Two Weeks with the Sleep

I guess I must be still recovering from the trauma of Term 1.
Term 2 wasn't exactly traumatic, but it is always hectic. Four straight weeks of hunting reports is manic and draining. And yes, I could just create a formula, a report by numbers. But I do actually really care about what I write for my students. It is important to me that they (and their parents) have some idea of their progress... I am not wired to write "Billy is progressing well in this class" and leave it at that.

But this is why we get the two weeks. Two weeks to catch up on housework (it took me two and half hours to tidy my desk/dining room table). Two weeks to eat way too much fabulous food (my clothes are a little bit tighter now. I do so love the fact that Sparky can cook!!) Two weeks to make a quick trip to the Big Smoke and remind my Farest and Dearest that I still love them (and in the process drink few too many coffees and glasses of vino). Two weeks to catch up on DVDs and TV (Friday Night Lights, Game of Thrones, Mad Men and starting The Wire? Sounds FAB!!) Two weeks to catch up on registers and programming and planning and marking (but of course there is no bottom of the pile when it comes to being an English teacher!)

So now I am staring down the barrel of Term 3. The business end of My First Advanced HSC Class (I can just imagine them as My Little Ponies... Seriously, I can picture some of them as mauve with lemony yellow hair!!) and a term of football finals and chilly mornings.

Bring it on!!! 

Sometimes teaching isn't just about imparting knowledge and babysitting.

As a year coordinator at The Boy Factory, and also as a human being, sometimes you field lots of hard questions. Mental health. Relationship problems. Social awkwardness.

There are people that say that High School Is The Best Years Of Your Life. I feel pity for those people. Because if those years of uncertainty and horror and confusion and being in a perpetual state of judgement are the best in their lives, then I am thinking they never had the unbridled hedonism of university, the enormous self satisfaction that directing a play can give, the excitement, adventures and break from reality that happens in overseas travel...

School can be shit.

And this week I have found two things that I can use to help me understand/remember.

Triple J has bounded into the trend of the It Gets Better movement:

And Allie at Hyberbole and a Half has created a beautiful and haunting exploration of her own battle with depression: Adventure in Depression

All people have the bad times. Even, no wait, scratch that, especially kids.

Teacher Geek

This arvo I have been totally Teacher Geeking out. Trawling twitter for teachers to follow. Discovering blogs. Finding resources. Signing up to edmodo.com.

And rediscovering Wordle!!

Here is my current Wordle for The Mixed Metaphor!! I wonder what it will look like in a year's time? A month? A week?

The Strangest of Choices

Who'd be an English teacher?

When Trial time comes around, Year 12 kiddies freak out a little (if they give a crap) about a simulation of the HSC experience.
And some teachers bauk at the amount of work that involves for us. Set the exam, copy the exam, check the exam, supervise, collect... and MARK.

There is a certain amount of envy I have for elective teachers. Art has 10 students. Geography has 5. Granted, those teachers need to mark all sections of that one paper.

I still have fifteen essays to go.
 In 2 weeks I have marked 95 essays.
A total of 110.
There is only so many times you can write You have some interesting observations of the text here, but you need to work on your essay structure. Greater focus is required on techniques and how meaning is created. Always ensure you include a direct quote from the text to support your ideas.

HSC students, let that piece of information be a guide to all essays you write for English. I may well just get it tatooed on my arm. Nah, probably not, it is permanently etched on my brain as it is.

Sell Sell Sell!!!!

Sometimes, as Mother to 110, you spend vast chunks of the day talking to teachers, counsellors, executive staff and SAS about students. Some days it is one specific student. How you can get him to break a pattern of behaviour, how you can get him to build some positive feedback and positive experiences in his life. Some days there are so many emotional coins invested in someone that when that individual (and sometimes you need to be reminded that he is just a child) tries very hard to push you away, to openly and publically disrespect you, to demonstrate that he is "doing alright" on his own... It smites a fair bit.

Last night felt a little bit like an Emotional GFC. My wise and very experienced mother told me when I started teaching that she has seen a pattern of female teachers taking the experiences of teaching far more personally than the male members of staff.

And I KNOW it is not personal. I KNOW it is written into the job description that a 14 year old boy must be emotionally stunted, must challenge authority and push boundaries. But in a vulnerable moment, I was exposed.

This morning it feels quite difficult to get back into the middle of that educational and emotional stock exchange. If I could just store all my emotional banknotes under my mattress, and take only apathy into the work place, there are times when I would.

"This Week". Or "Bad Poetry that is Not Well Thought Out". Or "I'm Tired."

Radio silence again.

Here is why.

Monday.
4 periods.
90 min staff meeting of being told what a shit job we're doing.
2 hours of report writing.

Tuesday.
6 hours of school.
45 minute welfare meeting.
2 hours rehearsal for closely pending play.
1 hour report writing.
Basketball.

Wednesday.
6 hours again.
4 periods again.
Piecing together emotional boys and refereeing minor conflicts.
2 hours rehearsal for closer pending play.
2 hours reports.

Thursday.
6 hours school.
Cancelled soccer training - one hour of Me time to chase the B Team before their player numbers increase.
3 hours duty.
2 hours report writing.

Friday.
4 hours of class.
2 hours of soccer training, but not my team.
1 hour of game, U14s vs the Privos from Up The Hill.
5 hours of watching/supervising football in various codes.

On morning TV
A giggly blonde woman said
That if you work more than 11 hours a day,
you are 64% more likely to have a heart attack.

Bring on Europe!

Travel Plans

Warning: Serious First World Whinges may be contained in this post.

Week 9 in an 11 week term is pretty brutal. The kids are tired, the staff are exhausted. But there is too long left in the term to down tools, and there is not enought juice left in the tank to keep powering along. (Too many mixed metaphors?) My general state of busy is demonstrated by how damn long it has been since I posted anything...

So how do I distract myself from the dramas, traumas and fairly insignificant whinges of the end of term?

Travel Plans.

Usually at this time I would be building in excitement and anticipation of giggles at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Catching up with old friends, drinking my body weight in amazing coffee and transporting away from The Boy Factory through the magic of standup comedy. And this year, as the sun sets earlier, and the days of blasting heat are beginning to abate, thoughts of Melbourne keep arising. It's almost Pavlovian.

But I'm not headed to Mexico City this year. Despite the fact that I was promised an AFL game, and despite the fact that there are new tiny friends to meet. And it's because 2011 has some richer variety of travel plans.

First jaunt, Easter - The East Coast Blues & Roots Festival. Or Bluesfest.

The lineup is cracking. Bob Dylan. The Cat Empire. Elvis Costello. Clare Bowditch (she doesn't know it yet, but I have a mad girl-crush on her)

I haven't been to this fabulous festival for YEARS. Possibly since before I turned 18. It is a tradition for the extended clan, and there is a tribe of folks from the Big Smoke making the trek all the way to Byron town. And they have a HOUSE booked (read: hot shower & actual bed). It won't be a cheap weekend, by any stretch. But if I keep control of my pennies, it shouldn't have a huge impact on The Big Trip.

Ah, The Big Trip. When my head teacher mentioned a senior history excursion to the battlefields of Europe, my first question was "Yes?"

We go to Gallipoli, Ypres, the Somme and Paris. Then I have taken a sneaky week off to flit up London to see some of the best people I know. Plus some theatre, some warm beer and an extra week of "summer" in my year. Right now I am using this trip as my crutch - when the weight of being Mum to 110 becomes a bit too much, when the pile of marking threatens to smother me alive, when the piles of disorganisation on my desk in the staffroom are in danger of toppling over into a lava flow of unfiled paperwork, I get quotes for travel insurance. Or check prices on flights and train trips. Or research what plays are on at The Globe for 5 quid.

I was last in the UK in 2008, for The Best Thing Humans Have Ever Invented Ever, usually referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And my time with The A Team and new friends there was brilliant. Hard work, and hard on my liver (seriously, I still don't think I have recovered). I am just a few weeks early this year, and so I will miss TBTHHEIE. A shame, for sure.

The excitement is building for this looming trip. It is my distractinator for sure.

Physics in action.

And I'm an English teacher.

I was never much good at Physics at school. I am ashamed of how little I know about amps and watts and terminal velocity (other than the Wesley Snipes film, which is appauling).

But I seem to recall a little pithy piece of information from the dark recesses of my Physics memory.

It is more difficult to gain momentum, than to keep momentum.

As in Physics, so in life.
This week (and it is only Tuesday, mind) has heard me tootling along in my off-key voice "The first week is the hardest," bastardising Rod Stewart for my own ends. And it is. I know we teachers get great masses of holidays, but I firmly believe they are earned. We work damn hard those weeks that we are on, and we do a job that The Haters wouldn't touch with someone else's tax file number.

And nobody likes that Back To Work feeling, post blissful summer. Not the Boys, whining in their trussed up ties. And not the teachers, with their soon-to-be-faded thong tans on their feet.

Don't get me wrong, the prospect of being back in a classroom is exhilerating. And the notion of My First Ever Drama Class has me excited out of my skin. But as much as I love my job, "It's always better on holidays." Thanks Franz.

2010 - The year that was

This has been a pretty roller-coaster kind of year. In the style of ACA, lets have a look, shall we?

January - 2 weddings in the sun, and a few weeks in Bondi. My relationship with Sparky was just new, and exciting and full of promise. The Festival, otherwise known as the West Bubblefuck Country Music Festival was full of dancefloor fun, and far too many bottles of Pure Blonde to be healthy. The Basics, Bob Evans and The Bushwhackers were highlights. The lack of school for the month was also a sparkling gem. Won the Guess the Hottest 100 comp at Sparky's Hottest 100 party. Competitive? Moi?

February - Possibly worked the hardest in this month. New Year 7s asking fifteen bajillion questions, and constant supervision, distraction and conversation for Boys away from Home, finding their feet at The Factory. Got incredibly sick in Week 4, followed by year 7 camp in Week 5. Tried to compete in Oscarsfest, but failed rather dismally (still blaming West Bubblefuck cinema for being so crap). Joined a basketball team, The Flames, in C grade of the West Bubblefuck Basketball comp, kind of made me feel like a local?

March - Slightly less manic than the first half of the term. Got my PERMANENT JOB!! Feeling very validated and grown up, and a little bit like all my hard work had paid off. Bought my couch, my first piece of proper real grown up furniture. Took an hour and a half for the delivery guys to get it into my lounge room. Neglected to tell them that I had negotiated for free delivery... The start of my beloved Couch Time. Cruised on in to Easter. The start of football try outs, the debating team kick off - or the Boy Factory First IV. Won most of the games with The Flames.

April - Turned 30. Felt exceptionally good about it. All grown up (new permanent job), all loved up, and all liquored up. Fantastic party at The Coast House, with a dozen or so of my closest friends converging for a BBQ and prawns, and a few frosty beverages. The night before party of curry, carrot cake and 30 year old port was also a blast. Sprained my ankle with The Flames - changed direction without telling my feet I was going to do so. Trip 1 to Melbourne for The Comedy Festival, slightly more hobbly than wandery due to ankle injury.

May - Slightly swamped at The Factory again. So much so that I have little memory of May at all. A weekend in Sydney. More basketball, more Sparky time, more Couchtime. The Mighty U14s kicked into gear and started playing like a team of teammates, which is just what a Supercoach wants. Games of local rugby in the freezing cold

June - The World Cup, and the ensuing sleep deprivation that goes along with it. A lot of bandwagon jumpers to the round ball game, and overnight experts in team configeration. Henry broke down in the drive thru of Oporto. The Flames won the C grade basketball grand final, but I damaged my rotator cuff in the semis.

July - More delicious school holidays. A trip to Sydney to celebrate the success/birthday/bon voyage of good friends. Read the Chaos Walking trilogy, and excellent book decision. Became addicted to MasterChef, despite my own desire not to. The Flames were promoted to B Grade, but I wasn't playing due to my body falling apart. More football Supercoaching, more rugby games.

August - Got to see my favourite Shakespeare play performed by my favourite Shakespeare company playing at the West Bubblefuck theatre - and love it. Got flooded in at The Boy Factory as the drought of the past 10 years decided to break with great vengance. More football. Started a list of 100 things that make me smile. Finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy, and wished it was more than 3 books, a la Douglas Adams.

September - Supervised 2 dances in one week. No-one busted drinking on my watch. Saw my cousin get married, and nearly cried making a speech. Finished writing the list of 100 things that make me smile (100 is a big number! It took some time!). Got to hang out with The B team. Made a return to the court with The Flames, but tentatively - fitness an issue, and plagued by injuries. Mighty U14s narrowly lost GF, 1-0. A sad but proud Supercoach, here. Powderfinger, superb  Aussie band, started their farewell tour, including a brilliant night in West Bubblefuck, despite what the cynical locals say. Brought to tears by Bernard and the boys. Drowned a little in report writing. End of Term 3 insanity with Year 12, including the Annual Staff v Students Soccer Match and the Formal. Big month.

October - Marking marking marking of Year 10 trial exams. Sheesh. Almost total holiday wastage. Brilliant few days for Trip 2 to Melbourne with Little Red, with the excuse of seeing Tim Burton's exhibition at the ACMI. 80s dress up party for by boss' 40th. I looked AWESOME as Dana from Ghostbusters. Year 11 Leadership Camp. More report writing.

November - Not one single blogpost. Drowning in report writing. HP7 came out. Road trip with The O Team to see the Ultimate Powderfinger concert in Brisbane. Informed that I would FINALLY be teaching a DRAMA CLASS in '11, tres excitement. Quick trip to Sydney under the guise of learning to be an English teacher. Also a brilliant excuse for tax deductable flights to a Mad Men party - the birthdays of several excellent friends. Took Year 7 camping - like PROPER camping, in tents and stuff - by the side of the river.

December - River we were camping beside flooded, camp moved at midnight on day 2 and evacuated on day 3. High stress situation. Grandfather died. Took year 7 on tour to Dubbo, which was flooded. Sparky's mum died. Got close enough to a giraffe to touch it (but didn't because it was against the rules) but patted a wombat. Came home from Dubbo early due to flooding/weather. Fardy's funeral. Family friend died. Sparky's mum's funeral. Wagged presentation day. Family friend's funeral. One year anniversary understandibly ignored/forgotten. Well earned holidays. Caught up with friends who flitted home from OS, including engagement party. Enormous Christmas with Paternal Tribe. New Year's Eve long weekend with burgeoning Chosen West Bubblefuck Tribe.

And now I am here.

The answer

Some time ago, I used this blog as a place to vent some bile about a nasty teaching experience. And within that post was the oft asked question, 'Why do you want to teach?'

This question has been raised and answered so often in the positive in the last few weeks.

I had my first ever Pracky (trans: Practicum teacher - student teacher, trainee teacher). And she was BRILLIANT. The kind of person who walked into the classroom with confidence, with enthusiasm, with drive to make the next hour of the students' lives engaging, rewarding and productive. Having a Pracky can be a bit draining, can be a bit disheartening. But this Pracky inspired me to reinvigorate my teaching, to reinvent the way I look at texts and learning.

Plus this has also been the season for letting go of the big kids - Year 12 have done their English papers and are beginning to pack up and leave The Boy Factory for good. Seeing the fellas that I have been teaching since they were in Year 10 finally get the idea of how to write an intro, finally let the penny drop about what anthropomorphism is (and how to spell it), and finally drop the facade and ask for help with drafting a practice response... Let's just say it is Rewarding.

I teach because I love it. I'm not in it for the big bucks (HA!), and I am not in it "for the power" as one of my not-so-wise students last year thought it might be. I don't do it for the 11 weeks of holidays (though I was told yesterday that part of our IR agreement takes into account the fact that only 4 of these is considered annual leave - the rest is meant for prep and time in lieu for all the out of hours marking/reporting etc). I don't do it for the cruisey hours - I've done 9-5 and it is far far cruisier.

I actually love building a relationship with my students. I like the fostering of mutual trust. I love the idea that I can trust them (I rarely lock my door, despite living on site with 400 teenage hoodlums) and I like that they can trust me enough to bring me their crises and their deeper questions.

I am going to try to remember to re-read this post the next time one of them hurls a choice four-letter word at me. Or the next time a parent accuses me of being incompetent or unapproachable. Or the next time some doofus (whose only experience of school is hating it when he/she went there) slags off the laziness or the fiscal demands of teachers. Or when I feel like I am drowning in the marking/report writing/prep, and am in serious need of a snorkel.

Hooray for loving my job!!!

When Flood Damage(s) is a good thing

Just a few weeks ago, The Boy Factory was flooded in. As in, both roads to the "civalisation" of West Bubblefuck were completely cut off. Drive through at own risk, of being swept off the road, of having car impaled with debris, of forfeiting any insurance you might have... of being booked by the watchful constabulary.

Fortunatley I was all stocked up in the fridge. And with my beloved espresso machine, my caffeine addiction was sated. No Supercoaching, no Saturday morning omelette at The Toothie. Last year the Mighty U13s didn't miss one game due to weather. We did play our semi-final in a dust storm... This year it seems like we have only played half the season. Droughts and flooding rains indeed!

But the vindictive wealther finally gave me a chance to devour the highly recommended Damages. So many people have told me how good this show is, that I had already purchased both available seasons. And once I started watching, there was just no stopping me. Season 1 was consumed on Saturday, and 80% of season 2 was gobbled up on Sunday.

Set in NY city, in the cut-throat world of corporate law. The show focuses on the relationship between the meglamaniacal Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and the rookie lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne). The performances from these two incredible actresses are phenomenal, these characters stay with you, and colour the way you see the world for days afterwards. If I had have been at the mercy of Channel 9, having to wait a week between episodes, I may have gone insane with these two women in my head the whole time.

The structure is non-linear - starting with a flashforward and skipping between timeframes. The viewer sometimes knows much more than the characters, but is always asking so many questions. Why is Ellen covered in blood? Did she get attacked? Was she the attacker? Was Patty behind it? Every little piece of information given is both satisfying with the questions that it answers, and frustrating in the further question marks that are created. The fact that there is not a mysterious smoke monster or strange loops in the time-space contiunuum makes this show infinitely superior to the drawn out and convaluted Lost. Instead, at the end of each season, most questions are answered. Most character arcs are complete, with just enough open-endedness to spark up interest for the next season.

The powerplay between the Mentor and the Novice is central premise of each season. Trust and Power and Intention and Motivation. Whether the end justifies the means. This is not just a fluff-piece - the martini-swilling teenagers of Gossip Girl's NY are not here. There are slight parallels to The Devil Wears Prada, and seeing as I always have to think twice about the distiction between Close and Streep, I think those parallels are quite fitting. In fact, doe-eyed Byrnes is a little bit matching with doe-eyed Anne Hathaway too... But this is not the overly feminised world of fashion we're talking about here, but the masculinised realm of corporate law.

Gender is not something that is explicitly discussed, but the Woman In Power = Bitch is an idea that is played with - supported, subverted, questioned and affirmed. Whether or not a Woman Can Have It All. Patty Hewes sees herself as a failure as a mother. Incapable. Not wired that way. She is pretty discouraging of Parsons' engagement, and of motherhood in general. And maybe the fact that the show has been created by three blokes is reasoning behind this.

There are some other social commentaries throughout both seasons. Corporations are inherently evil, money grabbing bastards. Energy companies are manipulative and corrupt, with little regard for consumers or the environment. I imagine Season 3 has an equally topical case to chase down.

I can't believe I left this show on the shelf for so many months. Entirely addictive TV!!

Olivia, Viola, Malvolio. Oh my!

Lots of people have an opinion on Shakespeare. Mostly what they think is fairly non-complimentary (unlike bar nuts. They're complimentary), lots of "I never like all that Shakespeare mumbo-jumbo" or the irony of "it's all Greek to me." And then there are those who think that all we should teach the kiddies is Shakespeare because it is a 'classic' and therefore worthy of the classroom. (Thank you Miranda Divine. I kinda hate you too, just so you know.)

Teaching The Bard is challenging, and interesting, and difficult, and fun. Getting a bunch of Year 9 kids to read a scene from R&J and go "ah, I get it!" is joyous. Having the ratbags of Year 10 perform a scene from Macbeth in original language, but the context of surfer gangs a la Bra Boys is elating. Having Year 8 guys say "Miss, that sounds dirty" about Kat and Petruccio's Sting conversation, and assuring them that indeed they are interpreting it correctly - in the dirtiest way possible. (Funny thing is, the new Child Protection Policy, Keep Them Safe explicitly states we are not supposed to speak to students using double entendres or sexual innuendo. How is it POSSIBLE to teach Shakespeare without these, my favourite features of the English language?)

Every English Teacher and Shakespeare fan has a different favourite. Some like the tragedies, with the blood and guts and gore and raped women with no hands and no tongue. Some like the comedies that aren't funny at all, they're just called comedies because not everyone is dead at the end. One my colleagues likes Henry V  for the epic speeches. Another likes R&J for the epic love story.

And my favourite is Twelfth Night.

It has all the usual golden moments of mistaken identity and twisted genders, disguises and deceptions, suspension of disbelief as small crowds stand directly behind someone, unseen and unheard. Shafts of double entendres (can we make 'shafts' the official collective noun for double entendres? any other suggestions?). A slightly unrealistic storyline, based on shipwrecks and true love. And a subplot about punishing the puritanic do-gooder for being a party pooper.

One of the drawbacks about living in West Bubblefuck, as I have bemoaned before, is the general wasteland of culture that we have. Our cinema is almost strictly a diet of blockbusters and romcoms. Previous to this year, the theatre scene has really only consisted of the local musical and dramatic societies murdering the scripts of modern classics. But since the opening of our very own theatre, the wasteland is beginning to look a little more colourful.

And one of the blooming cactus flowers was the touring production this, my favourite Shakers play, done by none other than Bell, Australia's most fabulous Shakespeare company. I saw the show last night, and LOVED it.

Bell always does wonderous things with context and modernisation. Created as a play, within a play, it is set within the context of Black Saturday. They have incorporated modern songs, sung a Capella or accompanied by acoustic guitar. Performed around an enormous pyramid of donated clothing, in which they find all the required props and costumes to create the story, and distract them from the devastation and loss and grief that has burnt through their lives.

As usual, they have imaginative dramatic devices to get around doubling-up actors (little bit of mime, little bit of half-worn costume... and a bell) and quick escapes by helicopter (tiny little model on a fly, dressed in miniature costume). The greatest uses of boxes since my brother and I made our baby brother a bat cave for Christmas out of a fridge box, used as disguises, as armour, as a gaol...

With a star turn from the very delightful and hysterical Ben Wood (last scene camping it up as a butch Emcee in NUTS production of Cabaret... OK, he has done other stuff since, but that was the last time I saw him on stage), I was privileged to have seen this production. If it comes near you (and it is pretty much going EVERYWHERE), you should go see for sure!

NB/ How can this be the FIRST post I have made about theatre? When I have been such an addict to the stage for such a long time? Evidence of the cultural wasteland, I suppose...

Opining on Opining.

Everyone blogs for a different reason. A very wise friend told me that, and she blogs about food. I tend to blog as a vent for the opinions that I can't seem to restrain, whether the world wants them or not. One of my star Year 12 boys said to me recently, "Miss, do you have an opinion about EVERYTHING? Maybe we need to get you a notebook so you can write it. Or maybe you need one of these blog thingys."

Thanks boys. Maybe I'll do that...

Up: Where it belongs?

The format for the Oscars Best Film has changed a bit this year - it's now TEN films nominated rather than the usual 5. Which means the decision is going to be even more difficult in the Oscars Fest is going to be even more tricky.

The curliest of all those contenders thrown in is Up. Not just nominated for Best Animation, but also 'up' (teehee) for Best Film. Wow. Has to be a pretty awesome film in its own right, right?

What with the insanity of this last twelvemonth - both in a good/fun and and manic/work kind of way - I missed Up at the cinema. Lucky Sparky has such a similarly avid addiction to DVDs as I do, so his collection has come to the rescue.

The English Teacher in me screams "BELONGING TEXT!!!!". It begins with the love story of Carl Frederickson meeting his childhood sweetheart, and later wife Ellie. Their childish obsession with adventure and exploring unites them immediately, and keeps them together throught the duldrums of suburban life until her death. And that is all in 15 minutes.

Retired baloon-seller Carl is alone and eldery, and disconnected from the escalating skyrises around him, and he's feeling the pressure to shut himself into a retirement home to make way for the urban sprawl. He hatches a plan to use his house as a blimp to sail to South America - powered by helium baloons.

He reluctantly collects a band of followers - a boy-scout named Russell who happened to be on the porch of the elevating house, and who is lacking a father figure in his life. They also find Kevin, an exotic local bird and Dug, a hunting dog empowered with speech.

I would hope that my Year 12 boys could see the messages of Belonging in there - That Our Relationships and Friendships Are More Valuable Than Our Possessions. That Finding A Sense of Belonging Gives A Sense of Purpose & Identity. That The Places And People We Feel We Belong To Are Not Always The Only Choices We Have. But I am not holding my breath. Hopefully they will get there by November...

It is a brilliant animation. And a very good film. But it isn't going to get my pick in the Oscars Fest.

Mother to One Hundred And Ten

Taking the gig of Year Coordinator for year 7 at the Boy Factory I knew was going to be a big job. Everyone told me it would be huge. I was prepared for it to be epic, large and difficult.

Turns out not prepared enough really.

There is little one can do to prepare for the onslaught of the incessant questions of 110 inquisitive boys. And less to brace one's self for 16 crying, homesick boys. And their teary mothers with their stretched-to-breaking-point umbilical chords on the telephone.

It has been all big days and heaps of walking up and down stairs. Answering about a million questions a day, and telling boys to go to the dorm, leave the dorm, tuck their shirts in, eat their food, and where the classroom is.

And telling a cherub faced boy that there is no way he can get out of coming to Yr 7 camp in a few weeks and watching big fat tears spill onto his cheeks was just too much, and it made me cry too.

22 days til they go home for the weekend. But who is counting...?

Big Decisions

I'm really quite bad at decisions. It is the inner commitment-phobe. The one that doesn't like options getting shut off, doors being closed, opportunities being missed. I hate decisions. I like having choices.

I got offered a job opportunity at The Boy Factory last week. It wouldn't make me a permanent employee (yet), but it would make me a fairly permanent fixture at the Factory for at least the next 6 years (if I wanted it). I agonised over it all over the weekend. Questions raised of what I want to do with my future, where do I want to be...

The problems with living in West Bubblefuck don't really extent much beyond the fact that I really find it difficult to live with my parents. Sure the cinema is rubbish, the theatre is only starting to take off now and there are some pretty decent cafes. I have actually found some new friends (sounds so lame, right?) and am feeling like I am connecting to the community a bit with the Mighty U13s.

And there isn't really anywhere else I would rather be. I don't really want to live in Sydney. I can't get a job in Newcastle - because that is where every other bugger wants to work. The other coastal centres where I have mates seem to have withered on the friendship vine or they are ab out to leave themseleves.

So I decided to stay. I am the Year Coordinator for the Class of 2015. And the people high up in the Boy Factory have promised to find me almost permanent work for that time.

The World Game

I love sport. For some reason, I got all the sport loving genes, and my little bro got none. At all.

I love to watch sport, to play sport (but only with a round ball), to talk shit about sport (and attempt to keep up with the sport-shit-talking athletes that are my friends).

And while I think that Australia, and more specifically The Boy Factory, puts too much credence on Sport in general, I do think it is important. It is a pretty amazing feature of our culture. A unifying force in a community. Sport has the ability to create a sense of Belonging (there's that word again...), a sense of family, a sense of common purpose. And yes, it is a crutch that we as a young nation lean upon too heavily to define ourselves. And yes, there are many other facets of our culture and our community that deserve as much or more airplay than sport does.

But I still love it.

And the game I think I love the most, is the Real Football. The one you play with your feet. The World Game. Soccer.

I was once a Sweeper for the Avalon Open Womens seconds team (and later played this for Baxter College girlies). I have never had a huge amount of pace, or ball skill. But I like to think I made up for this in determination to defend - which I can't seem to summon in attack (turns out I work better under conditions of desperation) - and my ample voice - and ability to boss people around.

One of The Most Disappointing things about moving Back To West Bubblefuck is the fact that there is NO women's soccer comp. And while I always talk about West Bubblefuck being a backward hick town (as, indeed, I am right now), I actually think it is big enough to support at least one division of women's football. (Yes, there is a mixed indoor comp, which reminds me I should try to reconnect with that...).

And in order to get a fix of football in my life, I am the Proud Coach of the Mighty Under 13s, who are actually not doing all that badly considering they haven't played together very long, and they don't play as a team until about half way through the second half. I love my boys, and I love prowling the side line on a sunny winter's day, belowing instructions. Even if it does mean a death to weekends away for duration of the season.

West Bubblefuck, and again, in particular, The Boy Factory, doesn't hold Soccer in the highest of esteem. It is "the pussy sport", "the girly game", "faggot ball". This same level of scorn is only reserved for gAyFL. Not only does it show their small mindedness when it comes to sports of the less ruck-and-maul nature, but it also reveals their less-than-latent sexism and homophobia.

The only other fix is watching the game on tele. And seeing as pay tv is a bit like a dirty word in our house, I can't watch the A League. And bloody Fox poached the World Cup Qualifiers from SBS, thwarting my democratic right to watch my national team play.

They have never been a pretty team to watch. Scrappy and argy-bargy with barely a tenuous hold on the ball everytime it comes their way. But I love them anyway. I missed the Qatar game, mostly because it was after my bed time. And I missed the Bahrain (sp?) one because I was exhausted, it was the middle of Report Hunting Season and our family fleet of cars was so depleted that I couldn't get into town to a pub if I wanted to.

So then we played Japan. The Rivals of the Pacific Rim. And despite the fact that friends to accompany me to the pub are fairly thin on the ground in Tamworth, I was determined to watch it. So I took my dad to the Longyard for an overpriced steak, to sit in front of a flat screen to watch the game.

We were the ONLY ones watching it in the first half. For the first 15 minutes, we couldn't get a picture for more than 2 and a half minutes at a time, interspersed with info screens about faults of smartcards of some bullshit. Faulty Austar smartcards (misnomer, anyone?) would NEVER happen during a Socceroos game. But in backwaters like West Bubblefuck, the chances of watching Your National Team play one of the other biggest teams in Asia (cause we're in Asia, now, didn't you know?) whittle away to zilch. Finally Dad got the ex-student from behind the bar to accost another customer into solving the problem.

And the game was as I expected. Scrappy. Messy. Frustrating. A little bit like watching the Mighty U13s, with the big kicks forward to nobody, and the honeypot bunching. Japan were a better team on the day. Our goals were incredibly lucky, with Timmy Cahill - or as Pim calls him The Phantom, or as my Sidekick Supercoach says "he deserves a lycra suit and a cape and a big S on his chest" - being in the perfect place at the perfect time with the perfect hit.

But then the Japanese goal was similarly lucky.

I went home a happy little soccer fan.

Let's hope tomorrow brings a similarly happy soccer Supercoach!

Snot Factory

One of the nastiest things about being a teacher is being exposed to germy germy children. On top of coughy family and sniffly workmates.

Casa del Levy has been swarming with nasties, seemingly for about 10 weeks now. The Brother, The Father and Myself seem to be passing infections with the athletic precision of the 1st XIII that are so revered at The Boy factory.

The English staff at said Boy Factory has been similarly sharing, almost to a point of proving that Communism can actually work in practise.

This is the 3rd time in about 8 weeks that my own personal Snot Factory has been producing round the clock, quality grade product. I'm pretty much over it. I even had the day off school yesterday.

It is certainly one of the bug bears of the job...

Die Welle

It is not often that the Movie is Better Than The Book. Despite what my students say.

As I've already mentioned, I'm teaching The Wave to Year 10 this term. On top of their graphic novel speeches and our Friday discussion of The Chaser and Satire. They are a top class, and most of them are really mature minded and very intelligent. This unit is about a comparative study between the book and the film.

They didn't much like the book. And quite rightly too. The only thing that really interested me about the book is the subject matter - teacher experiments on his class with the notions of autocracy, to disasterous effects. Plus that whole compulsory obsession with the Holocaust that it seems only English teachers have (or maybe the obsession has just been eeked out of the other teachers (esp the History ones) because of restrictive and prescriptive syllabi that lead to rote learning and other such pedagogical disasters... Oops, got a little ranty there). The novel is not really well written, the characterisations and descriptions are less than engaging and the shifting perspective is beige at best.

And last night I watched the film.

The originial incident happened in California, and as such, the book is set in the US. But the film is in Germany. Making this story less about "dictatorships could happen where you are" and more about "dictatorships could still happen in a society that knows they are bad news". The whole question of German guilt is always one I have found fascinating, and the film touches on in, without making it the subject of the story.

Jorgen Vogel is fantastic as Rainer Wenger the teacher who is torn between professionalism, the respect of his stuffy workmates and the connection with his students (hmmm...?). The saturated colours, punk soundtrack and Wenger's fantastic collection of tshirts, combined with the hand held camera work and low budget European beauty give this film edge, character and street cred.

It diverges from the book quite a bit, which is a good thing. The film makers have taken what little character development is in the novel and run with it, creating characters that are annoyingly adolescent and readl.
Plus, it is a waterpolo film - and there aren't many of them about!

The weak ending of the book is completely re-worked to make it 21st century relevant.

So long as I can get my Year 1o "smart" kids to read subtitles, it should be a hit!

Shows Some Merit

My brother calls me Wayne. As in Dane, son of Wayne. I don't quite understand the inner workings of his mind. He used to call me other brother Fridge, as some kind of morph from Nick.

And my name is NOT Dane. That part of the moniker came from the consistent mispronounciation of my name (which actually has a harder e sound on the end. Like there is an invisible i in my name.).

Since I was 7, receiving my first award on a school assembly. The identity of the teacher has been smeared away. The faceless woman called Dane Levy to the stage. I didn't know it was me, so the nudges of my classmates and that huge pause just magnified the humiliation.

Yesterday - 22 years later - I got an award on assembly. I pretty bloody chuffed about it, really. I don't quite know who made the decision to deign me as demonstrating "outstanding dedication to the teaching and learning of students" but I am pretty damn delighted that he did (taking a chance on it being a he, since The Boy Factory (pretty unsurprisingly) is a bit of a sausage fest).

Anyway, the award was presented by Swainy - the vice captain. A lovely string bean of a kid - full back in the 1sts, and a lolloping enthusiasm in English that almost makes up for his near complete lack of attendance. So he is at the mic, calling the names of the teachers, and I was worried he was going to call me Mrs. The notion of being married to your father is pretty nauseating, and so that was my greatest concern. I KNOW that I have had the "What's your first name, Miss?" conversation with my Year 12 kids. I definitely have. I guess Swainy was away that day...

But he comes from a long tradition of mispronouncing my name on assemblies, so really, the boy can't fight fate. I just know that all day I am going to be answering to the name of Dane.