a long strange trip indeed

You're sick of hanging around and you'd like to travel
Tired of travel, you want to settle down
I guess they can't revoke your soul for trying
Get out of the door - light out and look all around

Sometimes the light's all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it's been

It's been three months since I last blogged which is the longest break I've taken since I started way back in 2010. I hadn't got bored with it or anything like that, I've just been very busy and the break became rather extended.

My last post mentioned the fact that I was about to retire - we were about to retire! Both Mrs Dave and I packed our trunks and said goodbye to the circus at the end of July. There were fond farewells and all that and then we had a major wedding to attend. Our middle daughter got married at the start of what we still thought of as the Summer holiday. As we were still paid until the end of August, we didn't consider ourselves retired until the first day back for everyone else!

During the Summer break we went away around East Anglia a few times with friends, enjoyed our eldest daughter's brief return from Mexico and my friend John and I also took ourselves off on a Rock'n'Roll tour of London. There will be more on that in a future blog - I also feel the need to mention the similar tour from last year in New York.

Obviously there has been far more than those few things going on. Most of May and June were taken up with exam marking and there was rather a lot of finishing off and packing up from our place of work. More recently there had been two more weddings to attend. We've had dealings with various agencies to sort out our pensions. Mine is incredibly modest but I felt it time to stop working in an environment that was becoming increasingly more bogged down in a mire of trying to outguess and impress Ofsted than actually concentrate on just educating kids. There has also had to be a gradual coming to terms with the fact that we would not be rushing off to work any more. No more pointless meetings, unnecessary admin tasks or lessons to prepare. No more lesson observations and constant criticism.  However, Mrs Dave has been very busy (indeed, still is) remarking Psychology A level exam papers. So all in all, the laptop has been pretty well taken up recently. It has been so busy lately that I've taken the step of using our older laptop which chugs along slowly but gets there in the end (usually).

So, sitting here tapping away at a laptop that occasionally misses letters and whole phrases out, I have returned and hopefully will be corresponding with anyone out there still listening.

Whilst it has indeed been a long strange trip, here's to many more adventures to come.

blowing in the wind

 

I've just thrown my red pen down in disgust. I feel like breaking it in two just like at the start of Branded. Perhaps that's what I should do next Year 8 English lesson - call the child out and break there/their/they're pen into pieces. Then throw them out of the class, never to darken the classroom again.

What do you do when you're branded?

No matter how many times I try to get pupils to check their work and correct with a green pen (alright, quiet at the back - a green ink pen) which, believe me or not, they are required to do (I'm not a Gove* supporter so don't blame me), they just won't do it.

"Sir, I've finished, what do I do now?""Have you checked your work thoroughly?""Yeah, yeah, of course.""Are you sure? Definitely?""Yeah.""Have you . . ""Yeah.""Okay, have you swapped it with another student and checked each others?""Yeah, yeah, of course."

So how come I end up reading ill-edited, poorly written stories told in dialogue with no indication of who is actually speaking . . . ? Well, truth be told, it's because nobody cares any more. Perhaps they never did. They're just not hungry enough for it.

Recently, I have read books published - usually by independent publishers - and magazines that are sold throughout the English-speaking world (around five quid a head) that contain the most poorly edited script that I despair. I am fully aware that blogging and writing on screens for many of us (me especially) is not conducive to the best grammar - we always need to check our work. But, surely there should continue to be standards. As an English teacher who messes about with guitars, I am aware that there are many kids that are guitar players that are studying English.Surely, it is an important, and easy, point of order to continue the need for good communication? Kids that are switched off from education but play guitar (for instance) may read such magazines? So, if they were spelt correctly etc, etc, surely by basic osmosis, they'd start to read/spell/communicate properly? It seems to have worked the other way - over the twenty years of teaching I've gone from being a pretty good speller into being someone who has to read and re-check everything thoroughly in an almost OCD way before - and after - publishing even simple pieces of writing such as this.

So, here we are: I am now at the grand old age of 58 and beginning to think that the world has moved on so much into some sort of inarticulate, illiterate place that has no need of me that I really need to be moving on.

Retirement beckons. I am now five years younger than my father when he shuffled off this mortal coil. The fact that I never had to go and fight for my country or that I had a fairly good crack at being educated and have had a far more comfortable ride than my parents ever did is neither here nor there. With the constant underlying context of poor (and, by god do I mean poor) management and lack of parental, public and media support I really feel that it is time to think about "quality of life".

For the first time in my life, I now look at older people who retire, leave it all behind and think, "Lucky bastards . . ."

Deep breaths. Pass us that bottle, will you?

*okay, I can't support any of them!

 

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