Have been pondering the whole Gordon Brown Bullygate scenario; and am marvelling at how these various Downing Street employees are behaving. They wouldn’t survive ten minutes in one of my classrooms.

So far this week I have been called a ‘tosser.’ I have had Terrible Tilly’s Dad yelling at me about my deplorable standards. (I could tell him a thing or two about standards, personal hygiene standards); and watched as one of our more ‘challenging’ pupils threw a laptop at another pupil cos “‘e dissed me, innit.”

I shall be calling the National Bullying Helpline forthwith, I do hope the founder also intervenes on my behalf. I’m sure she will; it’s not like there was some sort of larger government agenda there is it?

I had a nightmare last night; a group of parents were petitioning to run one of the schools in our borough. Actually, it wasn’t a nightmare so much as a staff meeting I dosed off in. Supposedly – if the Tories get in - parents can bid to take over underperforning schools. This has really put the wind up some of my colleagues, especially the head, who is now concerned that everyone will discover the deep levels of her gross incomptence.

I am worried too. The thought of some of the parents we deal with running a school is more ludicrous that the misconception that  Katie Price is actually a savvy businesswoman….they’re boobs, and she’s common, she speaks to the majority of Britain today. It doesn’t make here savvy or businessminded, it makes her ordinary. End of.

Anyway, sorry, boobs aside, this entire plan stinks of classic politics: it’s very easy to think you can do better when you’re not in control and not answerable to anybody. I can’t even politely suggest to some of our parents that they could help with homework without getting an earful; how will they manage when someone criticises their position on the league tables. It’ll be tears before bedtime.

We have had some sad news here. Budget cuts means we are losing two of our support staff, and it looks like it’s going to be teaching assistants. I cannot begin to fathom how they could think this was a sensible way to save money, without being seriously detrimental for the children.

So many of the pupils we have here have little in the way of support or parental involvement at home. They come to school to get the love and attention they’re missing, and our teaching assistants are a crucial part of that, sitting with them, reading with them, doing homework with them during our extended schools hours.

And not only that. They talk to them about the little things that are happening in their days, they listen to their fears and worries, to the things that make them happy, and the things that make them sad - at least five times we have discovered things through our teaching assistants that has enabled social services to get  involved and prevent a child further slipping through the net. This is exactly what Every Child Matters is all about, and teaching assistants are one fo the key reasons it is working. Taking them away will only mean less support for the children that need it most. It will be a tragic loss.

It happened three years after I started teaching. I broke one of the golden rules I had made before becoming a teacher. I started a sentence with “When I was at school…”. Since then, I’ve also ended up saying “Ask your mother”, “but fruit is a kind of pudding” and “Sam might look cool riding his bike without a helmet now but he won’t look cool when he falls off and cracks his head open, will he?”. All of these are phrases from my list of things I promised I wouldn’t say when I became a parent.

There’s a difference between annoying parent language and annoying teacher language, though – kids get more practice at thinking up sarcastic responses to those expressions we sometimes slip up and use as teachers.

Anyway, when I got to “…school”, I stopped in disgust with myself, unable to finish the sentence, half-expecting one of the students to finish it off for me with “we had to carve our homework into pieces of stone and Latin was classed as a modern foreign language” or something equally sarcastic. They didn’t, though. One of the kids actually asked me to continue.

At first, I couldn’t believe they would actually be interested in it but they found it really amusing. They laughed about the BBC computers we used to use and the drawing software that could only do straight lines. They giggled about my old school uniform. They sympathised with my long walk to school. We were all able to laugh the episode off and although I’m not about to start lecturing all my students about the good old days, I certainly wouldn’t mind telling them something about my own school experience in the future as long as it’s appropriate.

The whole experience got me thinking about what it must have been like as a teacher when I was at school and what my old teachers would think of the challenges we face today as teachers. I’m sure they would be shocked with the amount of box-ticking and paperwork we all need to do. They would probably be surprised that we’re not allowed to smoke in the staff room, too.

Although some teachers tend to complain about technology, personal computers and access to the Internet make it a hell of a lot easier for us to find extra resources for class and prepare them quickly. For MFL teachers, not having to deal with cassette tapes for listening tasks probably saves 20 minutes or more a day. Even technogrouches like DesperateDan wouldn’t be able to have an online rant without the Internet.

Despite the changes on the surface of teaching, what we do is still essentially the same as what our own teachers did. We face different challenges but we have more people and machines to help us deal with them. Even though we’re under more and more pressure to hit targets and tick boxes, the best teachers will still do what they have always done – inspiring students to actually become interested in a subject rather than just getting them through exams.

Today’s image is by Sigurd Decroos.

I attempted to enter civilisation last week. I joined Facebook with a private account. It’s taken six days and already ten of my pupils have tried to befriend me.

This is most alarming. They already think i’m a loser, what happens when I fail to post lots of pictures of my *raging* nights out and they discover that i do infact spend most of my nights sitting at home with Horlicks and  episodes of Silent Witness?

And, equally, I really don’t want to see pictures of three of my female students drunk off their faces with their tongues out. It creates all sort of unnerving visual flashbacks in the class the next day when I’m trying to get them to talk about iambic pentameter and I realise how much they must pity me and my tragic life.

On a more serious level though, I do wonder about the proliferation of Facebook at schools; i’ve heard of at least three teachers who have been ‘victims’ of pretty serious hate groups about them on the Facebook; that’s gotta be hard to take…

Whether it’s wedgies, nipple cripples or towel whipping, school pranks all over the world seem to contain a certain element of violence. In all my time as a teacher, however, the cruellest, most unusual prank I’ve ever seen has to be the Japanese kancho.

The kancho beats the competition hands down in two respects: Firstly, in the manner of Japanese game shows, it’s a lot more extreme than any of its western counterparts. Secondly, unlike most school pranks which are usually pupil-on-pupil, the kancho is regularly inflicted on teachers in Japan.

The kancho is a simple move that sees the kancho-er clasps his hands together so his index and middle fingers are pointing out then jabs them into the kancho-ee’s bottom whilst shouting “kan-CHO!” (“Cho” being on the point of impact). I’m not sure what the traditional response of the kancho-ee should be, but in my experience when the kancho-ee is a foreign teacher, it’s usually “OMG! What on earth was that?”.

And it’s not just in Japan; increasingly violent pranks are creeping into schools worldwide.

Of course, the tough teacher amongst you, could become a stealth ninja by attending a course on restraining violent pupils. As Frank Chalk mentioned recently, though, it takes a long time to get competent enough at any of those techniques to actually get them right without hurting someone or getting yourself into trouble.

The truth is, while a wedgie-free world or a no-nipple-cripple nation may be a great dream for teachers, it is just that – a dream. We can try to keep the kanchos out of class with effective classroom management, but what about the playground? Given the universal nature of these pranks and the fact that teachers in every country I have worked in have complained about them, I think we’re stuck with them.

Today’s image is by Phil Berndt.

…and what a bizarre week it’s been.

On Monday I had to contend with Little Susie’s bohemian-but-not-chic parents coming in to tell me that they were taking her out of school for some quality time off. Three weeks of it. Apparently, and I quote, “The school is not meeting Susie’s needs, she needs time to decompress and be peaceful in her own company.” I fear she is being taken on some of alternative therapy retreat. She is six.

This was swiftly followed by one of those Tuesdays that just never ever ends; delights included a two hour long staff meeting on timetabling; an hour of special needs cover and the thrilling job of mopping up sick in the girls toilets. Someone had smuggled Haribo in again.

On to Wednesday, where the torrential sleet kept 400 children under the age of ten inside all day, having to read quietly. They did not read. And they did not not read quietly.

I staggered into Thursday ready to give up teaching altogether, only to be given a present from one of my pupils that showed me to flying to the Big Brother house in a Superwoman cape. With a dog. And a bucket. I told you it was a bizarre week.

A week that finally ended on Friday, where we had to sit through an assembley on internet safety. Someone had clearly not checked the work of the pupils giving the assembley, and so we had banners warning against Internet Softie and Bad Men. Still, I think the point was made.

I’ve banged on about my hatred for all things technical before. I spend more man hours calling technicians, re-planning lessons, moving classrooms and trying to fix problems when the whiteboard has a nervous breakdown and blinks angrily at me, than actually teaching.

This article in the Evening Standard today by Richard Godwin totally and brilliantly echoes my thoughts. He notes that Blair was all about investing in schools, but he invested lots of money and time and pointless white papers in computers and ICT Initiatives. And where is the investment in teaching, or pay, or comfy chairs, or the coffee in the staffroom? You know, stuff that really matters.

And now, the headteacher of the Brunel Academy in Bristol – the government’s flagship wireless school (whoopee) has said that technology is defunct. And pointless. And they’ve given up and are using pens and paper again. He actually called technology a ‘white elephant.’ That guy is switched on.

I wish I worked there. I hate my whiteboard. And my laptop. I hate the crappy wireless connection in my classroom that only works if I have exactly 12 pupils in there, all crowded round me by the back window, and I’m on one leg holding the laptop up to the light, akin to the Statue of Liberty – but, much less liberated.

I want to break up with technology. I am in a destructive relationship with it; one with occasionally violent episodes that usually ends in me cutting my finger on the broken pieces of another laptop i’ve accidentally thrown on the floor in a furious rage. “So, sorry technology, this is just working anymore. We’re just in different places, you know, I need to be able to write the homework up for my kids without having to call Tony the tecchie guy, and you’re more concerned with crashing, just after I’ve finished writing 25 reports. And not saved them.

We want different things. I want you to work. You don’t want to work. It’s over.”

Well I’m not. I’ve thought for too long now that the exams are more a test of memory, than of an understanding of analysing and writing about a text.

My pupils spend a whole year going through the text, often developing good arguments and reaching an impressive level of understanding and analysis in class, only to revise by reciting quotes and hoping for a question on the sysmbolism of Piggy’s glasses or whether Hamlet is a flawed hero. When they get these they merely list the quotes they’ve remembered and rewrite an answer they’ve already practised.

It’s getting harder to justify how English will help them in future life when it is becoming a competition in who has the best ability to remember things; rather than something that encourages them to interrogate something they’ve read, question it, form and argument and use evidence from the text to back up their argument.

But hey, i’m only an English teacher so what do I know?

Yesterday I was faced with classic CLSS (Clever Little Shit Syndrome). My class was working away drawing pictures of their dreams (quite illuminating really), and had been instructred to talk quietly to each other about what the dream meant. Sadly, ‘quietly’ is a word they all don’t seem to have learnt yet, so the volume got way too loud, way too fast.

Asking nicely -  not really an option (is it ever?). Bellowing at them seemed to work for about five minutes (but is also rather counter productive, yelling at someone to be quiet just doesn’t seem to hold any weight). Standing at the front of the class with my arms folded and glaring was also pointless, they just ignored me. So then I attempted to stop the lesson ask them to talk more quietly. At which point CLS Tommy muttered (loud enough for me to hear): “How are we supposed to know what’s too loud?”

 How do you respond to that? I mean honestly? There I was, floored by a seven year old, with absolutely no come back whatsoever.