School

This is a quote from John Holt;
"Children (like all people) will live better, learn more, and grow more able to cope with the world if they are not constantly bribed, wheedled, bullied, threatened, humiliated, and hurt; if they are not set endlessly against each other in a race which all but a few must lose; if they are not constantly made to feel incompetent, stupid, untrustworthy, guilty, fearful, and ashamed; if their interests, concerns, and enthusiasms are not ignored or scorned; and if instead they are allowed, encouraged, and (if they wish) helped to work with and help each other, to learn from each other, and to think, talk, write, and read about things that excite and interest them. In short, if they are able to explore the world in their own way, and in as many areas as possible direct and control their own lives."

Just in case you don't have the experience of going to a school, this is what he is describing in the first part of the quote.

• Bribed - with a star, or sticker, and/or a word of praise, and/or certificate given in assembly, and/or time to choose an activity of choice (within limits given) for 'good', meaning compliant behaviour.
  - and all of the above along with a high grade for 'good' work. the child will get a good job, be successful if he does the work well.
• Wheedled - ever heard a teacher encouraging a class to 'behave' and 'get on with their work'?

Bullied - Sent to Head Teacher or Principle's office for not complying, given detention, told to sit still and listen, not allowed to go to the toilet/have a drink of water, when needing to, not allowed to move from desk when needing to get up and stretch legs, having to sit in silence because the teacher insists on it.

Threatened with - being sent to the Head's office, being given detention, a letter home, not amounting to anything if the child does not comply with what the teacher wants him/her to do in the lesson. The child won't get a good job and be poor if he doesn't do the work well. The parents will go get fined or go to jail of the child does not attend school, (if the child is enrolled in that school).

Humiliated - when having to read something out loud and cannot pronounce the words, the teacher tells the child (so everyone can hear) that they have question 3 wrong, being chastised when all can hear.

Hurt - you fill in the blank

Herding a large number of children of the same age into a small space for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, does not seem to be the best way of helping children to become the type of adult you would wish them to become. If they are all at the same level of maturity, how can they help each other to grow emotionally? If most of them don't want to be there, it's likely they will act out their anger and feelings of dis-empowerment on those around them.

This is why I have ceased to be a school teacher.

My Picture

This is my profile picture on Facebook. Lots of people have commented on it, that I thought I would tell it's story.

It is called 'Patricia the Tutor' because one of the girls that I tutor took it using my phone. I help her with maths.

One evening she said "I wish you were here all the time because I feel calm and understand things when you are here."

She already practices EFT when she feels a little panicky about things. Her teacher even invited her to teach it to her class, because she has improved so much in her understanding and application of maths.

So I replied "Would it help to have a picture of me to look at when you are feeling this way?"

She said "Yes."

So I gave her my phone to take a picture of me. So there I am in my 'tutoring pose,' slumped on the table facing the child.

Michael Morpurgo

The existence of Michael Morpurgo quite passed me by until a few months ago. How did I miss that he got to be the Children's Laureate? How come he got to write over 100 books without my noticing him? I realise that I was actually out of the country when he was doing his laureate thing. So maybe I have a little excuse. And, I have been teaching children who may be a little too young to read his work. There, I have justified my ignorance to my satisfaction.

There I was in a year 6 classroom noticing that several children had books written by him on their desks. I felt a little ignorant that I had not even heard of the man, let alone read anything written by him.

They assured me he was a very good author. I take a year 6 class each Wednesday and this term my assignment for the literacy lessons was to cover narrative texts. The national curriculum suggest the book 'Kensuke's Kingdom' by Michael Morpurgo. So I was very interested to read it.

Well, I was overjoyed to find that he is a very fine author. Better than the other contemporary authors for that age group, in my opinion. Of course I have only read one book, but the way he writes, his plot and turn of phrase was wonderful. In this book he left clues throughout the book that were revealed later on if the reader had not worked them out. As with all excellent literature it needs to be read more than once to get the full enjoyment from it, although there was plenty of enjoyment the first time around. It is just that on the second reading you can savour the writing.

I cannot resist quoting the best sentence I have ever read. You will find it on page 89 of the paperback.

"I looked on awestruck at the power of the vast waves rolling in from the open sea, curling, tumbling, and exploding as they broke on to the beach, as if they were trying to batter the island into pieces and then suck us all out to sea."

Isn't that just a glorious sentence? Can you see it and hear it too?

Well, as I knew nothing about this man, and had to teach using his book I thought it was a good idea to Google him. He has his own website (of course), and I find he and his wife started and run the charity 'Farms for City Children'. I had heard of this charity years ago and so was interested to come across it again with the founder now a famous man.

A Nearly Autonomous Class

I had a wonderful time on Friday. I was standing in for a reception teacher. I had taught in that school a few years ago but not in reception before.

It was delightful because the children were obviously used to getting on with their learning unhindered by the adults in the classroom for the most part of each day.

They came in and just started doing whatever interested them. Some boys were on the carpet in the Lego corner creating, building, imagining and discussing. Some girls were at the craft table creating interesting collages or colouring, and chatting. A few made get well cards for their teacher who had been off work for a few days.

A group of mixed gender were at the large dolls house and some looking at books. One girl wrote a letter to her mum 'cos she was not going to see her as she was going to her dad's.

Unfortunately I had to interrupt this industry to take the register, a gym, and writing numbers lesson and read a story with them, but then they were back to the autonomous learning. I was impressed with the fact that there were no rules like 'only 4 people to play here' etc as there are in many classrooms. And it was normal to leave a half completed project so they could go back to it later after the interruption of the lesson.

This was the most autonomous class I have been in. (Many nursery and reception classes and quite rigid in their rules and lessons.)

It would be wonderful to have a really autonomous class, but I know that in this particular pair of classes I was at on Friday the teachers were continuously fighting off the directives from 'above' and acted as a buffer between what the government required and what was best for the children.

My Life Since Kuwait

I left Kuwait in June 2006. With my belongings held in a shipping warehouse, I flew to the USA for the summer. (NOTE - if you are having your stuff hanging around in a hot warehouse it is best not to pack scented candles. They melted into weird shapes and the smell impregnated a plastic beaker.)

Montana

I flew to Bozeman Montana via London, New York and Salt Lake City. The whole journey took many many hours as I had an overnight stop-over in New York. This was a blessing because I was able to check into a motel and sleep in a bed enabling me to have a good night's sleep.

I stayed with a friend in Bozeman and she kindly lent me her car whilst she worked. I got toiletries at Walmart and visited another friend. I then got a lift 70 miles to where I was staying in Paradise Valley.

I attended a church conference, and volunteered as Conference Program Assistant. The following week I attended a week long seminar at the same place. I then did some voluntary cooking for a group of wonderful young people who were attending a camping retreat right in the mountains. I did this the year before, but now I had a team mate which made it easier and more enjoyable. After that I cleaned the campground showers - lots of scrubbing! I also tackled some of the self contained rooms where people had stayed during the conference. Weather and scenery was glorious and I enjoyed it all.

Cardiff

At the beginning of August I flew back to Britain. I went to stay with my daughters in their tiny flat in Cardiff. Whilst working in Kuwait I paid their rent for a two bed flat with a large lounge. Now I had no job so they got a cheaper, smaller place - a one bed flat. They used the lounge as another bedroom. It was a little squashed, especially with my summer luggage, but I was useful and helped to decorate the place.

Windsor
I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do but I didn't really want to get a teaching job. I needed a place to live so I searched for nanny/housekeeping/carer jobs. I started a nanny/housekeeper job for a New Zealand family living in Windsor in September.

I did not know they were famous until I mentioned the guy's name back in Cardiff. Sean used to captain the All Blacks rugby team. He is a modest, genuinely nice man and the rest of his family are lovely too.

The work was enjoyable and quite easy. I took the 8 year old girl to school and back, supervised her homework and sometimes made her evening meal. I also did some errands, cleaned the house, ironed the designer clothes and occasionally took the dog for a walk. Neither parent had regular schedules and both did the school run sometimes. They would occasionally say the house didn't need cleaning so it was a flexible, no pressure job. I enjoy housekeeping for other people, so much more than for myself. They had just moved into a large house with a garden adjoining the River Thames and embarked on an extensive remodeling job of the whole house. They are possibly one of the few people in England to fill in a pool to create other rooms in its place!

They did not have a flat for me until October, so I lived in the swimming pool room. Unfortunately the water was freezing as the pump had broken, so my dream of getting out of bed and having a swim before breakfast did not come to pass.

Eventually I had a lovely flat over the enormous garage/storage rooms. The downside was that they did not want me to have any visitors because they did not want strangers on their property. This was a laugh as their property was overrun by builders for months! They also did not like me booking flights for weekends in Europe because they might need me to babysit at the last minute. I understood both these views. Maybe a young person who had not led an independent life before would not find the restrictions inconvenient. So I realised that this job was really not for me, however nice the family was.

The family went to NZ during December and I took the opportunity to do a bit of supply teaching. I realised that I actually missed teaching children and that although I had accommodation and the use of a car, the wage was not enough for my commitments. Ryan Air might not charge much for the flight but traveling either side of both airports took it's toll on by bank balance.

At that time I was helping to organise a 4 day conference in Frankfurt in October. This was for the European members of my church. We also produced newsletters and had many phone and physical meetings. So it was a very stressful time for me. During the conference I realised I had not had a proper home for 4 months! Being unemployed, a change of job and organising a conference and publishing newsletters was a recipe for stress big time.

Reading

In oder to leave that job I needed to find somewhere to live and get a car of my own. So I bought a car on ebay and moved to a room in a shared house in a leafy suburb of Reading. It is a large town where there are lots of supply teaching jobs. It wasn't until I moved into the shared house that I realised that the other people in the house smoked! It was an unhappy month as the live-in landlady also sometimes took drugs. And my car was extensively vandalised along with hers.

I found a lovely 2 bed flat overlooking a large park of grass and trees which I share with my youngest daughter Claire as she needed somewhere to live too. Rent is so expensive here that it made sense for us to share. At the time she was doing supply nursery nursing (child care at private day nurseries), but she soon got a permanent job in a nursery in Theale, a village just outside Reading.

At first I worked for an agency as a supply teacher every day. I enjoy doing this, especially when asked to go back to the same schools. During the summer I was asked to do some work in day nurseries, which I also enjoyed.

In June I was asked by the Head of a large junior school that I regularly visited, if I would like to share a class of 8 year old children, taking them Thursdays and Fridays. This school is situated in a large council estate and the families are 3rd generation unemployed. The children are therefore deprived, with little support from home, either emotionally or academically. This means that there are several very challenging kids in each class and teaching them is a little like trying to get blood out of a stone. However the Head teacher is very nurturing and all the teachers are supportive and work very well as a team. I always enjoyed going their because of this. I even told her that the reason why I didn't have a 'proper' job at the moment was because I wanted to have a week or two off in July every year (when British schools are still in session). She said they would work around that, so I accepted the post. I love getting jobs without applying and being interviewed! They also wanted me to work every Wednesday in different classes, enabling the teacher to do planning.

It is great being part of a staff team again and I enjoyed helping 120 children from years 3 and 4 put on a song and dance show of the different cultures of the world. The staff also put on a short pantomime for the kids which was great fun for everyone but we only had one and a half rehearsals! There are pros and cons being part time. I don't have the full responsibility for the planning, preparation and evaluating, but then I miss the staff meetings with their discussions and training and don't always know what is going on in school as things change to fit the circumstances etc.

Montana Again

Just for a week to attend Helen and Orion's wedding on June 24th. A truly wonderful day. I am grateful to have been a part of such a joyful occasion, especially as mother of the bride. Meeting Helen's father again after 15 years was not quite as nerve wracking as I thought it would be. The bride and groom looked radiant as did the bridesmaids and groomsmen. And Claire looked wonderful as a bridesmaid. Here is a creative slide show of the glorious day: http://www.montana-wedding-photographer.com/Showcase/Battersby/

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique

I learned this whilst living in Kuwait from a site on the Internet. When I got to England I did a level two training in London. I use it personally to help with my own emotions and physical ailments and teach it and use it in the schools I work in. (See http://www.emofree.com for more info on the technique and look at other posts of mine for info on how i use it in school.) The children doing the show at school gave a much better performance because EFT banished their nerves.

I was very grateful to have the EFT tool at my fingertips during my journey to the Montana this last summer. I took the National Express coach to Gatwick airport. The coach was delayed and so time was a little tight. I therefore decided to use the toilet on the bus to save a little time at the airport. However, as I was washing my hands the door flew open catapulting me down the gangway. I hit my backside on the armrest of a seat before landing on the floor. When I got my breath back, whilst still on the floor, I began to tap. Flying wasn't the best thing to do with a hemorrhaging buttock but I tapped a lot of the journey and by the time I got to Bozeman, 14 hours later, I did not need the wheelchair. There was an enormous bruise but I managed to walk down the aisle with no limp.

Violet Fire

The Violet Fire is another very wonderful technique for helping with emotions and ailments and I use it in conjunction with EFT but they are both most often used on their own.

What is the violet fire? I hear you ask. Well, I will let the person who introduced it to me, Elizabeth Clare Prophet tell you in her own words. "It is an invisible spiritual energy that appears violet to those who have developed their spiritual vision...... (It) has many purposes. It revitalizes and invigorates us. It can heal emotional and even physical problems, improve relationships and make life easier. More important, the violet flame changes negative energy, which makes it an effective tool for healing. Today we are learning more than ever before about how disease can be rooted in our mental, emotional and spiritual states. By transforming negative thoughts and feelings, the violet flame provides a platform for our healing. I call it the highest gift of God to the universe. I think you will agree once you try it for yourself." (Violet Flame to Heal body, mind and soul. Elizabeth Clare Prophet. copyright 1997 by Summit University Press.) Check it out at http://www.transformnet.org/ for more information if you are interested.

It has changed my life. I am now more positive and joyful after the application of this over the years. It has even healed my arthritic elbow and enabled me to be more calm and tolerant with people.

In November I conducted a Violet Flame workshop in London with some friends, which was very well received. One lady said she could feel the energy tingling in her body and she felt light and joyous. If I am ever feeling depressed, a few violet flame mantras banish that state fast.

A Week of Culture and Special Needs

This week has been interesting, as most weeks are being a supply teacher.

Monday
On Monday I worked with a year 1 class. This was my second visit in that class and they were much better behaved as a result. They have a system where there is a tick put by their name on a star chart each day for good work or behaviour. They then get a sticker at the end of the day for each tick they have on the chart. Last time I was there I gave out about 4 stickers to each child because of all the stars they had. This time some children got only one or even none. It was a little weird that the overall behaviour was better this time! They often physically put a tick by their own names at the request of the Teaching assistant or the Teacher. Anyway, One boy had 5 ticks and I asked him what they were for. He said playing nicely on the carpet. I then asked who had given him the star and he said no-one. He had just thought that he deserved it and gave it to himself. It turned out that no adult had given him a star at all (poor lamb) and he had awarded them all to himself.

Tuesday
On Tuesday I worked as a Teaching Assistant in a residential school for Autistic children. This was miles from anywhere and too far to cycle, but amazingly the nearest bus went passed the bottom of my road! The bus went every 2 hours so I got the 7:13 am one, arrived at 7:45, walked down a country lane, arriving at about 8 am and waited an hour for someone to escort me to the classroom along with the children.

There were 4 higher functioning boys in the class and I made the 3rd adult in the team. They were aged about 10 but working at a year 1 level. I had been to the school before and enjoyed it greatly. Last time I worked in several parts of the school, with the higher functioning children and also those functioning at a low level, with little or no speech. Last time I was paid as a teacher but this time I was being paid as an assistant at half the pay. However it seems I did a very similar job. The room leader was a man from Ghana who had his two little girls and wife still over there. I was struck by the love and respect both Katie and Erastus had for the children, indeed, one of the reasons why I like the school so much is that all the staff have a wonderful manner. I also liked the kids.

The first thing a person new to the room does is read the information displayed on each child to learn the triggers for behaviour and strategies of dealing with them. This day did not look too promising because one boy, I'll call him Tony, was afraid of the sound of rain and the weather forecasted heavy rain. The strategy was to put on music to attempt to distract him. He started out the day in a difficult mood but fortunately the rain did not fall and his mood improved.

There is a drawback to agency staff. Even though we all have current CRB checks we are not allowed to be left alone with any child. This is usual in this situation and in nurseries too. The reason is that the children do not know the adult and the adult has limited knowledge of the children. After lunch one boy, Jonathon sustained a bump on the head and started feeling sick so Katie took him to the nurse. When it came time for Troy to have his Occupational Therapy session we all had to troop to take him to the room as I could neither take him on my own, or be left with the others.

Wednesday
The last 3 days of the week I am in my contracted school (which is in a very deprived area)- 1 day taking a class so the teacher can have preparation time and 2 days with my normal year 3 class that I share with the school SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) who needs time out of the classroom for all the work that entails. We have boys on the autistic spectrum in year 3. Why is it that there are more children with autism now, than there were 10 years ago?

It was Cultural Arts Week and so I dressed in a sari in the afternoon teaching the story of Rama and Sita in our India room. We have three year 3 classes and for three afternoons the children rotated through to 'India', 'Kenya' and 'China' to do various arts activities . Our new TA, Deep, is a lady who was born in Kenya from Indian decent. She provided wonderful resources for both India and Kenya.

Thursday saw me learning an Indian Dance and

Friday watching a brass band from England. The 5 members were all peripatetic music teachers who demonstrated their instruments and played a variety of interesting and enjoyable music. with the children in year groups, joining in with the complicated percussion rhythms on the Latin piece.

I taught a different year 3 class on Friday. Two of the year team were having PPA time, so whilst the children were watching The Lion King (for the Kenyan landscape scenes) with the other PPA teacher the rest of us got some displays on the wall from the week's activities.
I also did an international music quiz with them. They had listened to music from India, China and Kenya whilst doing the various activities about those countries. I put together several clips of music from those countries and played them one at a time for them to discuss with a partner and decide where it came from.

The resource I used for this was the catalogue on CD of ARC Music. This has clips of a few minutes of all their music form all over the world. A wonderful resource for any school, or anyone interested in music from around the world.
http://www.arcmusic.co.uk/

Cycling home in the light has become a novel experience these days. It was great to be able to get home before dark on Friday. Whilst cycling on Thursday I had a beautiful red sky in front of me that kept changing until, as I cycled into the car park at my apartment there was just a deep red low in the sky.