particularly classical texts that are essentially free. Such digital reading offers too much choice: I read several books at once. My mind cannot cope with so much choice, and as such my reading becomes somewhat too bitty. More irksome than that, reading from a tablet is difficult - my eyes cannot focus well and I become more tired and distracted than I would like.
So it is with some quiet happiness that I find myself reading more over the past 2-3 years than I have ever done before. It still does not feel enough; I feel should be reading for many more hours than I do. But still I have half a life left to live.
Still I have half a life left to live.
It should be said that literature teachers that do not read intensely, fully, judiciously are an offence to the profession. To set tasks and mark books is a minimum, and a minimum that misses so much. To enjoy colleagues who read and recommend wholly should be an expectation. And I should lead in that where I can.
I have read and created the historical framework that should have been established when I was younger.
I have transformed my classroom practice into an emphasis on knowledge and argumentation, not just rhetoric and skills. The clarity of that curriculum I once established in Beijing has melted somewhat under the utilitarian sun of Dubai, but its message remains: understanding different directions of analysis is an apt metaphor.
I feel confident that my next school will allow me the space to create a suitably rich and interesting curriculum. Any English curriculum relies upon teachers, and students, to read fully, frequently and diligently. Therefore, the classroom should be set up to encourage deep reading. Tasks that are too quick are dire - quick reading and moving on too fast... these are anathema to actual thinking.
The strength of my reading, at the age of 36, is that I can call upon a rich landscape of culture both high and low. As a teacher I can direct the attention of my students to many things to stoke interest and, ideally, wonder. To appreciate how folk tales use gore as a manifestation of psychological conflict might link to the narratives that SkySports uses in its Premier League weekly summaries: the revealing of psychological conflict through violent manifestation fits well with themes of repression in literature, especially late-Victorian and Gothic.
Being international, though, makes me aware that most of my reading is digital, and necessarily so. I threw thousands of books upon my departure from the UK. I have purchased and acquired thousands more, particularly classical texts that are essentially free. Such digital reading offers too much choice: I read several books at once. My mind cannot cope with so much choice, and as such my reading becomes somewhat too bitty. More irksome than that, reading from a tablet is difficult - my eyes cannot focus well and I become more tired and distracted than I would like.
So it is with some quiet happiness that I find myself reading more over the past 2-3 years than I have ever done before. It still does not feel enough; I feel should be reading for many more hours than I do. But still I have half a life left to live.
Still I have half a life left to live.
It should be said that literature teachers that do not read intensely, fully, judiciously are an offence to the profession. To set tasks and mark books is a minimum, and a minimum that misses so much. To enjoy colleagues who read and recommend wholly should be an expectation. And I should lead in that where I can.
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