Educating the Dragon

I’m busily teaching in the art room this morning. I’m not only laying out paper and paints et al. for your standard art lesson but have had to come in a little early to light the fire. LIGHT THE FIRE. I ask you! What century are we living in. An old KENT fire is the sole source of heating in that room (save for a plug in heater). When the school was a little larger the art room was a standard classroom- the junior room I think. Now we have a designated work station for the special needs teacher and two large tables for art. Oh, and the KENT fire. It is wonderful having a particular area for such things as Art and technology; dance and music have their own room too now.

The reason I mention the Art Room today is because of the total contrast with what happened when I class returned from the wood-heated art room to discover the group of preschoolers experimenting with the interactive whiteboard- Ordering numbers, stamping the number with the appropriate number of smiley faces (or roses).

So again I ask. Wood fire, IWB, what century are we living in?

Disclaimer: I actually really enjoyed working in the warmth of the wood fire. SO much warmer than the air conditioning unit. (If anyone can explain why a wood fire’s heat feels warmer than the air blowing contraption I have in the other room I’d be grateful.)

A little while ago I was asked to step into a small country school, cover a maturity leave. I accepted. What with nothing better to do with my working hours I thought doing Principal release 3 days a week would be simple and straight-forward enough. Eighteen in the class, or is it nineteen, what a breeze!

How wrong I was in so many ways, and the journey has barely beginning. For those of you who regularly read me (both of you) you’ll note a change, I think, in the content of my posts. I don’t know what genre you would call my blog, but whatever it maybe, it’s going to be changing for a while.

There will be a warning in the title of the entry, Sherenden Days , and then some relevant blah.

The reason for my change is that my experience as what is affectionately known as a ‘townie’ out here in the Sticks is genuinely something of an education in its own right.

I should have been warned when I relieved (substituted) out here last term. My post at the time read …

Its Friday 13th, when I arrived at the school this morning all the students decided to dress in Goth. It ranged from some students deciding to just where black to some who went the whole way, in full Goth, with the makeup and the clothes and all that. When I sat down to take the roll I felt like I had entered an episode of the Adam’s Family.

That was as nothing compared to what followed.

Consider for a moment, my first very first day I was confronted with a sight that I never thought I’d live to see….

At this point a bit of background would not go a miss. I came by way of this job having met and worked with the new principal back in my Peterhead days. My colleague, friend and now boss is a deep, well rounded human being, a very fine practitioner in Education, a visionary and highly motivated individual. I was going to say ‘above all’ but that is not quite right, more ‘as well’: she is a very fine woman with metropolitan ideas and a dress sense to match. Heels, stockings, skirts, makeup, hair- if you saw her walk out of an episode of ‘Desperate Housewives’ you would not blink.

… so consider for a moment , my first very first day I was confronted with a sight that I never thought I’d live to see but my principal ‘hiking’ it across the school field in an off the shoulder top, high-end silk skirt, stockings to match and a pair of …. Green gumboots that really did not.

I smiled, shook my head, and was genuinely lost for words. What have I got myself into? This is surely unfamiliar territory.

And so my tale begins.

No complaints from me, when I look out of the school library window (which happens to be the classroom window too) I see this. Clear skies, rolling hills and mutterings of “can you see the two pheseants?”

Yep, have to say I am enjoying this, even with ERO (Education Review Office) looming on the horizon.

Have just started my new post at in a rural school. The school is actually really well equipped.

Up-to-date computer (6)

IWB (1)

Network, hardwired.

Everything is needing to be hardwired as there is no signal for anything out here. I question whether they can get TV coverage. No cellphone, no wireless. The job has kept me too busy to really notice, but I have been off-line now for over a week and I’m feeling it. Plus I’ve been too busy and too tired to sit up at night. This is the first late night blogging I’ve done for some time now. Maybe there aren’t enough hours in the day or maybe I’m just getting too old to be burning the candle at both ends.

I’ve tried to keep up with my blog reading but even that is proving difficult. So, sorry to all those I’ve skimmed and couldn’t find 30 seconds to make a comment…. I feel bad about it, I really do.