Not forgetting

After the weekend of remembrance, both public spectacle and the much smaller scale of a tiny church observing the silence at the morning Eucharist, I read - belatedly: Sunday is always too busy for much dissecting of the papers - that Jon Snow, the newsreader, refused to wear a poppy to read the news. He referred to "poppy fascism". And I read about this in Muriel Gray's column, and discovered that she was as critical of his words and his action as she also seemed critical of the wearing of a white poppy.

Now, I'm as fascinated by the horrors of WW1 as anyone, and took the photo above on a visit to the battlefields of The Somme, when four of us walked in silence among the many graves and stood on the crackling white stubble of the fields where men had died. I felt my heart stop at the sight of a row of figures advancing over the fields with guns sloped at the ready - the shooting season had begun, but it was a strange wrinkle in time - and looked at the photos in a museum nearby of young men made old by horror. I stood in silence in church and felt moved at the sight of our old soldier carrying the poppy wreath out to the graveyard.

But I did not wear a poppy, and it's a long time since I did. Although now we no longer have to stand and sing "God save the Queen" in our church, there was a time when we did, and as a member of the choir I was expected to lead in this. I came in for a lot of flak when I wouldn't sing - I stood, but in silence - because I didn't think the eucharist a proper place for such nationalism. I felt, in fact, that my "remembrance" was being forced on me by people with a different agenda from my own. These same people pilloried my membership of CND and labelled me a communist for my activities at the Holy Loch - then a US naval base. I used to feel angry on Remembrance Sunday, and longed for a diplomatic illness to get me off the hook.

Now we seem to have moved on - all of us. The church seems to talk with a different voice, and a bishop washes the feet of peace marchers in Edinburgh. I thought in the silence of the young men and women dead in the muddle of our foreign adventures, and of the photo in The Guardian last Thursday of the children killed by Israeli shelling in Gaza. We heard a meditative sermon on the "stories" we tell of our experience - the way a country makes sense of its recent history, in a way - and wondered how this decade's "story" will end. The armies nowadays are professional soldiers, not frightened conscripts - but the children and women who die are conscripted merely by an accident of geography. How do we make their "story" anything but tragic?

Muriel Gray talked about people's "moral posturing". I daresay I'm one of the people she despises - religious, non-poppy-wearing switherer that I am. But I will not be conscripted into going along with everyone else just because it shows solidarity, for if I did I think I'd be pharisaical.

Freedom, after all, is what it's about. Isn't it?

Back to the Stone Age in Argyll

I've just learned from a comment on Edublogs (again) that blogging is no longer allowed in Argyll and Bute educational establishments. Who actually makes these decisions? Why are the children in Argyll schools not to be allowed to use a tool that is being welcomed by innovative educators all over the world? If this is the case - and it wouldn't surprise me, I'm sorry to say - then it's small wonder that the English department of my former place of employment is currently desperate for someone to come in to teach a Higher class and an Advanced Higher class, to name but one example. If I were currently working for a more enlightened authority, wild horses wouldn't drag me into the blogless boondocks.

And of course if I were still working for Argyll and Bute Council, I'd not be blogging this, because I'd still be catching up on the paper correction work that I always refused to bring home with me. Now, if it were blogged ...

I would love to know who makes the decisions, though. And why.

Reflections

Reflections
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This photo, taken yesterday on the hillside above the road out of Kimun Arboretum as dusk descended, was too good as a title pic not to use it, though in fact all I was going to reflect upon was the cheering news that my teeth appear to be in better nick now that I have more time to clean them. That's my dentist's theory anyway. Gave me a "1" for all my teeth yesterday - a sort of Credit Pass in plaque avoidance - and sent me off without even a scaling. No money needed either, then. Hurrah!

But the other exciting news came via Ewan with his link to Flash Earth. For the past year or so, I've been lamenting the fact that decent Google images of Dunoon stopped about 100 metres north of The Blethers. Now I can see my house - even tell that the image was taken in May, when the red azelea in my front garden is in bloom. Magic.

Sad, really, to have one's life so enhanced by small joys ......

Flash Earth

Interaction online

I've been spending some time over at Blogical Minds where Anne has been encouraging her pupils to blog and has just set up a wiki to use some of my photos from Flickr as stimulus for creative writing. This obviates the need for the pupils to access Flickr directly - it seems this lack of enthusiasm for open net access on the part of the authorities (who are they, these timid people?) is not confined to Argyll and Bute but is alive and well in the land of the free. Ironic, isn't it?

Ewan posted a comment about the function of Web 2.0 in facilitating friendships based on mutual interests and respect, and I think he's right. Do you think it'd help if Dubya was a blogger?

Blogging Creative Writing

Learning curves

When I'd finished writing the previous post yesterday, I did a spot of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training on my Nintendo DS Lite - got to keep Edublogger off my back! I have found that it's usually better to do this stuff in the morning; presumably that's why in primary school we spent the morning doing sums (always beginning with "mental") and spelling and left the afternoon for the quieter occupations of essay-writing and sewing. (Now there's a thing. As an English specialist I would now have to object to that, in the same way as I used to ban my Higher pupils from discussing maths in my room). However, the morning was long gone and I hadn't done my daily training. It was time to get on with it.

I discovered two interesting things. The first was actually slightly scarey: I found that when I had completed 100 sums - the "difficult" mode, including subtraction and division as well as the usual addition and subtraction - the front of my head felt .... warm. Warm in the way my ear does when I've been using my mobile phone. According to Dr K, "Quickly solving equations makes the prefrontal cortex quite active", and here I was feeling I had a hot head. Question: is your prefrontal cortex situated between your eyebrows?

And then I made the second discovery - because I went on to do the Brain Age check. For this, you have to do three randomly-selected tests (so they're not always the same): a Stroop test, plus a word memory test and a number-recoginition test were the ones last night. And my brain age had gone down to 33! Hurrah! I hadn't done the test for a week because I was unwilling to have it go back up from the 44 I'd reached - but the proof is above for all to see so I'll risk it again next week. In defence of my sparring partner who appears to be 80, I have to say that he's in the throes of composition at the moment with a deadline to meet - a sort of musical "Ready Steady Cook" - so sums and words aren't really on the agenda.

And my last discovery since last post came thanks to Bishop Martin, who keeps denying any tincture of geekery. I learned how to insert colour into my text. I've only been at it for a year - how sad is that?

Nintendo DS Lite Brain Age

Linked activities

I was sad to read my friend Don's blog post today just after I had returned from one of my infrequent visits to my old haunts at Dunoon Grammar. I was being assailed on all sides with demands that I return for English supply teaching, and though I would have said "no" anyway, because my life has filled up and there's no room for going back, the lack of access to the technology and the sites which I now use daily would actually mean that I'd have to go back in my head to the days when I was content to teach with a book and a blackboard. And that, I have to confess, I'd be unwillling to do, because one of the few things that I regret about retirement is that I never had the chance to explore the resources that Ewan, David et al promote so convincingly.

However, I am glad to report that former pupils of mine are blogging away - beginning with Neil the Blogfather himself, the aforelinked Ewan, continuing with Ben, currently blogging from Germany and Duffy, who seems to have taken a scunner at education for educators, right down to the revived Progress Report, where one of The Teens has come back to blogging to help her with her Higher English. I can't help a slight feeling of satisfaction that every one of these bloggers worked at some time on the staff of The Pupil's View, the magazine which I was dragooned into running by the now head of editorial development at Guardian Unlimited. He, of course, vanished to do that sort of thing full time, while I stayed there fitting editorial work and struggling with Aldus Pagemaker in around teaching .... but there you are.

And now, worn out by all these links, I shall go and see what my brain age is today.

Over the water ....

When you hear of a priest being instituted as Rector of a church these days, it ususally means he or she has just arrived there, is beginning a new job as it were. But today, my pal Kenny was instituted as Rector of St Augustine's, Dumbarton where he has been Priest-in-charge for the past 6 years or so. I wanted to be there for such a milestone on the journey of this congregation - a "cairn" on the path, as +Idris called it. It is no small achievement to complete such an ambitious restoration project and develop as a congregation during the process, but this lot have done it! I was welcomed like an old friend, invited to the buffet, talked to more people than I can remember, and had a ball. The service was full of warmth: this was not entirely down to the incredible physical warmth of the building, though it's a long time since I've been quite so cosy in an Episcopal church!

So well done, Kenny and well done St Aug's - you've done exceptional. And thank you for a great morning!

Distant shores....

At Toward sailing club 2
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This pic was taken at the end of today's little bit of self-indulgence, if the chill of late afternoon can be truly self-indulgent rather than masochistic, after a sunset so lovely as to make us wonder (we do this periodically) why we ever leave here to go elsewhere for holidays.

Which brings me to the fact that we're off again in the New Year, having just booked a confusing number of flights to visit friends in the USA - starting in Alabama, going on to California, thence to old friends in Virginia and finally by Amtrak to New York for a few nights before returning in mid-February. I still find it quite scary having to be my own travel agent - we used the excellent Trailfinders for the transatlantic flights, the train and the hotel, but had to do the internal flights online, causing a flurry at my online banking people who seemed to think someone had nicked my credit card. I'm glad they're so vigilant, but it makes for difficulties: at one point I was worried that I'd booked the same flight for six different parties.

On quite another tack, David has thrown down a wee gauntlet in his comment on a previous post. I may yet have to come up with a snappy characterisation!

Freedom to roam

DSC00985.JPG
Originally uploaded by Mac44.

This was one of these perfect days when I can't bear to be indoors. The photo, hijacked from Mr B's Filckr set, shows an interesting view of the loch in the Bishop's Glen above Dunoon (and there are more lovely pix if you click on it). I am standing on the shingle at the head of the loch, which used to be the reservoir for Dunoon. We now get our water from Loch Eck, and the reservoirs have been returned to their natural state - well, sort of. There is still an alarming sluice at the other end - very dramatic after rain. But the upper reservoir, where a young CompleteTosh was intrigued by the antics of mating frogs, is gone, with the burn once more wandering through young trees, and the concrete walls and dams are slowly vanishing under brambles. Apparently the Bishop's Glen, above this most presbyterian of towns, is so called because the bishop's palace used to lie at its foot, where the primary school now stands.It's a good place to be, especially on a sunny morning when the rest of the world is at work.

The Bishop's Glen water used to be brownish, and I have no doubt it was full of interesting buglets. But it didn't taste as bad as the blue water which is even now filling my bath.

And no. I don't drink the bathwater.

Things unseen

My friend Bishop Martin has posted an excellent piece on Contemplative Intercession which coincided with the first of John Humphries' programmes about religion, in which he interviewed +Rowan Williams. There arose the question - I suppose inevitably - about what someone who prays thinks he/she is doing to influence the course of events. +Rowan voiced the idea of prayer somehow creating a "thin-ness" so that the power of love could break through into a situation. +Martin writes about visualising someone for whom one prays - but I suppose to someone who never prays all answers such as these will appear nonsensical in the literal sense of having no meaning.

One of the best hours I ever spent in my teaching career was taken up by a discussion with a class of boys about what prayer actually is to those who do it. I resorted to the analogy of phoning home when you're away from your parents - they could accept that, but it's a difficult concept to introduce to a "cold" audience. In fact, I don't know how evangelism happens - not now, anyway, and maybe not ever.

Maybe it's a case of "come and see"?

Stifling comment

An interesting development in school sites caught my eye after I read in The Sunday Herald how schools are banning student access to RatemyTeachers. A quick trawl through the (largely illiterate) comments on the page devoted to my former place of employment showed that while the medium may change, the content does not. As far as I could see, this was the usual stuff, writ not large but potentially widely. But who will read it? Other kids in that school? A few. Their parents? Fewer still. Future employers of the staff concerned? Well, they might, I suppose - but I would hope that they would take the info with a pretty big dose of salt. Who will post? The usual suspects.

OK - I'm not involved. I don't work there any more, and as far as I can see there is only one (very positive) comment about another retired colleague. But did I listen to what pupils thought of me and my colleagues while I was in the classroom? Occasionally you'd get a misguided child attempting to tell you something unpleasant that a wee friend had said, but it's a foolish teacher who pays much heed to that kind of stuff - or indeed goes so far as to encourage it.

But it happens. All the time. You can't stop it because it's part of school life. One of the problems about using computers at all in school is keeping the kids on track, and that doesn't involve writing comments on teachers - just as when I was at school one was discouraged from filling up the boring moments by writing scurrilous notes to a pal on the other side of the room. Or - as I did, every year - writing a colour-coded key to the efficacy and likeability of my teachers for that session. I don't think there's much to be said for banning access; that merely gets the school's name added to the "Wall of Shame".

And another thought: when you live and teach in the same smallish community, you are never under the illusion that you're not discussed. You are assailed by parents in the Co-op; sometimes they phone you at home; on at least one occasion a disgruntled but misinformed parent even turned up in the dark of a November evening on our doorstep. Everyone over the age of eleven knows who you are and has an opinion of your worth - and talks about you loudly in public when the mood takes him/her. Websites? Nae bother.

But I'm out of it, and you can shout me down. Comments, please, in this public space!

3D peak

I'm indebted to Ollie Bray for this info about a new plug-in for Google Earth, which allows you to see the Matterhorn in 3D. I spent several happy minutes last night navigating round from the Italian side - where it is called Monte Cervino - to catch the view (see pic) from Zermatt, familiar to me from a couple of visits. My fave peak in the whole world - who could ask for more?

As they say in Glasgow - it looks just like itself.

Non-virtual

Wild seascape 1
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This photo - of the Firth of Clyde on Thursday - gives an idea of how difficult travel can suddenly become in these parts. Actually the ferries were running, and we had just crossed from Hunter's Quay, but here we were driving through quite big lumps of sea on the coast road to Largs. A trip which appeared simple when first planned can so easily turn into a problem, and a civilised shopping spree in Ayr become a sodden scamper from one shelter to the next. Elegance? Forget it.

Another good reason for virtual communication? Absolutely. Except that there is no virtual substitute for the wind blowing the spray in your face, or for the glow when you return from a walk in the wet wilds with the rellies whom you are visiting.

Or for the taste of the wine shared at the end of your journey!

Progressing nicely..

I'm delighted to have Progress Report back online and to be able to join in SS's Higher preparation. It's interesting that she feels so happy to be blogging again - and brings it home that I am able to work with her even though I am actually away from home at the moment. Mind, I could do with having my books around me - Higher work is always that bit more demanding on the teacher! - but I can still ask the questions that a good student can use as a springboard, even if only to say "no, no - that is not what I meant at all".

Meanwhile, can I invite other edubloggers to take a look?

Younger every day

I'm away from home tonight, and had not expected to post till I return on Saturday, but I have to record that today my brain was ... 46! And what is more, I was doing the test on the Western Ferry as it heaved across the Firth of Clyde in a high sea with interruptions from the man who wanted a ticket from me. I told him I was old and didn't need one, but he still insisted on seeing my pass. I was irritated, but I suppose I should have been pleased that he didn't just look and say "Old person".

46, eh?

Brain training, anyone?

Further to my acquisition of a Nintendo, I can report that addiction is gaining ground at The Blethers. No, I'm not playing games - at least, not in the sense that Duffy meant t'other day - but I am doing 100s of wee sums and reading swiftly aloud, drawing camels and rhinos from memory and realising that there are skills I once possessed which have fallen lamentably into the sere, the yellow leaf. Like multiplication tables, for example. I'm as bad at the middle bits of the middle tables (6x and 7x especially) as any struggling nine-year-old - walking speed, according to Dr Kawashima. On the cheerful side, I'm at train speed in my reading aloud, and pretty hot at remembering words - as, I suppose, you might expect.

And the purpose of all this? Well, when I asked for my "brain age" on yesterday's showing, it was 56. Today it's 52. The target is 20. And there's the competitive element - Mr B is reckoned to have one foot in the grave, brain-wise. I have a feeling that geekery comes into the equation, however, and it doesn't have any criteria for measuring musical activity. But Mr B is now talking about doing homework on his tables and has disappeared to read aloud. Madness may be just round the corner - or perhaps not.

Amusingly, the Nintendo saga (or Nintendo for Saga clients) was picked up and blogged over at ds fanboy, where many of the 11 or so comments revealed the fact that moms - as they touchingly call me - are not expected to enjoy this sort of thing. Tough.

And the Nintendo has just told Mr B; "Chris did better than you today." See what I mean?

Brain training

Nintendo, not nursing homes

Mum opens her birthday present - Nintendo DS Lite
Originally uploaded by Edublogger.

I had a day off yesterday - visiting Edublogger, collecting my fabby birthday present (too precious to post), lunching at the excellent Shore restaurant and coming home just in time to watch Spooks. Over lunch, we discussed, inter alia, the reasons for someone to blog. Mine are obviously different from the work-based agenda of many of the blogs I read, but I decided that as far as I was concerned I was aping the essayists whose work we used to study in school - Addson, Steele, Bacon. Maybe a touch of Pepys as well.

Actually I loved Bacon's essays, with their terribly quotable lines - "Revenge is a kind of wild justice"; "Men fear death as children fear to goe in the darke" (I'm sure I remember archaic spelling - I must have been an odd child). I once unearthed a set when I was starting off a top Credit class at the start of S3; we read a few and then I set them to write their own essay "Of Homework". The results were amazing - and the class never looked back, accepting from the off that they were going to be challenged because I thought they were up to it. The two year course was one of the best periods of my teaching life, most of it having been spent in a very ordinary comprehensive - these pupils showed how extraordinary they could be.

I look forward to seeing how far my new Nintendo DS Lite can rejuvenate my aging brain - an obvious investment in keeping me (and Mr Blethers, apparently) functioning mentally well into our old age. I shall report on my progress.

Transformation

Light transformed
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Just returned from the Singing Workshop in the Cathedral of The Isles, with the Sanctus of the new Kilbride Service ringing in my ears, it is difficult to recount what the weekend meant for me. I organised it, partly to share an experience of singing, working hard and living in a wonderful place which I have enjoyed for 36 years and partly to widen the circle of those who know about the cathedral and want to return to it. I did it through and for another important element in my life, though a more recent one - Cursillo in Scotland. It seems to have been a success - and the results were pretty impressive.

Put together a group of 20 people from all over Scotland - Moray, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Argyll dioceses, from South Uist to Dalkeith - ranging in ages from 40ish to 80ish, who have never sung together before and who in some cases have never done more than sing hymns in church congregations. Work them hard for a day, with vocal exercises, with unison singing, with harmony and with plainsong. At the end of that day, before they stagger exhausted to bed, involve them in singing Compline, entirely in plainsong. On Sunday, they fill the choirstalls and sing a new communion service, on which the ink has just dried, by John McIntosh (aka Mr B, but here operating very much in his own hat) who has by now brought them to such a pitch that they barely recognise themseves. They sing Arcadelt's Ave Maria, in Latin, as a communion motet, and they realise they are achieving a unity.

It was an unlikely thing to do - but it worked. I'm really glad I thought of it (she said modestly) and that I can call on such great musicians as Mr B and our friend Alastair at the cathedral. Talking of modesty - the reading at Morning Prayer (yes - we had that too) today was from Thomas Merton, about humility. About feeling comfortable with the reasons you had done things - at least, that was one angle. This weekend felt good, to me

Not blogging but singing

Every teacher knows the sinking feeling when they have a great idea or - if you're an English teacher - a super text and it falls like lead in the class. That's frustrating enough; you feel depressed or challenged depending on the time of year, but you have to keep going. Even worse, however, is when you have a bright student who hasn't realised what hard work is - or who simply isn't interested in improving. Many bright pupils can survive on their wits till about S3; after that success tends to involve application as well as natural ability.

I'm feeling a bit disenchanted today. I know blogs work as a great way of keeping work in English interesting and fresh, an answer to the old question "how do you prepare for an exam in English?" But like everything else, they only work if the pupil produces the original posts. The blog illustrated above, wildbank, has been grinding along in fits and starts because its owner had yet to grasp the concept of "little and often" - and the idea that, as footballers practise ball skills, writers practise writing skills.

I need a new metaphor along the "you can lead a horse to water ..." lines. Suggestions welcome! Meanwhile, I shall remind myself that I have a life, about which I shall blog when I return from another sojurn at The Cathedral of The Isles, where I have organised a weekend Singing Workshop for Mr Blethers to share his magic. I expect we shall all be working hard there, 'cos it's more fun if you do things properly.

Who needs to teach English?

Is there anyone out there?

Dunoon Community Radio
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A strange morning, that - a sense of recording stuff that may never be heard, never read. Going out at 9.30 on such a gloomy, misty morning reminded me of going to work, especially as the Community Radio bods had set up shop in Dunoon Primary School - it seemed small enough to be a cupboard, but may have been an intimately small teaching space crammed with equipment (pictured). I spoke about myself, read some of my poems, played some of my choice of music, sold a couple of my books and had a coffee bought for me - an agreeable way to spend a dreich morning. Small kilted children came and went in pursuit of their competitions (The Mod - remember?) and as we left I could hear the next programme going out in Gaelic.

And then? the stuff that no-one may read? Well, there's always this blog, but I've also put my morning on the One Day in History blog, urged on by the exhortations of Neil Winton. I read the other day that no government had yet fallen through the activities of bloggers, but who knows what future historians may make of such minutiae?

And the day is only half over. I don't know .....

Ego again

The ego stepped smartly in today to prevent me from saying "no" to another job - and as a result I find myself preparing to appear live on local radio tomorrow (can you "appear" on a radio programme?). Apparently the tie-in with Mod radio means the local chaps (a genderless word in my current vocabulary) have been given more air-time than they know what to do with, so they quickly hunted round the voluble and the brass-necked and there I was! If you want a wee insight into the Mod in Dunoon, by the way, you can find it here, courtesy of Brian Morton.

I'll be talking about writing poetry, reading some of my stuff, and, I think, having some of my choice of music played, if I can find the relevant CDs in time. The prog goes out at 10am on 87.7 fm - but I think you have to be pretty close to Dunoon - or maybe in a Gaelic area - to get it.

But meanwhile I have a dinner party to cook for!

Sailing in Fidelio

Flying again!
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up all at sea. After all, when your best pals acquire a boat (a Freedom 21 called Fidelio, to be precise) it's only a matter of time before you discover a need to join them on board, and today was that time. It was unfortunate that the mist never really cleared, though if you click on this pic and look at the rest of the set on Flickr you'll see the wonderful pale pink sunset over the Holy Loch, but I'd made up my mind that I needed some boat photos for possible use as background to a poem which I intend putting on a postcard.

Actually taking photos on a sailing boat isn't easy. For a start, there are a great many ropes (sheets?) and bits of metal which are a vital component of the sailing mechanism, and then there are the welly-clad feet of The Boss, aka Rob, which threaten to land on your head should you move too far from your allotted space. It is difficult to get far enough away from anything to take its picture, so you end up with half mast photos. There is also the small matter of a great deal of water which must not be allowed to come into contact with the camera - you get my drift. But enough of these half-baked puns.

For drift we did not. We were under sail the whole way until the moment of re-entering the marina at Holy Loch; slowly into the wind towards Gourock and then careering gloriously back with the spinnaker out and the boat keeling over and making great gurgling noises. All very exhilarating.

But I may live to regret having my photo taken wearing edublogger's Waverley hat.

Life before death

I was involved in a street collection this morning, not something I do very often but much less awful in reality than in the imagination. The Christian Aid collection had me rattling my tinny (can't call it a plasticky) and occasionally adding the words "Life before death" to call attention to myself. The "pitch" I had chosen from those allocated to my church was outside the betting shop - I had wondered if anyone would be there before 11am, but I needn't have worried.

As it turned out, I finished the hour with more in my can than any of the other collectors I met. The betting shop is a great pitch, and the best contributors are not the sleek passer-by from the nearby car park but the patently obviously desperate, the old, the ordinary. Two well-dressed young women passed with no more than a faint smile, while an elderly man, coming out of the shop, said "Ah've nae change - Ah'll be back" - and returned, ten minutes later, to put something in the can. I also give honourable mention to the man who, in response to a rattle from me, said "I'm a good Jewish boy" - but gave me a contribution nonetheless. On the down side, I saw the spectacle of the enormous men - there were several - who would heave themselves from their cars, march into the pub next door, reappear to place a bet and stuff themselves back into the driving seat to leave - all without sparing me a glance.

Life before death is a great slogan - but I wonder what the people we were collecting for would think of our lifestyles?

Compromise and an offer I could refuse ...

It would seem that the Scottish Episcopal church- or at least the bishops thereof - have been slowing down to a walk over the matter of priests and bishops in same-sex relationships, waiting for the next Lambeth Conference to reach its decision on how to proceed. Bishop Martin, over on Following Columba, writes "How can anyone compromise when injustice is being done? Perhaps for some justice seen to be done is more significant and important than the future survival of the Scottish Epsicopal Church as an Anglican Province." I feel that we put our bishops in a very awkward position - it's as if once someone becomes a bishop he/she has by definition to compromise in order to hold all the flock more or less in the same field. I wonder how it'd be if we trusted them and the Holy Spirit a bit more and let them be themselves?

On another tack, I turned down a job today. Two months' work in my old department. I sometimes feel it'd be good to try my new ideas on a class instead of one or two pupils, but realised very quickly how I've come to value my freedom to do what I want when I want. I was also reminded that I would no longer be the well-known scourge of the recalcitrant that I had been, but would have to expend all that energy on re-establishing the persona.

Nope. I reckon you get too old for the job - the full bhoona anyway. Besides, I'm too busy having fun and tussling with moral dilemmas.

Discipline and despair

Classroom 404
Originally uploaded by raymond_kram.

I’m going to drift away from specifically English teaching comment today to take a wander into the area of discipline – or rather indiscipline. I’m thinking of the kind of class that makes a young, talented teacher despair after a few years in the job and decide that she simply can’t put up with low-level indiscipline for another forty years. The kind of S2 class where some little madam thinks it’s ok to say “no” when the teacher tells her to get on with some work, and where a handful of such children can ruin the learning experience for the others and the rest of the day for the teacher.

I believe this is one area where a really good PT (subject) makes a huge difference. I don’t know what it’d be like if the line manager was a more distant figure in charge of several departments – I suspect there would be a dilution of effectiveness. But there are PTs who, as with subject teaching, regard the newly-qualified teacher as being on their own: shut the door, dish your own dirt, make your own discipline. Now, up to a point, that’s what you have to do. You can’t always rely on someone else to bark for you. But there are moments in the most experienced and most able classroom practitioners’s life when she simply has to get rid of a pupil or two so that order can prevail, and that’s where the sensitive and effective organisation of the departmental approach comes in.

I personally recommend the routine organisation of a department – or group of smaller departments – so that every teacher in it knows which colleague at any given moment is free to take in a single pupil or a couple at the most, to work in silence within another class – preferably of another year group. That benefits everyone, and means that every teacher has something to give as well as to receive.

However, there are other strategies which require more specific collaboration. When a class is divided between those who want to get on – with the teacher as well as the work – and those whose only intention is to disrupt and intimidate, it can be a good strategy to divide them physically. The first stage here is to remove the disruptors for one period to another room – preferably the PT’s – to work silently on relevant work which requires only close supervision. The class teacher then has the chance to demonstrate to the rest how a class could be when free from the disruption which has dominated it so far, and in so doing make progress in getting the majority “on side” and confident that in fact they are in the majority. Peer pressure to misbehave is lessened by this recognition, and can in fact be redirected towards the troublemakers.

On a subsequent period it may be possible to reverse the division and take the disruptors on their own - because they are (a) likely to be curious and (b) less likely to carry on without an audience. Whether or not this is done, the end move of this stage is to segregate the disruptors within the class – seated together, however unlikely this may seem – and to address only the cooperative pupils. If disruption occurs in the “ignored” side of the room it must be swiftly and dispassionately dealt with by class exclusion – because they are already at the stage of having been moved within the class. (The nonsense of “three verbal warnings” still seems to prevail in some schools – a management cop-out if ever there was one)

I’ve put all this down here because I happen to have been talking to the despairing young teacher I postulated at the start. This particular teacher is going to be a loss to secondary education – for she sees little future for herself in it. The solutions I suggest have worked for me over the past 10 years or so – but I worked in a department blessed by an extremely pro-active PT who would not allow her staff to suffer at the hands of ill-mannered pupils or ineffective senior management.

I know subject PTs are a dying breed, and I know that not every teacher plays the same cards in dealing with indiscipline – but is there a case in this area as well as in subject teaching for the kind of mentoring that protects the young teacher from the most irritating and soul-destroying aspect of the job? All you promoted staff out there – any comment?


classroom discipline

There she blows....

Another first for me today - I saw a whale blowing at the entrance to Loch Long. (No - I didn't take the photo; it took me enough time to run back to the car for the specs to let me see it) By late afternoon there was a small crowd along the Blairmore shore road, all peering out to sea, some with binoculars, and passing drivers narrowly avoiding catastrophe as they tried to see why.

I was struck primarily by the volume of water involved - like an ornamental fountain suddenly being turned on in mid-channel. In a frenetically busy day, a rewarding moment.

Re-entry

The Oratory, St Mary's
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Having (more or less) recovered from working on team at a Cursillo weekend, I spent today re-engaging with normal life. I was reminded of the way I felt after the first time I spent a week in hospital having my No.1 baby - I came home and felt I'd been away for a year. Little things like the changes on the telly: in 1974 the Waltons had appeared and I couldn't believe such a saccharine programme existed; this time they've changed the linking sequence on the BBC with equally disorientating effect. (I never really liked the dancers - the two athletic guys on the roof were ok, and the leaping Masai , but the others left me cold.)

I'm not going to talk about the actual weekend here, but you can read the benefits of such an experience on the Cursillo in Scotland blog if you're interested.

The photo here is of the oratory at the Redemptorist monastery at Kinnoull where the weekend took place - a wonderfully peaceful place.

Drawing a veil ...

I'm going to be missing from the blogosphere for a few days as I vanish into a monastery in Perth with, among others, my pal Di. We'll be senior members of team on a Cursillo weekend, and one thing we'll have no opportunity to do is blog. If we were on a similar weekend in the USA we wouldn't even be allowed to have our mobile phones with us after the first evening - I fear I would have to resort to deviousness. Instead, we'll be busy looking after people and running up and down several flights of very hard stone stairs.

When I return I may well have lost any shreds of educational thought, but I write this now to remind myself that I would like to blog soon about some of the aspects of English teaching that I learned the hard way. I think I would have been a better teacher much earlier in my career if someone had pointed me in the direction I now favour.

But first it's the monastic life. Now where did I put the hot-water bottle?

On the shoulders of the past

I was asked the other day what I would suggest to prevent the situation where probationers and less experienced teachers seem to have to re-invent the wheel in order to arrive at an equilibrium between creativity and the demands of the curriculum. Having been in an unpromoted post throughout my career in English teaching, there is a sense in which I’ve never had to think about this, but I shall try to do so now.

Rather than publish a massive entry which rambles through all the areas of English teaching and administration, I’m going to break this problem up a bit. This post will look at how I would structure the administrative set-up to assist the development of new teachers.

In the case of the PGCSE student, with a subject degree, doing a one-year post-grad course in teaching, I would suggest that a straightforward approach should be made to ensuring that they know exactly what they will be expected to do when they find themselves in their own classroom the following year. (Remember – I still don’t know exactly how this is taught, merely the outcome). Such entrants into the profession already have the academic qualifications in their subject – it’s vocational training they need at college.

When the newly-qualified probationer arrives in his first school, there seems to me to be the tension between the teacher as authority figure as far as the pupils are concerned (teacher knows best – otherwise why is he teaching me/my wean?) and the teacher as absolute beginner who needs considerable support and encouragement. The new teacher hopes the pupils can’t spot the rawness, but it’s there. It’s like the newly-qualified driver taking to the M8 in the rush-hour – perfectly legal, often done, but not a particularly good idea.

Two things might need changing here. The first is the mentoring available in school. Is the PT necessarily the best person to do this? Is there a Senior Teacher (ie promoted post) from another subject area looking after our English teacher? (Because they might not always be able to address all the problems of departmental know-how and keepy-uppy). Is there in fact someone else in the department who could, if given the time specifically to do this, be a more effective “soul friend” for the new teacher? And is the school smart enough to recognise this? Is everyone in the department aware of the need to support their new (and perhaps temporary) colleague – and are they willing to do this?

The second is the attitude of the new teacher. It is difficult to mentor someone who puts up barriers. It is not out of the question that a new teacher – especially one who had been in, say, business, and has not come straight from his own education – may well behave as if he knows it all already and resents any implication that he doesn’t. This may well be a hangover from the “super-teacher” mentality, when you shut your door and triumphed over any adversity which might assail you. However, this was always a convenient fiction. Colleges of Education, in my opinion, need to remind students of how much they will still have to learn – and about how to ask for assistance.

Disclaimer: remember that I was never in a position to implement any of this, and know little of what is done in colleges now. All I have said here comes from the other end of the process, and is based on observation in one school.

More to follow…..

new teachers

Birthday!

Car Deck
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A quick thank-you to all who sent me cards, presents and texts to wish me a happy birthday today. I had a great day over on Bute with a picnic - we've never walked there before - and came home to drink a bottle of champagne and collapse comatose in a manner suited to one so aged.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Teacher training – some questions

What, exactly, do they teach young teachers in teacher training colleges? That isn’t a rhetorical question, however Victor Meldrewish it may sound: I’d really like to know. Because I don’t know about other subjects, I’ll stick to my own – English – because it’s in English teaching that I’ve become aware of some of the horrors.

I’ll come clean right away and admit that my own recollections of my PGSE course (not that we called it that – I can’t recall that we had a name for it) are hazy. I remember some apparently despair-crushed lecturer telling us that it was a good idea when confronted with a wildly unruly class to “exhaust the response”. I also remember that at the time we found that hilarious. The reality, of course, is far from hilarious, and with hindsight I know what he meant. But I want to talk today about the actual subject-teaching content of these courses.

This is the scenario: a new teacher (male, youngish); a supposedly Credit S4 class. Many of the people in the class have already had two such teachers in their school career to date; both have moved on. They are still doing Standard Grade, so five months from now they will have to submit a folio of their best work, according to tightly specified guidelines. Ideally at this stage they would already be in possession of such a folio, requiring only to upgrade and/or replace pieces that they can improve upon. But this is not the case – for it takes someone who really knows what they are doing to ensure that they have accomplished this in S3.

They need to know exactly what they are doing, and why. At this stage, it is not ideal to dabble in randomly-chosen pieces of literature, doing a vaguely-targeted critical appraisal of this and that, not really having it assessed, not really being told how to improve it, not actually knowing if this could be a folio piece or not – and if not, why not. And yet I know for a fact that I am describing a real situation, one which will affect the future paths of many bright students.

So what should be happening? The teacher needs to be very clear in his own mind at this stage what exactly he is trying to do. He has two tasks: (1) to prepare his pupils for an exam and (2) to encourage them to widen their horizons while at the same time equipping them to deal with any text they will come across. This will, in time, include tax returns and passport applications, financial documents and their wills – we’re not just talking Shakespeare here.

I realise I could go on about this – and may well, in a later post - but I want to come back to my original point. Are student teachers told clearly what they must do at different stages in a school? How specific are the lectures they attend? I know from my own recent experience that students are encouraged to be innovative (at least in some quarters) – but what about the clear vision of what a teacher of English is actually trying to do? And then how to do it? And what to avoid? Perhaps then we wouldn’t have the pitiful spectacle of bright kids with a pathetic bundle of inadequate work and no sense of direction – and by that I mean not actually knowing if they have to finish a piece of work or if it will ever be assessed.

From what I have seen on the blogs of student teachers, there is a tendency to high-flown academic language about texts and teaching. I think there is a real need for telling it like it is – and equipping young teachers with the tools they will need when the future of 100 or so kids will depend on their abilities. We don’t expect our young doctors to mess up for the first year or so of solo work – we expect them not to kill us as they learn. Is teaching less important?

After all, you may have an aspiring brain surgeon in your class ….

A special place

Glen Sannox from the start of the walk
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A break from thinking about education today. Instead we were up at the crack of dawn and off to spend the day on Arran. My favourite glen - probably anywhere - is Glen Sannox, a perfect glaciated U-shaped valley. Until recently, it was also an extremely muddy hike, as the water drains off the surrounding hills on its way to the burn and sits in the peaty hollows on the floor of the glen. However, it has in recent years been attacked by the National Trust, who have made a wonderful job of creating a natural-looking gravel track over the bogs, with drainage ditches channelling the water to the burn and huge rocks ensuring that the channels remain firmly defined. So now a walk that used to consist of much leaping and cursing among the tussocks has become a pleasurable experience - and the state of the boots at the end of the day is noticeably cleaner.

Perhaps it is the extreme wildness of the glen which has always attracted me, or the looming shapes of Cioch na h-Oighe, Caisteal Abhail and Cir Mhor which bring the cloud hanging over the centre of the island, or the thrill of finding the excavated whinstone dike which is the key to the route up The Saddle at the head of the glen - I can't pin it down. But I know that today, when we had only a few hours on the island which I regard as my other home, it was Glen Sannox that I wanted to spend these hours in. I have never been there so late in the year, when the bog myrtle is losing its heavenly perfume and the bracken is turning, but I should like to return in winter, to see the mountains under snow.

Living here in Dunoon, Arran is always visible, filling the road through Innellan, looming above Bute when seen from Toward. I never see it without wanting to be there. Today, I was.

Class blogs: the flies in the ointment

I’ve done a good deal of thinking recently about the practical uses of blogs as a teaching tool in the English classroom, and a summary of this will be appearing shortly in Coming of Age #2. But having arrived at the stage of seeing so clearly how such a tool could save hours of repetitive note-making for formative assessment, I began to look at why it doesn’t seem to be taking off. After all, it’s not exactly rocket science (no pun intended, but I quite like it)

Let’s postulate an English teacher, with a pretty academic S4 class. She sets up a class blog for working, say, on a Critical Essay. (During the S4 course, she may set five such essays) The pupils use the blog to assemble their ideas, collaboratively at first, but gradually moving towards the point where each individual is working on his/her own essay. And gradually the teacher’s comments will become the kind of thing that in the past she will have been writing on the pupils’ scripts as they submitted them – formative assessment.

Now, as I see it, part of the joy of this is that the comments will be available for others in the class to see and benefit from; in fact the teacher could highlight points which were more widely beneficial by putting them in a post instead of a comment, with indication, perhaps, of exactly which pupils need to heed this post. But there’s the rub – maybe. For the comments are there for not just the class to see, but the teacher’s line manager, the headteacher, the parents, other teachers ….. and so on.

If a teacher doesn’t really go in for helpful comments on a pupil’s work, if she merely ticks and grades and throws it back for the hapless pupil to make it better all on his own, then that kind of teacher isn’t going to want to blog. If a teacher is uncertain actually of how to tell a pupil to improve their writing and prefers to leave a vague comment rather than expose her own uncertainty, then that teacher isn’t going to want to blog. Most principal teachers in fact have little time to inspect the ongoing assessment within their department, and laying down ground rules about how teachers actually assess individual pieces is all very well but hard to enforce. But if each teacher in a department had their assessment in the public domain – indeed, their whole year’s work in literature and writing on record for all to see – who is the winner there?

The answer has to be the pupil. Not just because of the benefits I’ve already discussed elsewhere – the permanent record, the sense of audience – but also because their teacher will be equally aware of audience. There will be no chance to shut the classroom door and hide the evidence in the cupboard. And it may be that this is the big fly in the ointment for the teacher unwilling to go public. Maybe blogs are just too open – not for the pupils we spend so much energy “protecting” from the big bad cyber-public, but for the majority of teachers who prefer to keep their work within the four walls of their classroom.

And now I’ll go nail this to the edublog door …….

Brambles in the blogosphere?

Brambles
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I've just had the interesting experience of being interviewed for an embryonic local radio station - "someone creative" was apparently the remit. This resulted in an entirely enjoyable morning talking about my poetry and reading a few of them, including this one, which I wrote last year on National Poetry Day.


BRAMBLES

Today I found five brambles
Dangling carelessly on a branch
Miles from their roots
Invaders in my garden
Hard little things
Dull-eyed and gritty
But now I should wrestle
Not with a bank of weeds
But with an online bank
Prune some debts
Tidy loose ends
And instead of working
I am writing about brambles
Because a friend told me
That this was a day
For poems to grow in.

© C.M.M.
It feels somehow self-indulgent to be given the chance to talk about my own writing - normally it's something I do and offer without comment, as if it was bad enough to be inflicting the actual writing on folk without discussing it as well. In fact, a blog is about the only place where such self-absorption seems acceptable - until you start wondering about audience. I've touched on this before, here, but I've been forced to think again about audience and responsibility in blogging as in other areas of my life.

I find myself slightly resentful at the thought that a blog which began as my little-read online maunderings should have prompted someone to question the wisdom of posting what comes up my back. Is this what happens when people actually read what you write? You become anwerable?

Well, if so, I'm about to do some more serious (educational) thinking online. And if someone doesn't like it - tough. But I will think about what I write first. And that's a promise.

Blast-off

In response to the encouragement from my comments page, a brief report on last night's gig. What do I recall today? Two things stick in my mind. First, we sang a storm. Confident, swinging, dead in tune. And I mention this first because the other memory is negative: the noise of the audience. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that two thirds of the 750 people reputed to be there couldn't be described as "audience" because the word implies a degree of listening. No, they were the punters; and it was like performing in a massive pub.

Other memories? Standing on the stage blinded by the lights so that I could see nothing but blackness in the auditorium. Squashed in the backstage area clutching stands and water bottles while large stagehands squeezed apologetically by and Fred Macaulay kept the patter flowing. The gaffer tape on the maestro's pedal sliding on the wet stage and needing running repairs mid-set ..... and the continuous racket from the darkness tempting me to seize the mike and bellow. (I didn't)

Do it again? I'd rather not. But I'm glad the Three Dolphins Trust got off to such a good start and that people seemed to have fun. I'll find my fun in a freezing half-empty church somewhere ....

Fly me to the Moon .... please

Find today completely hijacked by the fact that I'm taking part in a charity concert in the Queens' Hall tonight. It's not as if I'm a solo turn - just Five of Eight (Borg afficionados will get this) in the singing group 8+1 (eight women + one man, our director), in a show full of rock groups, the school jazz band and Fred Macaulay the compere, but in a way it's even more frustrating.

For a start, we were promised a sound check with the "professional" sound man coming down "specially" - and now he's later than expected and the sound check is "aff". So we've had less than ten minutes on the stage last night and tonight we go on and whether or not we can be heard is in the hands of someone we've never met and who doesn't know anything about our sound. He's checking the jazz band and a rock group. We sound like neither of these. We are not amused.

If I survive the event I may blog more - or I may simply choose to forget it. Depends how it goes for us, I guess. It's more my cup of tea to sing Byrd in a lovely resonant building, with no sound experts within miles, but tonight it's "Fly me to the Moon" or nothing.

Let's hear it for the oldest swingers in town .....

TeachMeet06 recollected in tranquillity

Looking back at yesterday’s visit to TeachMeet06, what are my impressions? Last night I was full of it – and out of my skull with exhaustion by the time I came to blog about it, so that my posts were full of broken links and I wasted ages deleting multiple posts. Actually I think some of that was Blogger rather than me, but I can’t be sure…

Anyway, a nos moutons. My over-riding impression was of people who were very much alive – and hugely enthusiastic about what they were doing. There was none of the world-weary disdain for the work of teaching that is such a depressing feature of some staffrooms and many in-service courses. And no-one was taking the piss out of the enthusiastic. It was great. And more – I found I’d forgotten that I’d actually retired, and that I’d gone back to thinking about education again, seeing how the new stuff on display could be used in my own area.

Maybe teaching has been static for too long. I know there have been so many new initiatives that we were all sick of them – but were they actually new? It’s not really new thinking to tweak an exam or two, or decide that work should be done in text-based units, as we did when Standard Grade came in. Remember these interminable units that would sicken anyone of the most riveting book by spreading it over months of trivial tasks? How many boxes of paper and comb-bound booklets ended up collecting dust on the topmost shelves of departmental store cupboards? This stuff is new thinking, encouraging a fluid and open approach which involves everyone, pupils and teachers, in working collaboratively – and not in waiting for Course Outlines decided by someone higher up the tree with a career to carve.

Yesterday I felt a bit of an anomaly in that company – I really only use the tiny fringes of the technology on offer, and am not really geek material. I learn as I go along, but slowly compared with these guys. But I am a teacher – and as I made clear in what I said, a good tool is a good tool and should be seized and used.

But now I really must try to sort out my tags……

TeachMeet06+Stormhoek

Blogging and Creative Writing

IMG_2610.JPG
Originally uploaded by Edublogger.

Text of presentation at TeachMeet06

Ok. I found the pearls. The twinset eluded me. I’m a recently retired English teacher – and yes, I found the time to explore the uses of blogging once I was out of the classroom, but then no-one had told me what I’m about to tell you. I used a blog to improve the Creative Writing skills of two private students between their Standard Grade prelim and the final exam – and it’s a big task to improve writing in 3 months.

And you might well dismiss what I say because I’m not doing it with a whole class, but I’m not going to be dismissed so easily. That’s because when I was teaching I really worked my socks off on formative assessment. That often meant writing much the same thing on up to 30 essays at a sitting – because as you presumably all know, children tend to make the same mistakes or need the same tips when engaged on a task. And that’s the first thing I’d say about blogging when teaching creative writing: you can blog a point and have all the pupils read it and refer to it when needed – because it’s there for all to see.

Process Writing is a method of encouraging “real” writing – of getting students to open up and express genuine emotions through writing that is at once spontaneous and well-controlled. In the classroom until now, it has involved each student in writing on six small pieces of paper, each following on from an initial idea based on “a place, a person or an object important or familiar to you”. They consult in pairs after each one, then use the ideas generated to build a piece of writing – or to reject everything done so far and start again. After a fortnight of writing and conferencing and editing and redrafting the final piece is written – and then physically cut, using scissors and sellotape. Really.

Are you beginning to see how much tidier – and less noisy – this would be if it were the subject of a class blog? Process Blogging, in fact. This is what I did. The students set up the blog – named it, thought up a user name and password – and they wrote the posts. Each post was identified by the student’s initials or nickname. It might be the opening paragraph of a novel based on the beginning of one of Graham Greene’s stories or a descriptive paragraph trying out the use of effective imagery – or any of the areas explored in Process Writing.

I did most of the commenting – the usual pernickety stuff I’d been accustomed to scribble on their work about comma-splice, layout of dialogue, dead metaphors – you name it. Every thing an English teacher needs to point out, depending on the stage and ability of the student. Sometimes they’d come right back: “What do you mean by comma-splice?” “Why is that a bad word to use there?” Other times there would be a rewrite and :”Is this better?” I’d also suggest prompts – because that’s a big part of the conferencing in Process Writing. So I might ask: “What is the heroine going to do now?” or “You haven’t told me how she got to this stage – put in a paragraph to get her down the road” And they’d do it – perhaps in a five-minute interval after I’d commented.

But I wasn’t alone in the Comments section. Other bloggers joined in – friends of mine, other blog-savvy educators, my former students. So my current pupils realised they had a real audience – not just each other, not just me, but people they didn’t know, “out there”. Their writing became more focused, more intense. They worked on it every day – a little at a time, or a whole essay in a night for a time trial. Often I’d comment on it before I went to bed – a much more instant response than waiting for the English period or till I’d finished the S1 jotters.

And it worked. By the time of the Standard Grade exam, the two girls who’d been disappointed with a level 3 in the prelim both gained Credit grades for writing, and one of them got straight 1s. You can check her response on http://.pinkyparky.blogspot.com - the blog is called Progress Report.

Blogging of itself isn’t the answer to every English teacher’s prayer – a poor teacher or a lazy one is not going to have a miraculous effect simply because he uses a blog. Blogs are merely a tool. But it’s a sad day when good teachers aren’t given access to all the methods available to them – and sadder still when they themselves put up the barriers.

By the way: I have some great ideas about writing Critical Essays using blogs – but they’ll have to wait!


TeachMeet06

TeachMeet06

DSCN0133
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir.

Having just got in from aquaplaning over the Rest and Be Thankful in driving rain - strange, isn't it, how fierce rain always seems to originate from a point six feet in front of the windscreen - I don't feel like the brightest blogger on the block, but I can't end the day without pinching one of David's pix showing the gathering I attended today: TeachMeet06.

That wine you can see on the table went down a treat - I hadn't tasted Stormhoek before, but may well again - and I felt that the crowd issuing forth from the Orkney Room in the Crowne Plaza hotel seemed considerably jollier than anyone else we met in the corridor. It almost made me wish (again) that I was still in the classroom, but after that journey home I'm glad not to have to be out for 9am.

I had a ball, chaps - great to meet you, David, Andrew, Neil, and the crazy American lady who came over from New York specifically to attend TeachMeet06 (really). Tomorrow I'll put up the text of what I said, but right now bed seems more inviting.

TeachMeet06+Stormhoek

Another new Edublog

A quick welcome to a new edublogger over at
wildbanks. Over the academic year we'll be covering the Standard grade coursework, starting with a look at constructing a good Critical Essay. Later we'll go onto Creative Writing - and who knows what we could do with tackling Interpretation?

I hope my usual suspects will join in with the constructive comments.

Prep time

teachmeetbbb.jpg
Originally uploaded by Edublogger.

Preparing to make my own fairly minimal contribution to Teachmeet06 tomorrow, I find myself wondering about the phenomenon of actually doing just that - preparation. For years I taught more or less on the hoof - any preparation would come if I had to study a new text myself first - not knowing what I was going to say until the occasion arose. At least, that's what it felt like, especially on the days when I'd say to a class: "Well: what are we doing today?" Ok, with a Higher class I'd have an idea of what I wanted to cover in a given period, but it was pretty fluid.

So why am I doing this preparatory stuff? Partly, I suppose, it's because of the time limit on the presentation - I can't say "Ok ,we'll finish this next time" and I want to ensure that I say what I want to. And partly, I suspect, it's because the past year I've been doing sermons and stuff, and out of my comfort zone, with a silent audience who won't give me any input. But I'm looking forward to it - and to putting faces to some blog-names.

And what do I hope for? Well, I've been so appalled by the low level of tech-use in my own area (academically and in my old haunts) that I'd like to think that I could influence at least one more person to try blogging to develop Creative Writing for senior pupils. I'll not hold my breath, though.

And back at The Blethers I have another private student coming today for a first meeting. Guess what I hope we'll do first?


TeachMeet06

The nights are ....

DRAWING IN

Tonight we lit two candles
against the Autumn gloom
- cool jazz on the music deck,
cold rain a counterpoint –
and ate the comfort food
that warms on winter’s night.
Such cocoons we build ourselves
snug against the dark –
I hear the sax’s moaning
like wind beneath the door
and think of being out there
and flinch, and draw the blind.

C.M.M. 09/06

Jaelbait?

It's a rocky road for the religious these days. I laughed aloud at this from youtube (thanks, Neil) the other day, and followed with some irritation the story of the Pope's supposed blunder - and yet I'd just been to church, and felt involved/affected/whatever it is we feel when faith is an active feature of our lives. I've always wondered if it were somehow feeble of me not to be a fervent door-banger or street-corner evangelist, but only in a detached sort of way. For in reality I always knew these activities made me cringe.

Today I had further thoughts on the matter, during a training session for lay leaders. While exploring just how much (or how little) we knew about the Old Testament (or indeed the entire Bible, but the OT more so, or less so) I came to the conclusion that I am a Christian despite the bible. Now that's an over-simplification, but there is so much written about which I feel sceptical or even - in the case of stories like Jael and Sisera - repelled that the outsider would wonder what remained for a faith to be built on.

And it's there that poetry comes to the rescue (again). I've just been quoting this over on Following Columba, and it gave me the third leg for today's thought to stand on. R.S.Thomas, in his poem "The Absence", talks about "a vacuum which he [God] may not abhor" - and that's it. Not so much something to build on, but something breathless which is kept alive by faith. No dogma, really, just emptiness. And the words of Christ to give form to the God who comes.

All a bit vague for bashing people with, really. And you should try explaining it to a fundamentalist ....

Stating the obvious?

After a day spent at a meeting of people involved in the next Cursillo weekend in Scotland, I am left with two thoughts. The first is that I am still amazed at the power ordinary people have to be extraordinary - to do things way out of their comfort zone when the need arises.

The second is to do with how we confront our own mortality. It seems to me that acceptance of the one inescapable fact of our own eventual demise - as distinct from simply avoiding contemplation of it - is perhaps the greatest step we take along our spiritual road as mature thinkers. And it's interesting how possible it is to share this journey with others when an atmosphere of trust exists.

And it's salutary to think of the countless millions who have considered this reality - all the way down to someone sitting at a laptop publishing her thoughts in a manner inconceivable to the ancestors at the other end of the chain. We're very small, really, and life is very, very brief.

A view from the stalls

Oh, the joys of a life of freedom. Today I went to a matinee at the theatre for the first time without a gaggle of weans in attendance - to the Theatre Royal in Glasgow to see the delectable George Irving in "the French Lieutenant's Woman". Now, I have to admit that I booked the tickets because of the aforementioned George Irving - Holby City hasn't been the same since Anton Meyer's departure - but I enjoyed the whole experience much more than I expected. The staging and lighting made a huge contribution to a production which gripped me far more than the film ever did (I haven't read the book) and led us through the complexities of a story which unfolded "live" from the mind of "the writer" (Irving).

I loved the way the writer didn't know how his characters were going to turn out, and how we were shown alternative endings when the heroine refused to submit to a conventionally "happy" ending. And I was fascinated by the way in which an actor like Irving can dominate a stage, even when sitting quietly in the shadows as "his" action unfolds. I can't imagine how the performers rev themselves up to do it all over again at the evening performance. I could be getting a taste for theatre after all.

On our way through the heavy traffic after the performance we were stuck behind a throbbing stretch Humvee full of over-excited and farily obnoxious small boys, hanging out of the windows gesticulating and yelling at all and sundry. This must be the party choice for small boys, rather than the limos the girls go for. I suppose I hope none of them fell out or had their heads chopped off by a passing bus.

On a more edifying note, I am delighted to welcome Bishop Martin of Argyll to the blogging world. I look forward to the development of this blog and to the conversations which will arise through it.

A good day all round, I'd say!

Consider the Lilies?

Garden 9 - lilies
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I came upon something I'd scribbled in my diary in July, when this photo was taken. It reminded me of a wonderful morning spent reading poetry, in particular the work of Jane Kenyon, which was new to me. I reproduce it here in tribute to her poetry and to friends who grow a wonderful garden and ply me with poems to read in it!

A MORNING WITH JANE KENYON

This morning I sat and saw the lilies
which yesterday had grown at my back.
They are arranged in tiers, like a school photo,
the tallest at the rear. Their scent
is everywhere, seducing me to stay
as I sit in a white canvas chair
reading your poems and feeling
welling up within at last the need to write again.
I am surrounded by rushing and the sound
of multitudes of hidden birds who
splash and scurry, and the strange
interrupted cooing of a dove whose song
repeated twice is silenced when he sings
the first note of the opening phrase
and I smile at this casual reordering
of all my trained perceptions
as the sun strengthens and the lilies
poise to open new faces to the day.

© C.M.M. 07/06

A grand graduation

Statues and sky
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A family graduation? Need a good background for the photies? Nae bother - Versailles seems a good venue. I don't know if that's how the OU decide where to hold their ceremonies, but it was an excellent excuse for the Blethers family to go on an absurdly OTT trip last weekend to see Neil graduate MBA. Clicking on this photo will take you to all the others taken on the day, as well as to some of the rather super hotel we stayed in.

I was incredibly taken with the atmosphere at the ceremony; "ordinary" graduations are exciting enough for the families of those involved, but this was an occasion celebrating the enormous achievement of completing arduous courses of study while - in many cases - holding down an equally arduous day-job. No wonder there was a big round of applause for the families and partners who had supported the new graduates. It was also noticeable that many of those graduating were, well, old. In fact, the effect was that of being surrounded by University dons of the old-fashioned variety - all those gowned figures well into their supposedly declining years.

We personally enjoyed Neil's moment of confusion over French gadgetry in the plumbing at the venue, when a venerable gent in the dark blue of a first degree was heard to remark to his wife that "That chap may have a Master's - but I'd to help him turn the tap on!" The speeches were excellent, demonstrating pride in the achievement and purpose of the OU, and I was delighted to find that the honorary graduate of the day was Quentin Blake, the illustrator of, inter alia, Roald Dahl's books for children.

Versailles was very grand, treacherously cobbled, and crawling with tourists who seemed bemused by the growing number of gowned figures in their midst. The sun shone, a gentle breeze prevented said gowned figures from keeling over with heatstroke, and the kir they served at the closing reception hit the spot admirably. It even crossed my mind that I should stop wasting my time on blethers and try some course of study for myself.

But it sounds rather like work, somehow.

Rubbernecking in a DUKW

What fun we've had today - real tourist stuff. Probably the most eccentric was to go for a tour round central London on a DUKW - they don't call it that, they call it a "Duck tour", but I've seen these things being used by the army (they landed on Brodick beach in my childhood, but that's another story) and knew better. For the uninitiated, DUKW is explained thus:
D=First year of production code "D" is for 1942
U=Body style "U" utility truck (amphibious)
K=Front wheel drive. GMC still uses that on trucks today (K5 Chevy Blazer)
W=Two rear driving wheels (tandem axle)
The truly enthused can discover more here, but if I tell you that it drove around Trafalgar Square and other tourist sights and then plunged into the Thames beside the MI6 building, you'll get my drift. We did drift a bit, come to think of it - the tide was racing brownly and scarily upriver and chugging broadside on as we did at first was quite hair-raising. You'll see from the photo that we were quite close to the water - it looked so soupy that the thought of falling in was remarkably unattractive.

We trundled/scooshed (more scooshing) past several places which looked somehow expectant, waiting to hear when the PM was going to move on, so to speak. So it seemed fitting to complete the day with a tour of the Parliament buildings - a an oddly familiar place, actually, though it was my first visit. We followed the route to the Lords taken by HM the Queen when she goes to open Parliament, passing through halls of enormous splendour with a faint whiff of public school. I was glad to see that The Woolsack has a cunning back support provided for the Lord Chancellor (I used to worry about that. I shan't any more), and amused by the constant exhortations that we should not sit on either the red benches of the Lords or the green benches of the Commons. Instead, we huddled obediently on the steps and heard how Dennis Skinner always reserves his seat with a prayer ticket, which seems to be the Commons equivalent of a German's beach towel. Apparently turning up for prayers is the only way to be sure of your place. Interesting, the place of religion in today's society.

We saw the plinth reserved for Margaret Thatcher's bust, rather insensitively placed next to Edward Heath's, though apparently they can be moved around. The guide allowed herself a brief speculation as to where a certain T. Blair would end up, but at that moment I was more struck by the oddity of seeing busts of such familiar people - Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan especially. And then we were outside again - no tea and buns because of renovation work in Westminster Hall. I realised too late that I hadn't visited the loo which the leaflet mentioned as being available - but then HM apparently has never used hers. Fifty-odd years of State Openings and never a visit.

An example to us all, I'd say.

Oil on troubled waters?

I can't let yesterday's journey go unremarked. Flying to London from Glasgow should be a scoosh - right? Well, we did indeed scoosh along the M8 in the driving rain, and scooshed into the airport from the inadequately covered walkway provided at Glasgow for courtesy bus passengers - but there the scooshing ended. Our flight had been cancelled. (I've just discovered an email telling me of this. A tad late.) Actually it wasn't quite as final as it sounds- we were hustled onto a BMI flight and left 45 minutes earlier than scheduled. Only snag? Actually there were two, but the greatest was that we were now heading for Heathrow, not Gatwick. (The lesser was the absence of complimentary food) Had we been making a connection at Gatwick, we'd have been in trouble - they told us we could go in a complimentary bus and it'd take an hour, but having seen the traffic on the M25 I hae ma doots. However, we were being met by a saint who came all the way out to Heathrow instead. Phew.

I had a hilarious conversation on the plane, however. The Scandinavian woman next to me had no hand luggage at all - just a wallet. I commented on her travelling light - to be told that actually she'd had a cabin bag but hadn't been allowed to bring it into the cabin as she had holy oils in it. She had remonstrated - presumably in her socks, as you have to put your shoes through security - with the staff, but they were unimpressed. (You can't be effective in your socks. Really.) No holy oil allowed.

In fact, it looks as if religion and flying just don't mix. Any angels out there?

Greenham remembered.

Newly arrived in London's leafy (and warm - ten degrees warmer than it was in Dunoon today) southern suburbs, I find that Neil has been reminiscing about the Greenham Common days , when he was a small boy and I was heavily involved in the local CND. It is 25 years since the establishment of the Greenham Common Peace Camp, and 22 years since the big Greenham demo in Dunoon and the subsequent events which saw me as a frequent witness in the local Sheriff Court ("my" women all got off) and my consequent emergence as persona non grata in local Episcopalian circles - perhaps because there was about to take place a high-profile visit from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA.

When I look back on that time in the 80s, I remember primarily how the arrival of the women and the increased attention on the local CND at that time intensified the feeling of being somehow an outsider in this town where no-one outside a small circle of "incomers" seemed aware of the implications of the American Nuclear Submarine Base - "Site One" - in the Holy Loch. At the time, I was subject to feelings of guilt at having produced a family to live in such proximity to these subs - a proximity which, I learned, would never have been allowed in the States. I did what I could to alleviate such feelings with action - appearing on TV and radio, speaking in public, demonstrating, supporting those whose convictions led them into breach of the law - or "the peace", ironically enough. I even went to Greenham Common myself, though only for a weekend, and experienced the same abuse from the soldiers on duty as the resident protesters.

Now the Holy Loch is home to a marina and the American housing is available for locals to buy. And more people tend to criticise our allies, even if our Government won't. Life in Dunoon is altogether more staid than it was in the days of sudden demos and confrontations with the local police - always very civilised, but with the frisson of breaking with a normally law-abiding existence. And we are all considerably older. But would I do it again?

Yes. I think I would.

Apostrophe disease - a new strain.

I've just been reading a wonderful blogpost about the death of the apostrophe. At first I thought I'd discovered a kindred spirit - anyone who knew me in the classroom will remember my repeated rants about Apostrophe Disease. Now I find that not only is the apostrophe under threat grammatically - there are typographic problems as well.

And I'm pleased about that. It seems somehow fitting that as fewer and fewer people actually have the least idea about why they should stick commas in the air in the middle of words there should be a companionable decline in the typography used for this threatened punctuation mark. And I welcome anyone to the declining number of apostrophic ranters - we learn from one another, and we are fast approaching extinction.

Toadstoolfest

Toadstools 2
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Isn't this marvellous? The Bishop's Glen is full of these architectural clusters of toadstools; if you click on this photo you'll go through to others, including one of a veritable Minas Tirith of the things. I always feel faintly creepy about them, and this was no exception - they glisten damply in a way I find sinister.

Blue water

My bathwater is pale blue. This is not as a result of any fragrant additives introduced by me, but, I suspect, of the chemicals which Scottish Water use to ensure that we are all kept pure and spotless within and without. In fact, in recent weeks I have noticed that there is a strong smell of chlorine while the hot tap is running, and - worse - a strong smell of chlorine from my newly-bathed skin.

Now, I am a frequent visitor to our local public swimming pool, where I appreciate the need to zap any bodily unpleasantness that finds its way into the water in which we all swim. However, I am not so aware of the need to disinfect our every ablution - unless the water supply is so contaminated with unmentionables that we'd all be dead in our baths before you could shout "plague!" And I do resent the fact that at certain times whose governing criteria I am as yet unable to discern our drinking water should have its very own chemical taste which can only be disguised by a strong coffee. In a society where we are increasingly admonished to drink plenty of water it is surely supremely important that the water in question should be .....tasteless?

When in the past I visited rellies in Leigh-on-Sea, we drank bottled water because the tap water smelled and tasted as if it had been stored for along time in an old rubber hot-water-bottle. There was the suggestion that it had been recycled seven times before we drank it - or is that merely a mystical number? But the point is this: in the West of Scotland we still have a great deal of water. Some of it is tumbling from the heavens even as I write. Is there no way it could arrive in my tap in a rather more virginal state?

And now I'm off to search for a water-butt .......