Students - the new matchmakers?

It appears that my year 10 students are intent on setting me up with another teacher... As I mentioned in another post, a couple of students have a home ec assignment where they have to design and execute a 3 course meal and serve it to a teacher. Well 3 of them have chosen me, but I seem to be getting more than just a free feed. The students are dead set on setting me up with a teacher at school, and they're using the lunch they're cooking for me, to invite him too, to set up a romantic lunch... They're (apparently) getting rose petals to sprinkle over and around the table, and all sorts of other romantic mood setters. Thing is, I'm not too sure exactly why me, or why him? I guess were both single and young? Im laughing about it, but discouraging it at the same time, its a little weird. And I cant talk to this teacher without a couple of students coming up and making comments, calling me Mrs XXXX and generally poking fun. But this teacher is encouraging it, saying he cant wait to spend more time with me and hes looking forward to our lunch - which gets ALL the year 10s going! I had them coming up to me today during a class to talk to me about it, the girls were alot more sensible about it but I think they're just caught up in the romance of it all... I think they'd love to see something happen, and they'd love to be credited with setting 2 young single teachers up!

I do have a bit of a soft spot for my year 10s though.. I got warned about them, how they're a pain in the arse, disengaged, really hard work, really low literacy levels and just a struggle to teach... and in some ways I agree but on the other hand these guys have loads of personality and they just need the space to be themselves. This class arent really the studious type, they DO struggle a bit with literacy but they seem to respond well to discussions, talking about everything rather than writing, and not being treated like they're a pain, which I know is how some teachers treat them. These guys dont respond at all to an dictatorship in the classroom. They're 2,5 terms away from finishing school and going into apprenticeships and they have the mentality that school is almost done for them, they're in charge of their lives and school is an almost ended chapter. So getting them to sit down and study genetics quietly is an improbability... I've bribed them with chocolate, I've let them plug an ipod into the classroom speakers and listen to music int he last 10mins of class if they've worked well... and I get something out of them, they try to get some concepts, and they give me the time of day. I laugh with them, I dont take myself too seriously, and I let them much around a bit, as long as they pull themselves together after a few minutes and get back on task... I've also mentioned to them that I know and understand that for their immediate futures, it may be easy for them to think that topics in science are totally irrelevant. I let them know that understanding science is understanding the world they live in, and their own bodies and how they work, but I get it, that for them, at the moment, its not the most important information. I dont expect them to be science geniuses, although I certainly believe that they're capable of more than what they think... and I've told them that when a future employer wants to see their reports, which they likely will if they want an apprenticeship, that they're not going to be looking primarily at their grades or their academic achievements. Its the comments from the teachers they're going to focus on - how does the student work, do they have a good attitude, how do they interact with their peers? and thats what I'm focussed on as well. I want them to have a go, believe in themselves and have enough self respect to participate in class and not be afraid to fail - they shouldn't be afraid to try and grasp a concept and not understand it. If they dont understand it, its not the end of the world, but if they do understand it, great! They've proven to themselves that they've done something they didn't think they could do, which is only a good thing!! The fantastic thing is, that most of my year 10 class are really beginning to understand this. I think. Theyre 14/15 years old, they're going to have off days of course, but they seem to respond well to me, so far, and Im really happy with that.

They respond so well they're apparently taking charge of my love life....hmmm... we'll see how monday goes!

Who's responsible?

It seems to me like, in alot of aspects of life, people are unable to take responsibility for themselves or their actions. Things get blamed on someone else all the time, when in actuality it was your fault. Nothing in particular has happened to me personally to provoke a blog like this, but I was reminded of an incident at school the other day when talking to a friend today. A girl in primary school had, for whatever reason, bought alcohol to school, and given it to another student in the high school. This girl then took it down to the back of school, and then into the girls toilets, and boozed it up at recess, and by lunchtime, was throwing up. She was taken into the office, sat on a beanbag in front of the reception ladies (she wasn't allowed into sickbay because she was so sick she had to be constantly supervised, and the receptionists didnt have time to just sit in sick bay and watch her...) until her mother came and picked her up. Now, on the phone already, the mother had asked if her daughter was really that sick that she couldnt take the bus home after school? Thats some concern right there. When she got there, she ripped her daughter out of the arms of another teacher who was trying to help her walk out the door, and yelled at all available staff about the state her daughter was in, and wheres the duty of care? When leaving, she told everyone within earshot that we would be hearing from her lawyer... This was a really unexpected reaction for me. Other staff weren't surprised because they knew the mother and they were telling me that if I knew this girls mother then I shouldnt be TOO surprised with her actions... When the mother was told that she had been drinking in the girls toilets, and the teacher on duty was male and cannot be expected to check the activities of all the girls going into the toilets, made up some other argument about the schools duty of care to the students. I really have to wonder about the duty of care that this mother is responsible for? I would have thought that before you're concerned with whether or not your child is actually ABLE to get drunk at school, that you might want to educate your child in the fine art of not getting pissed at school. Other students mentioned to me "Who on earth is stupid enough to get drunk at school!?". I agreed, but for this student, there was something going on in her thought process where she either had some delusional idea that she wasnt going to get caught, or that she just didnt care. But the mother was so quick to point the finger and lay the blame on others, for her daughters seemingly obvious mistake. This isnt the first time this has happened, that parents lay the blame on schools or others for their childrens mistakes. It seems that, from a school point of view, that parents are relying more and more on schools to teach their children EVERYTHING, not just academic, but everything from the students knowing right from wrong, morals and values, self respect... I think that as the students spend so much time at school we ARE responsible for a certain amount of education that is not all academic, but morals, values and right and wrong, are the domain of the family, in my opinion... alot of the time its absolutely not the childs fault, as every individual is the product of its environment, and some kids have a really crappy environment to deal with at home. What chance do they have when they get sent to school under the pretense that these strangers, these teachers they barely know, are going to be bringing them up in a sense? Teaching them right from wrong? Who are these teachers trying to tell them that their actions are totally inappropriate, you arent my mother!

Why is a situation like this, only the schools fault, in the eyes of the mother? How is she not able to take responsibility for the action of her 14 year old daughter? Of course the student needs to take responsibility as well, but for the mother to blame only the school seems completely unreasonable to me... and I see it all the time. People are just unable to take responsibility anymore! With the increased prevalence of mobile phones, you dont even have to be on time anymore, because you can call who youre meeting 5 or 10mins before youre meant to meet them and let them know youre going to be late... nevermind that your friend is on their way already and wasnt going to be late, now they have to wait around, because it seems to be instilled in us now, that we dont HAVE to be on time, because we have the ability to let the person know we'll be late no matter where they are. How did we manage 10 years ago when not everyone had a phone? Shock horror, you had to be on time.

Electronic communication is partially to blame for alot of things I think... not so much for the boozy school girl, but for peoples actions, when they felt they couldnt talk to the person involved. There are so many instances of things that happen between people, when asked why, such as cheating, lying etc people have some far fetched excuse to justify their actions. When you hear these excuses its so clear that so many peoples problems could be solved or avoided by talking to each other! But do we anymore? does anyone really spend much time talking? people text rather than call, they use IM programs such as MSN, AIM, skype or facebook chat... they email, or inbox people... its become normal for people to be able to say something to someone via text, email etc but not to their faces. But we still havent lost all sense of decency, there are things that some people realise cannot be talked about over text, but because we've lost the ability to communicate with people face to face things that need to be said, dont get said... it leads to peope doing stupid or careless things which end up damaging a relationship between partners, friends, family... and then come to far fetched excuses behind their actions...

Like I said before, nothing has happened to me directly to prompt such a post, just the things happening around me, the girl at school and her mother, a friends boyfriend cheating on her a number of times with lame excuses... I really have to wonder whats happened to honesty and taking responsibility for yourself and your actions, as well as your children, if you have them...

where the wind blows me...

I've always been a bit of a gypsy, ever since I first when on a student exchange when I was 17, to Germany. Once i discovered there was a whole world out there that I had yet to discover, I was hooked. Life was never the same, if every day didnt hold some form of challenge. Where the wind blows me tends to be my answer when people ask me what my plans are for the next 12 months - "I dont know what Im going to do, Ill end up wherever the wind blows me". Most people who know me, know this will be my answer. I decide for certain once every few months where im going to move to, what Im going to go and how Im going to get there... Opportunities come and go, and if one I like pops up, I pack up and take it.

Thats how I ended up in a small country town an hour north of the capital. Also how I ended up on an island 30mins by ferry off the coast of WA. But that only accounts for the last 7 months or so... Friends often ring me to ask what Im doing on the weekend, or if I want to do something that night, but my answer half the time is that I cant, because Im in Kalgoorlie, or Lancelin, or Margaret River, or somewhere thats NOT home. However I find alot of the time, its really hard to find people to go with me on roadtrips. People are really hesitant to do anything that involves them being too far away from their house, to bail whenever they want to. This is one reason why Im moving around all the time... I find that Im constantly looking to see and do new things, whereas alot of other people around my age are bogged down with life. Their job, garden, new house, renovating said house, kids, dogs, watching their boyfriend play cricket/football/rugby/chess... Which is fine, its probably really nice to be satisfied with staying within a 30km radius of your home, and have everything that interests you within that area. But I just cant do it... So thats the reason for the name of my blog, and ill be writing about whatever takes my fancy. Which is usually music, food, cooking, or work...

I work in a district high school, which means the students can only complete up to year 10, when they are aged 15. There are some students who are able to complete their upper school education, but the quality of education is lower than other schools who offer classes up to year 12, and cost to the school is high. The school catchment area is massive, spanning to the coast, 80km away, including isolated towns and farms where students come from a range of socio-economic and domestic situations. We have rich kids with huge properties and old money, kids coming from culturally desolate "estates" in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but houses, blocks of land and a supermarket. There are students with junkies as parents, students who cant live with their parents because one is in jail and the other one is deemed unfit to parent any of their 7 children, some children come to school on their own, mum and dad passed out on the couch, practically raising their siblings on their own. Some students travel an hour each way to get to school, and arrive tired, hungry and disengaged because their day has started with an hour of starting out the window of the bus half asleep. We have some kids from other countries, mostly south east asian, who are sitting in my classes with electronic translators, because they simply do not understand what is going on, and they have no teaching aide. Some kids come to school, and are a joy to teach, they ask intelligent questions, participate constructively and do their best to learn and enjoy themselves. Other students come to school because its better than being at home, some students get so drunk at recess time, by the lunch break they're vomiting in the toilets, wishing they hadn't taken that rum from the yr 6 kid who didnt really know what they were doing... I have an up and down school, full of good, bad and indifferent kids. But they're kids all the same, they say and do funny things, and life as a high school teacher always yields entertaining stories, which Im sure you're going to hear about!