Some 'I'm glad YouTube wasn't invented' moments

Today's headline in The Telegraph reads,

"School pupils trolling teachers with 'vile' abuse on Facebook and Twitter"

Apparently one in five teachers have suffered in this way and even parents are posting up bad things about their children's teachers. What happened to the days when teaching was a respected profession?

I was a teacher for about 20 years. I don't think I was particularly bad at my job. It's just that all of us teachers have had those 'I'm glad YouTube wasn't invented' moments. In fact, I'm going to share two of mine with you now.

'I'm glad YouTube wasn't invented' Moment 1:

I trained as a History teacher at a time when History was 'out of fashion'. I had to teach Integrated Humanities instead and hated it. My first 'I'm glad YouTube wasn't invented' moment came towards the end of a Sociology lesson with a large class of unenthusiastic 15 year olds. I was showing them slides - yes that dates me - illustrating the Concentric Zone Theory of City development. I was just finishing the presentation when the bell went for break time. The class leapt to their feet, knocked my pile of slides to the floor as they rushed for the door and trod on my fingers as well as the slides. It only took a moment and it was a long time ago but I've never forgotten it. Neither have I forgotten the way the staff room was reduced to tears as I retold the event, but had there been a mobile phone in that room switched to Record... I dread to think of the consequences.

I soon retrained and spent the rest of my teaching career as a Primary School Teacher working with children from 7 to 11. Yes, that age group are kinder, easier to handle but there have still been some of those moments.

'I'm glad YouTube wasn't invented' Moment 2:

The newly introduced Science Curriculum insisted that we teach basic aerodynamics. How else can you teach a class of 8 to 9 year olds about aerodynamics other than by making paper aeroplanes. I should, of course, have warned the Head of my plans - this was in the days when we didn't have to submit plans in advance - and you can guess his reaction when he came into my classroom followed by two rather formal-looking visitors only to be caught in the crossfire of paper aeroplane battles from all corners of the room.

I do have some lovely memories of teaching but those would never have been recorded even if YouTube had been invented. My proudest moment as a teacher came during an Open Day when a girl I had taught from the age of 9 to 11 visited from her secondary school. She thanked me and said that she had never understood maths until she was in my class. Now that's the kind of thing that teachers of today need to have posted up on Facebook, shouted out from YouTube.

So if your child has a positive achievement at school, and I know they all do, please post it up on Facebook and thank her teacher because, when you're a teacher, words of thanks are rarely heard.

Three cheers for teachers!

Across Borders

A few posts ago I mentioned that I’d won a copy of Can’t Sleep Without Sheep by Susanna Leonard Hill and that it hadn’t arrived yet. Well, thank you so much to Susanna because... it just arrived!! and what's more it’s travelled 3344.841 miles. Can you believe it? It’s crossed New York State, the Atlantic Ocean, Ireland and England. What a big journey for a little book [Actually, it’s quite a big book with great pictures that include huge animals… but I was using poetic licence!] 

I’ve been following Susanna’s blog for some time now and although we live 3344.841 miles away from each other, there are many similarities between us. She’s an ex-teacher who loves animals [just like me]. She’s not so keen on housework [definitely like me!] She writes children’s picture books [just like me again!] and I now have one of them. The book is hilarious. It’s one of those stories that you look at and say, “Why didn’t I think of that!” Well done, Susanna.

There may be similarities amongst us bloggers but there are differences too. This week’s posts hit a bit of a language problem and thanks to a number of my blog friends I now know that:

• In the US a cooker is called an oven 
• US bakers do not use castor sugar [which is finely milled sugar and has nothing to do with castor oil].
• J. L. Campbell explained that in Jamaica electricity is so expensive that they prefer to cook on gas.
• And during a Twitter chat with Misha I discovered that ‘holding thumbs’ in South Africa is the same as ‘crossing fingers’ in the UK.

I love it when there are similarities and I’m fascinated by the differences but more importantly, I love the way that we can all blog and chat and get on with each other across all the borders of the world. In fact, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could nurture world understanding and peace just by blogging together? Maybe I should suggest it to the United Nations.