A Mass of Questions

Was it wise to get me started again? Today I have a question. A question that returns to trouble me when I stray beyond my accustomed paths of worship for whatever reason - or sometimes when I'm in my familiar environment and find myself profoundly grateful for what I find there.

So: the question. Why do Roman Catholics sound so perfunctory in the celebration of the Mass? The rapid delivery - so rapid that anyone unfamiliar with it can't make it out, microphones notwithstanding (yes, I know - the rapid mutter of the Mass is a cliché, but it's one that would be well abandoned), the perfunctory prayers, the almost apologetic readings ... I'm not even going to mention the music; I suppose that's something that rather depends on what you've got. But why make the holy mysteries sound so very matter-of-fact?

You can tell from this that I've had a recent experience. And I noticed one difference from the last time. They said "Amen" in the way I'm accustomed to, rather than with the stress on the second syllable with the "Ah" said as "Ae". Who brought this about? Was it part of the upheaval that took the liturgy back to the language of the Prayer Book?

So come on, good people. I want to know.

Referendum Question - a poem for the aftermath

Referendum Question

Would there have been tears
when the old Union died,
a bitter mourning for the loss
of joyous hope denied?
Or is this death forever theirs
who dare to look beyond the past?
The autumn sun is lower now,
the wind blows cool, the petals drop; 
the hills lie purple as the pheasants’ cry
foretells their death before the guns,
and far from here contending claims
engulf the promises held out
to save a tryst whose love was spent.
The question asks the aftermath:
would there, would there have been tears?

© C.M.M 09/14

A Lenten poem

Road through the Nevada desert

Eyes wide open

One pale, quiet morning, 

I open my soul’s eyes 

unarmed with faith or company, 

responsibility or joy, 

and see quite plain

the vastness of it all, the loneliness, 

the very impossibility of life.

A hand in the desert - 

will there be a hand? 

Someone who knows the way

to travel this grey distance

and find the distant hills?

The question hangs

in the still air. But 

in the birdless silence

is that the gentle ripple

not mocking or sardonic

but inviting, is that -

oh please, is that -

a companionable laugh?

© C.M. 03/13

Teacher training - some questions

I keep getting into conversations about education these days. What's the matter with me? I've obviously fallen into lassitude to be so easily dragged back to my former self. Today's was about the people who teach the teachers - those aspirants who've gone through the selection process and made it to training college. Now, I'm basing some of what I'm about to say on the assumption that the government don't think the current selection process is sufficiently rigorous, and the rest on my own memory of my year at college. And that, best beloved, was not yesterday, nor even last year. I actually know nothing at all about the people who teach the teachers these days, and nothing at all about how they got their jobs in the first place. But I'm going to toss a few thoughts around nonetheless - and perhaps some gentle reader will be able to lighten my darkness.

I'm going to start with a few questions:
What makes someone go for a job in a College of Education? Presumably they start off in schools. Are college staff significantly better paid? Or do they prefer to work in a less challenging environment?

How are they selected? Are they required to demonstrate mastery of their academic subject? To show how well they teach a class? To talk a storm at an interview? Is there any written examination or practical test (maybe like preaching to a congregation who are looking for a new minister?)

Having got the job, what is their primary aim? To demonstrate how to do the same job as the teachers the students experienced perhaps 4 years ago? To show how to put a lesson across? To discuss new techniques and new media? (I know of at least one lecturer who might well answer in the affirmative to that). To ensure that their students actually like children before they start?

Do they spend much time teaching in classrooms as a CPD exercise?

And I'm going to reflect:
When I was at college, I loathed it. After a 3 year MA course I found it at once restrictive and vague. Quite apart from having to be there from 9-4 and wear a skirt (both, presumably, easing us back into required behaviour for the job) I actually had no idea what I was learning about. This was especially true in my two subject areas. In English, I learned nothing at all. Nothing. In Latin, the nice little man who taught us (a class of 4 students) had such a boring delivery that I routinely fell asleep. It's embarrassing when your head actually hits the desk, in a class of 4.

There were classes in Educational Psychology - which is where I think I heard the instruction that when confronted by an unruly class we were to "exhaust the response". And classes in Drama, which I loathed - I can't remember why, but the lecturer kept coming to look for us in the cafeteria at the start of the afternoon, so we were obviously not keen. And were there discrete classes in Methods, or was that in the subject classes?

In all that time, no-one ever told us that it was essential not to be boring. Mind you, if they had, we might have laughed in their faces; I have never been so bored so consistently for so long. And no-one ever suggested that we had to be passionate about our subject and about communicating that passion. Naturally, no-one ever gave us practical work in demonstrating how we might do that.

Yes, I learned something in that year at college. But I learned it in the three schools where I was sent on teaching practice - by watching some excellent teaching, by talking to the people I'd been watching, by making mistakes and suffering the slow death of the period when you've run out of material and don't have anything to put in its place.

And 30 years later, I'd say I was still learning. But I always knew that there were still people out there living behind a barrier of worksheets, boring their pupils to death, sending them to sleep in the period after lunch.

So, if you're out there, the person who knows the answers to the above, gonnae put me out of my misery?