Not blogging but ...

I read recently that someone had said that we ought not to describe ourselves as bloggers, and find myself agreeing with this. I'm not a blogger: I'm a communicator who will use whatever means seem appropriate to the task. That said, I'm delighted to welcome two new blogs to my Bloglines.

The first belongs to my latest private student, who is getting to grips with Shakespeare for the first time and has just begun to write about it here. He would welcome comment from any of my regular readers as we embark on an old-fashioned education in English.

The second blog is that of one of my oldest friends, who has been writing all the time I have known her and would probably have had a blog in the 60s, just as I would. Have a look at wordswordswords - and if you have any advice on laying out verse in WordPress this would be a good time to visit.

And you will note we are not averse to the odd quotation...

All fun and games ...

Cynddyllan?
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The title of this post might alert the sharp-eyed to the novel I've been reading (more Mars bars?), but gives a pretty good indication of an excellent day. Holy Trinity church stands on a hill at the foot of the Bishop's Glen, and in the grounds (extensive) there are several extremely mature trees. In the winter gales they moult - twigs, sticks and whole branches - and the resulting debris makes for a scarey ride on the tractor mower. Today I picked up more than half of these bits; Cynddylan (aka Mr B) did interesting things with the tractor mower and the Rector produced sackfuls of wonderful dead weedery and used it to do her Ray Mears thing with the fire.

It was a wonderful day. The sun was wall to wall, the birds were giving it laldy, the wood smoke drifted under the trees, the fire was so hot that all was reduced to a small pile of grey ash, and we had a picnic. We ended with the regular midweek Eucharist, scented by bonfire instead of incense.

Another good thing was the reappearance of Progress report as one of The Teens prepares for Higher English - though I have to confess that tonight I'm too tired for more than perfunctory comment on her essay - interestingly on the same piece of journalism that we were considering yesterday.

And one bad thing. What kind of person owns a dog, diligently picks up and bags its excrement - and then leaves the malodorous little parcel in the middle of the pavement, or (worse) tied to a fence? I rest my case ....

Commitment and nags

As I've bragged (or should that be brogged? - a neat amalgamation of verbs) about the success of edublogs like Progress Report I think it's only fair to acknowledge that wildbanks has been a complete failure in terms of encouraging a student to work and progress. The joyous bit for me was that I felt able to tell the parents that they were wasting their money and my time and that we should cease trading forthwith - how often did I long for that freedom in my classroom days!

I often reflect on the discrepancy between parents' ambitions for their children and the inclination of said children to do anything to fulfil these ambitions - which the child may even profess for themselves. On the other hand, it was just great when one of the Progress Report bloggers came back sua sponte with an onslaught on her Higher work - for then I was reminded of the drive created to improve and succeed.

In the end, of course, it's all a matter of commitment. Some people reach that stage of maturity earlier than others; some people have wonderful nagging parents who sacrifice their own peaceful lives to keep up the pressure. That's what I had when I was at school, and I've never ceased to marvel at the way my father - a famous Glasgow English teacher in his day - helped me with physics while my mother would do the preliminary work on my Virgil translation because I had so much homework. I hope I in turn was able to carry on the noble tradition of nag-in-chief despite the temptation to do my own thing.....