And the summer begins...

haven't posted on here in forever...should really get my act together. but everything for the next month can be found here..... http://muppetsroundtheworld.blogspot.com/

Language Games

I often get odd looks from my kids when they make a comment and I say that I will not accept any sort of bullying in my classroom. The response is a blank look and then...'bullying????' and I say, victimisation is a form of bullying and choosing a person's name to make a cheap joke, or put yourself in the centre of attention is bullying. I'm really strict about it, I can't stand anyone in my class being belittled, even if it wasn't intentional. So I just opened this article to read about the government's suggestions on homophobia within schools. I'm not arguing against the article or the fact that it is something both staff and students should be aware of. But there was a comment on it that I didn't really agree with. They compared calling someone gay, to saying 'those trainers are gay' as homophobic bullying. I disagree. The word gay is one of those that has changed meanings over the years. It began as a term for being happy, and then became a term for a homosexual person (usually male). Over the last few years it's become more a derogative term for something that's a bit rubbish.
I'm not denying that the change in usage could have come about through homophobic attitudes but the usage in society today of something being 'gay', particularly by kids, I don't believe is anything to do with the sexuality of someone but is just a slang term. I'm as guilty as the next cuprit for using it, it was a common term in Durham that just became natural to use. The job of the teacher therefore is to stop students using slang words generally and to accentuate their use of the English language. By doing this in the first place it's eliminating more possibilities of offending someone.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that for me, some trainers being gay is not a form of homophobic bullying but simply a use of colloquial terminology that could perhaps be bullying someone because of what they wear rather than ever considering their sexuality for it. Maybe I'm wrong, and because the word doesn't offend me I don't expect it to others, but I think we're so keen to define things sometimes, we forget that we're all just in a language game in the end anyway built on associations and experiences.

First Love Reunited!!

I'm very quickly realising a lot of things about my character! My grandma gave me a number of videos before Christmas that she doesn't want anymore because she's transferred them over onto DVD. I decided to put one of them on this evening and you don't need me to say more than Irish...priest...for you to know I'm in my element!! lol. Yes, I'm watching episode one of Ballykissangel and it's just as amazing as I remember it being. I couldn't get enough of it when I was younger. Every Sunday night I watched it religiously...no pun intended :-p I used to watch it thinking the Irish people are beautiful, and I'm not going to embarrass myself too much by talking about how I fell in love wih every character personally, especially Assumpta and Fr Peter!! I wanted to live somewhere like that, somewhere where faith is so integral to a person's life. The issue's it's dealt with in the first 20mins are already being planned in my head for future lessons in class but mainly I just can't help but sit here smiling, and thinking of the life I used to dream of. Maybe one of these days I will just take off and go and live in the remotest village in Ireland, with no connections to the real world and find myself the priest of my dreams!!!

Vocations Vocations

For this next post I need to take my RE teacher's head off before I get in serious trouble!! But how come I was the only one, who when Fr Kieran walked onto the set of Hollyoaks last week and was accosted by the McQueen girls, said that he would end up being gay, and would get with John Paul the only lad in the house, who just so happens to be gay! And what do you know this week, JP gets hurt by some tosser, and Kieran admits....it was just so obviously going to happen. The question now of course is what line is Hollyoaks going to take? My guess is they wont be able to resist the scandal of gay Catholic priest. But so far I have to give them their credit where credit's due. Some fantastic lines in today's episode FK 'Do you not think that I get lonely' JP 'yeah but that's your choice' FK 'no this is my calling, I have to do it' and then of course it all lead up to that big line at the end FK 'I know exactly how you feel because I'm gay' before he looked mortified and walked out. I'm torn between whether I want John Paul to enjoy another scandlous relationship (because he always does it so naively- oooh, and then Craig can come back from Dublin, and walk into ex-fioncee Sarah , who will have just found out her Dad and best mate are sleeping together, before finding John Paul in bed with the local priest!!!!) or whether it should focus on the difficulties of vocation and giving up what you want for what you know you have to do. I didn't really lose my re teacher's head there did I?! but I did find a lovely picture of John Paul (can't find any yet of Fr Kieran!)

qualifications galore

At the moment there are new national curiculums being brought into high schools. This all started about twelve months ago when the government demanded more cross-curricular lessons, relevant to life for today's children. They wanted to be able to show why school is necessary up until the age of 16 (and over the last few months have been pushing for it to be made up to 18). This has involved bringing in a whole range of vocational courses brought in as GCE's instead of the standard GCSE's. We've got a handful of kids at school at the moment who are in school part time and out on building sites etc. the rest of the week. Next year, St Mary's will be home to a hair and beauty salon on site, and the idea is that the different high schools in the borough will support the different needs of the students to be able to go out to train. It's a good idea, not everyone is academic. My year 11's- I adore, but none of them are going to go on and be the next world class academics. So my attention was drawn yesterday to an article about some businesses getting involved in creating courses at levels 3 and 4 so that students are able to take A levels and even degrees in training for their businesses. The three businesses in question are Flybe, Network Rail and McDonalds. Yes you read that right....The biggest mistake this country made was it's insistance that everyone had a degree. You can do degrees in David Beckham studies should you really want to (yawn) but, now a degree gets you nowhere. You can't get a job without a degree because you've no experience and you can't get a decent enough job without forking out the thousands to get the degree. I think we need to step back and accept that we are all different, and all unique, and while some people want to spend their lives researching the latest findings on some 3,000 year old texts, others don't. And while some may quite enjoy learning about David Beckham for a large proportion of their life other's want to be spending our taxes on things that actually improve the education, and therefore welfare of the country (not that I'm bitter!!!) Bottom line is, I think A levels in McDonalds is a waste of time...but feel free to argue back!!

how do you measure...

I'm a nightmare for dates. I can remember everything I've ever done and drive people mad reminding them of what they've done. Suddenly realised quite randomly today though that it's exactly a year this week that I went into hospital. Last week in January on the Friday night. I can't help but feel grateful for where I am this time this year. I have a fantastic job that is going unbelievably well, I have good friends and I'm not convinced I'm going to die tomorrow...shame, I could do with the rest! But in the great scheme of things I find myself thinking I couldn't really ask for more! :-)

Twin Trouble

this story was the talk of the staff room one day last week and it's really got to me! I just find it all so....tragic. Leading on from my last post about brotherly- sisterly love, this one's worse, AND true. I just cannot begin to comprehend what would ever go through the mind for something like this. Whatever you choose to do afterwards, it's going to cause heartache. Sigh....what a world we live in

Moral Choices

'Today year 9 we're going to start a new topic, we're going to be looking at what Morality is about and what affects our Moral Beliefs'. I've started this sentence three times already this week- all of them on Tuesday! But it's a topic I talk about ALL the time. New Year consisted of meeting up with some friends from uni and discussing some moral issues in our favourite soaps :-) so the latest topic for discussion amongst us...Beth and Rhys of course- what a fantastic story line! They fall madly in love with each other and want to introduce their friends and family to this new amazing person. And then Rhys gets some bad news...his dad (who he thought was his uncle up until a couple of months ago) has died. To make it worse, his new soul mate is nowhere to be found. Completely messed up he nearly doesn't make the funeral but decides he has to go. So he turns up and his 'dad' (uncle really) introduces him to the sister he never knew about...Beth.
It's just brilliant, they've tried staying away from each other, they've both got into other relationships they don't want to be in, but they can't get the other one out of their head. Incest....wrong every time? New year, after a few drinks became a greatly animated discussion. A subject we shouldn't be seen (especially me in my professional capacity as a Catholic RE teacher) to be in favour of, but would it really, really be so wrong if they got together? Sure they'd have to move, go somewhere where no one knows the situation. Most felt they had a responsibility to not have children- but to deny true love, who has that right?! I know I know, it's just a soap, but ethics is life- and although I haven't the slightest intentions of running off with my half brother, I can't help but find issues like this fascinating :-)

tigers...tigres

Anyone who knows me well knows my frustrations in trying to find a German course. When I get time to break from school it's one of my little obsessions, that and looking at flights all over the world. I was scanning the tv the other day trying to find something to watch. I happened to fall over a wild life programme, something I'd never usually watch but for some reason decided to stick with it. They had some tigers who had been brought over from France and were being released in a safari park in the UK after 6 months getting used to our climates! The guys in charge of them were discussing how the tigers were coping and whether they were going to be ready to be let loose in the park. One person in particular was saying- well a major issue we have to face is a language barrier, I can't speak French and they don't understand English.....since when did tigers understand French?! Maybe this is my desire to speak a language- because I know that when that wild animal attacks me at least for those few seconds before I die- we might be able to share a common understanding!!! ;-)