Although I don’t have any experience of teaching at a faith school in the UK. I’ve noticed them a lot in the news recently. I’m always surprised at the lengths some parents go to to get their kids into these schools. Just because they do well statistics-wise, parents often exaggerate the extent of their religious practices or even claim they are of a different religion to get their kids into these places.

I cant help but think that if you need to lie about a child’s background to get him into a school, he’s not going to have such a great school experience keeping up that lie for however long he’s at the school.

What about teachers, though? I’ve had to wear traditional costumes from various religions and cultures during my time as an international school teacher and found it rather fun. People always seem to save the best food for religious ceremonies, too, so I’ve had the chance to try interesting dishes that many people have not even heard of. I’ve never had to pretend to actually be a believer in any particular religion, though.

This might be different working at a faith school in the UK, though. I know job applications for faith schools are supposedly not based on religion (unless you want to be the in-house Priest or whatever) but I can’t help thinking that being of the same faith as the school must be some kind of advantage when applying for a job there.

In certain ways, teaching at a faith school could be a nice proposition. They’re normally selective (which can be a good or bad thing as a teacher, depending on how you look at it) but they also seem to get lots of funding, which is great if you just can’t live without an interactive whiteboard in every classroom.

Would it be worth ‘faking it’ like some of the parents and pretending you are a certain religious disposition to improve your chances of getting a job at one of these schools? For me, certainly not. I’m terrible at lying so I would probably get found out in the first week, anyway. I think I would miss the diversity I am used to in class, too. I wonder, though. Are there any fakers out there? If so, what does it feel like?

Today’s image is by Robert Aichinger.

I have a dirty secret. It’s something I’m so ashamed to admit to that I’ve been hiding it for years. I am afraid of interactive whiteboards. The fear isn’t of the technology involved. It’s that I’m going to break it.

A long time ago, when I first started teaching, I ruined a regular whiteboard by writing on it with a permanent marker (they look just like regular board markers, OK?). In the end, we were able to repair it but the embarrassment in class when I wasn’t able to wipe off what I had written on the board is something that will stick with me for a long time.

The first time I saw an interactive whiteboard, I instantly thought “OMG, what if I write on it in permanent marker and ruin it?”. Since then, I have tried my best to avoid them and succeeded until quite recently.

Although I wanted iPads for our department, it looks like we’re getting interactive whiteboards. So, last week, I decided to take one for a test drive with a friend. After checking the labels on the markers (they really do look similar), I approached the board. To my surprise, I found that one of the best things about interactive whiteboards is that if you are well prepared, quite often you don’t actually need board markers. Obviously, there are different types of interactive whiteboards but if the ones we’re getting are anything like the one I had a go on, I think I’m going to enjoy using them.

I’ve seen some great MFL Powerpoint presentations that would work well on an interactive whiteboard and using real-life examples is going to be a lot easier than it was using the DVD player (whenever I was able to wrestle it away from ‘Scary Sue’).

I feel like I’m on a roll with overcoming fears now. Next week, I think I’ll try and get over my fear of crashing into windows.

On the technogrouch / compukeenie scale, I’d say I rate at about eight. I’m not fully iTeacher-tronic yet, but I’m well on the way. That’s why Apple’s iPad caught my eye (save the fanboy-bashing comments until the end, please).

Despite also being the name for a kind of incontinence pad in Japan (possibly aimed at long-suffering kancho victims), I think the iPad could have some fantastic applications in the MFL classroom.

Once people start developing integrated learning applications for it, I’m sure the iPad will be a step ahead of the computers we currently use in language labs for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they’re portable. As long as the students don’t nick them, this would solve loads of problems with assigning classrooms. Rather than fighting over who gets to use the language lab, then having to shuffle our classrooms around accordingly, we can just fight over who gets to use the iPads.

Secondly, they’re locked and can only use one application at a time. Students can’t quickly flip back from Facebook to vocabulary matching when you look over their shoulders so they’re less likely to get distracted.

Thirdly, students like cool gadgets. Whether we like them or not, I don’t know many teenagers who would prefer to work on a clunky desktop than an iPad.

What about the price, though? They’re listed as retailing at $499 (about £320). Now, when you factor in an educational discount of £70 or so (depending on what kind of potential Apple sees in educational sales) it starts to look like a more attractive option when compared to even the most basic language lab computers.

Now, all of these ideas are based on having a wireless network that actually works. if you have a reasonable signal, though, the easy set up (if it’s anything like the iPod touch) of wireless from the user standpoint could help classes run more smoothly and mean fewer callouts for ‘Tony the tecchie’ or whoever else runs the IT in your school.

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.

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.