Lesley is here now - Message Board

I don't castigate my pupils for not liking my subject, I do it because they're bone idle or rude! When "Records of Achievement" replaced the old fashioned reports we had to comment on the positives, ie what the pupil had achieved rather than what s/he hadn't and that's one of the reasons why a lot of teachers now use "comment banks". Personally, I would love to go back to the old, handwritten reports.

Reply #3201. Aug 14 11, 6:09 AM

We weren't rude. My youth was a different planet, and rudeness wouldn't have been tolerated at home or at school. Just bored: or lazy. I was better at the subjects when I enjoyed the lessons and could see the point of them.

I wasn't going to put myself out for a subject that meant learning by rote a load of facts that someone else had already established and published. OK, they would have got more interesting with time, but I didn't know that. I just knew we were expected to make copious notes about countries, capitals and cash crops, and to colour in jellygraphed maps: or to memorise monarchs, deaths and wars, and all their dates; and regurgitate it all onto paper at the end of each term. I couldn't see the point, and I didn't have a teacher who was capable of showing me. I must have been a nightmare pupil.

Fast forward to a report Jonathan brought home. His geography teacher was fuming because not a single child in his class was interested in geography lessons. You wonder if these people ever listen to themselves.

Reply #3202. Aug 14 11, 6:30 AM

Oops meant to ask - what or whom do you teach?

Reply #3203. Aug 14 11, 6:31 AM

I teach English in a high school (11-16), at least it's what I try to do! I also teach some lower school French and Latin along with PSHE and History if there's a need. I'm also a Head of Year, a job I love, but one that can be emotionally draining.

Reply #3204. Aug 14 11, 7:52 AM

Wow - do you have time to sleep?

Ooh I was good at French and Latin! :) Let nobody say that Latin is dead therefore useless. They wouldn't say that if they'd learnt a bit of it.

Being Head of Year is only emotionally draining if you do it properly. (In my humble opinion, based on observing a few Heads of Year whose only concerns were making sure that most of the pupils were alive at the end of the week, and that their salary rolled in at the end of the month.)

Reply #3205. Aug 14 11, 9:04 AM

With the job, the marking and this site, something's got to give - housework:))

Reply #3206. Aug 14 11, 9:08 AM

Yay best choice!

Reply #3207. Aug 14 11, 9:56 AM

Totally agree. The dust will only reappear as soon as you turn your back. Laundry can wait if you wear your jams all day. Eating...well, there is the microwave or you can cook a big batch of food. Sleep....we don't need no stinking sleep. We need....

Fun Trivia!

Lesley, hi. When does amazing son visit again?

Reply #3208. Aug 14 11, 10:32 AM

C30	At Primary School, the Head Teacher wrote on my report, "Ray tries hard to please, but seldom succeeds"............if ever I want an epitaph for my grave, that's it.! Sums up my entire life to perfection! Reply #3209. Aug 14 11, 11:46 AM

Oh, the days when we could write something like that! If I tried that now the parents would be up in arms because no-one is allowed to criticise their children.

Daymare, I think you're very much a person after my own heart. I am still in my jim-jams and I don't care!

Reply #3210. Aug 14 11, 12:09 PM

Jazmee27

I'd love to do that-however, you really can't exercise right in anything but regular clothes, and wearing my pajamas all day would earn me Mom breathing down my back. Honestly, she doesn't understand why I like it on here :(

Reply #3211. Aug 14 11, 12:20 PM

Yikes, trouble from Mom over jams? I understand the exercise part as cleaning does not work, for me, while wearing jams. Laundry does...but that is another story.

Well, they are our Moms and we love them for who they are....

Reply #3212. Aug 14 11, 12:36 PM

Another favourite refrain: "Lesley has ability but does not use it." Scans beautifully, don't you think?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just spent the evening with eight people near home. Got a last-minute (probably spur-of-the-moment) invitation to a barbecue, in a house where a man and his two adult offspring are mourning the death of their wife/mother a week ago.

It was a lovely evening but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like after all the guests had left.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lovely son sent me a text reading simply " Blighty :) " at about three, then slept most of the way back to his girlfriend's house in the middle of Berkshire. He's probably feeling quite wrung out now, and just stayed in the car, with someone else driving, all the way back to their house, and bed. Very wise too!

I don't know when he'll be home, but it should be soon - I hope.

Reply #3213. Aug 14 11, 5:53 PM

"Lesley has ability. She doesn't waste it on silly people who don't see further than the end of their nose".

I was once thrown out of a classroom. Why? Due to a slight the teacher felt. A slight I did not say but it did not matter. My family was not well-to-do and I was a church mouse sacrifice. She was the teacher who allowed me to be backed into a corner, by several girls, and acquire burns from a lighter the girls used in an attempt to get me to 'cry uncle'. I did not cry uncle or aunt or cousin and didn't react one bit until the teacher returned, asked what was going on and when I told her I said, "is the slight you felt, and I did not create, over with now or shall I go home and report this entire incident to my older brother?" So, teachers are not always accurate in their opinions of students. Don't get me wrong, the rest of my teachers were top notch and I adore them to this day.

I picked up a pack of pecan cookies and am very willing to share. I discovered they go well with tea or coffee.

Reply #3214. Aug 14 11, 6:15 PM

I was thrown out of the geography classroom too many times to remember. The teacher would perch on a desk facing the class, cross his legs and light a cigarette, and drone on about - geography, I suppose. I was rarely in the classroom long enough to see if he lit more than one cigarette.

I can only remember one of the reasons I was thrown out - he asked where the River Plate was, nobody spoke, I said China, and the class burst out laughing. It wasn't deliberate but I guess he thought he'd lost face, so I had to go. I don't think he's have minded so much if the laughter hadn't continued for ten minutes. Thank goodness it didn't involve bullying or pain: just one of many geography teachers who failed to engage my interest.

Jonathan got thrown out of a classroom once for falling off his chair. He was a bit bumped and bruised, but most affronted because the teacher hadn't asked him if he was hurt: she had assumed that he'd deliberately fallen off his chair, with the intention of undermining her.

There are better ways to undermine teachers: ways that don't involve the risk of personal damage. And, of course, teachers have their own ways of undermining pupils, generally by the use of routine ridicule and humiliation. I had a lot more respect for almost all of my teachers than I had for most of Jonathan's. Very sad.

Biscuits and tea? Ooh yes please!

Reply #3215. Aug 14 11, 7:15 PM

veronikkamarrz

I remember well the report card entry: "Makes good use of time" and my rather poor grade...:)I did my stuff, and then I read, while others finished. It never seemed to sound like that, but my parents were very understanding!

Hope Jonathan is feeling well...No one but MoM can really make it better.

Reply #3216. Aug 14 11, 7:18 PM

I read through seven years of disparaging reports, culminating in relief leaping out at me from the final page, as the teachers wished me well, because I was GOING! and most them said at least once that my behaviour in class was unsatisfactory - one said foolish - and that my work was rushed or non-existent. I couldn't believe that I had been such a deadbeat, and started to feel cross with the silly girl who had floated through school, and as good as wasted seven years.

One of my parents signed each one, but I can't remember how the reacted to any of them. Actually I can't remember ever discussing any of my reports with either of them.

It would be nice to think that I'm the only person who can really make him better, but the medicines his girlfriend's parents bought him did help, and I wasn't there! The one thing I can do is look after him without his feeling uncomfortable. At least, that's the way I think it works. I hope.

Reply #3217. Aug 14 11, 8:01 PM

satguru

My own reports may have broken records, the rare good ones hid in the few subjects I both liked and liked the teacher. Otherwise I got bored and made a nuisance of myself. But in the long run the reports are pretty pointless as only the exam results get you further in life, and doubt good behaviour automatically converted into good results and vice versa. I had to write reports myself for a few years and the only bit that meant much was the compulsory exam prediction for A level. If I was wrong it was the dreadful influence of those who were only there as their parents thought paying for the 6th form would get them to university regardless. They messed around and held the few good students back. They got low passes, retook elsewhere in the winter and got what I predicted. All the waffle, which was repeated annually direct at parents' evening had no effect as either the parents could relax and leave them to it in which case they could at least hopefully not be nagged, or be nagged and ignore it. The teachers probably had the main opportunity to do the directing and simply scaring them (as some did) or moaning wouldn't improve anyone's performance. At least the teachers could see the areas they were having trouble in and give them tasks directly (which few actually followed mind you). I'm glad I left anyway...

Reply #3218. Aug 14 11, 8:12 PM

My Headmistress told me she was relieved I wasn't staying on at my school's sixth form. She said I was a subversive influence. I must admit to feeling quite proud!

Reply #3219. Aug 15 11, 5:54 AM