At university, one of the pervasive themes in talks from teacher trainers, union representatives and other students has been the disasters that can be caused by computers. The horror stories range from the student teacher who somehow "inexplicably" got soft-porn pictures mixed up with the slides in his powerpoint presentation which he then showed to a class of year 10s - he was sacked from the placement, despite allegedly being innocent (personally I'm skeptical that some kind of malicious and intelligent computer virus could have got into his computer, downloaded picures of boobs, and inserted them into his presentation without him noticing...but hey) to the teachers who had a not-private-enough Facebook bitching session about a pupil they didn't like, which was discovered by the pupil who then took them to the cleaners for cyber-bullying.
Facebook/Myspace/social networking didn't exist when I was at school, and when I think about it I'm really bloody glad about that. I didn't always have the best of times at secondary school, and if the teenage-girl-bitching had been taken to the realms of the internet it would have been much worse. It was bad enough putting up with it from 9-3.30...But now I'm an adult, anyway, so the question is: are teenagers REALLY that concerned about looking up their teachers online, or is this all just teacher-training egocentrism, paranoia and navel-gazing??
So a common topic of conversation among us student teachers has been how to ensure our internet privacy from web-savvy students: "Have you tried googling your name??" has been a pervasive question. I personally have the excellent protection of an exceptionally common firstname-surname combination: thanks Mum - I'll never whinge about your unimaginative naming techniques again. There's a horse-rider, a street and a voice-coach in the first page of results and absolutely nothing to do with ME. Still, I've heard too many horror-stories to let my guard down immediately. This very blog could potentially get me into a lot of trouble. As a result, I took my surname off it recently, but I don't know how much good that would do as I have a whole other blog that goes by my full name - intentionally, as that's where I put my published writing work (such as it is, don't get overexcited). But when the broadsheets come looking for me to offer me that column, I want them to know where to find me...
Facebook privacy has dominated so many conversations that it's starting to feel like the whole thing is more trouble than it's worth, so I'm considering just deleting my profile.
Reasons to delete: less hassle messing around with privacy settings/stressing about tags in photos/hiding my face, celeb-wise, whenever a camera appears at a party!
Reasons I like FB: when I was living abroad, it made me feel alot closer and more up-to-date with my friends back home: I knew what was going on, when big things had happened to them, I saw photos of what they were up to. Now I'm here but in a long distance relationship, it enables me to make gestures like the photo-story I made for my boyfriend on our anniversary. I get invited to parties and festivals and events that I might otherwise miss out on. Some friends/acquaintances I don't really talk to regularly but I like knowing what their up to from FB.
OK, I've now effectively argued myself out of the deleting idea, so I guess I'll be sitting in my room fiddling with privacy settings for the rest of the day. If anyone reading this has any insights about internet privacy etc, please comment! (under your real name or a pseudonym, as you prefer...;-)
Saturday 9 October 2010
Monday 27 September 2010
No drama
Despite promises of a manic workload, so far this induction period of our PGCE course has been relatively tranquil. Witness the fact that today I'm at home for a day of private study.
Given that I knew I would be having an extended weekend, I felt more enthusiastic about signing my Saturday away for a London Drama training day - a day of workshops from different drama teaching experts about becoming an effective drama teacher. We had to pay (£10) and everything. I signed myself up online before I had second thoughts.
My readers might be thinking "but hang on, you are not, in fact, training to be a drama teacher, but an english teacher." You're right...but we were invited to this event just the same - obviously there's a certain amount of overlap with English and drama - and it's something that makes lessons more fun. Plus I'd written in my self-evaluation at the beginning of the course that I wanted to learn more about using drama techniques in the classroom. So...it seemed like a good idea at the time.
On arrival, my first thought was..."oh, shit, I've made a big mistake." I didn't see anybody I knew from my course (the event was open to PGCE students from all the unis in the London and south east region) and everyone just seemed so...drama-ey. The crowd was noticeably different from how a crowd of English students would have been. Thespy, as we used to say at university. All the girls were dressed trendily and sitting in ballet-warm-up-type poses. All the boys were wearing funky hats. Speaking voices were LOUD: all the elocution coaching paying off. Hand gestures were expansive and theatrical.
The first workshop involved us pairing up and improvising dialogues, constantly changing partners as the scenario we were working with was made more complicated. "Help!" I inwardly panicked, "What if I'm not capable of being all creative like these well-trained drama types?" It didn't help that the first person I talked to was from the Central School of Speech and Drama. When I asked what she did and why she was doing the PGCE, she replied "well, I'm an actress." Since she was signed up for teacher training, I considered pointing out that the acting career clearly hadn't been working out so well for her, but managed to restrain myself. And, as the session got going, I also found that I was just about managing to keep up with the others, improvising a prison-fight dialogue with the best of them. Although I was temporarily flummoxed when, after changing pairs, my new partner cut me off when I went to introduce myself, snapping "Stay in character!"
After working with 2 others to script a mini-dialogue that had us rolling on the floor in hysterics (my literature knowledge helped me impress them with some flawless Shakespearean-style verse), I increased in confidence. The workshop introduced alot of really enjoyable and practical exercises to do with groups of children - things to encourage them with writing, good warm ups, ways of pairing people up, and techniques for exploring characters. By the end of the day I felt like even I, a theatre novice with only one stage-managing experience to my CV since primary school, could get involved in the activities. Which, of course, is the idea - the kids we're teaching are unlikely all to be budding Stanislavskis, unless of course I get placed at the Brit school.
I firmly stand by the reason I kept giving when the drama students asked why, as a future English teacher, I was attending the course: "English lessons where you do drama activities are generally the most fun."
Given that I knew I would be having an extended weekend, I felt more enthusiastic about signing my Saturday away for a London Drama training day - a day of workshops from different drama teaching experts about becoming an effective drama teacher. We had to pay (£10) and everything. I signed myself up online before I had second thoughts.
My readers might be thinking "but hang on, you are not, in fact, training to be a drama teacher, but an english teacher." You're right...but we were invited to this event just the same - obviously there's a certain amount of overlap with English and drama - and it's something that makes lessons more fun. Plus I'd written in my self-evaluation at the beginning of the course that I wanted to learn more about using drama techniques in the classroom. So...it seemed like a good idea at the time.
On arrival, my first thought was..."oh, shit, I've made a big mistake." I didn't see anybody I knew from my course (the event was open to PGCE students from all the unis in the London and south east region) and everyone just seemed so...drama-ey. The crowd was noticeably different from how a crowd of English students would have been. Thespy, as we used to say at university. All the girls were dressed trendily and sitting in ballet-warm-up-type poses. All the boys were wearing funky hats. Speaking voices were LOUD: all the elocution coaching paying off. Hand gestures were expansive and theatrical.
The first workshop involved us pairing up and improvising dialogues, constantly changing partners as the scenario we were working with was made more complicated. "Help!" I inwardly panicked, "What if I'm not capable of being all creative like these well-trained drama types?" It didn't help that the first person I talked to was from the Central School of Speech and Drama. When I asked what she did and why she was doing the PGCE, she replied "well, I'm an actress." Since she was signed up for teacher training, I considered pointing out that the acting career clearly hadn't been working out so well for her, but managed to restrain myself. And, as the session got going, I also found that I was just about managing to keep up with the others, improvising a prison-fight dialogue with the best of them. Although I was temporarily flummoxed when, after changing pairs, my new partner cut me off when I went to introduce myself, snapping "Stay in character!"
After working with 2 others to script a mini-dialogue that had us rolling on the floor in hysterics (my literature knowledge helped me impress them with some flawless Shakespearean-style verse), I increased in confidence. The workshop introduced alot of really enjoyable and practical exercises to do with groups of children - things to encourage them with writing, good warm ups, ways of pairing people up, and techniques for exploring characters. By the end of the day I felt like even I, a theatre novice with only one stage-managing experience to my CV since primary school, could get involved in the activities. Which, of course, is the idea - the kids we're teaching are unlikely all to be budding Stanislavskis, unless of course I get placed at the Brit school.
I firmly stand by the reason I kept giving when the drama students asked why, as a future English teacher, I was attending the course: "English lessons where you do drama activities are generally the most fun."
Sunday 19 September 2010
Hello London
This is the fourth blog I've started up here, as a quick glance at my profile will confirm. The first documented my year of travelling round the world; the second was to keep track of writing I've had published online as the result of various jobs and internships; and the third charted my experiences as an English teacher in Rome. Now I've finally bitten the bullet, moved back home to London and started a post-graduate course in teacher training...AKA growing up and becoming a "proper" teacher, with a pension, sick-pay etc etc.
My new tutors have promised that this course will be the hardest any of us have ever worked. I've heard alot of horror stories about the rigours of teacher training. To make matters worse, I've left my heart in Italy in the form of my wonderful Italian boyfriend, and am feeling at best ambivalent about being back in the UK, living with my parents and studying again.
So as I embark on a long-distance relationship and an attempt to bring my love for Shakespeare to the teenagers of inner-London, I'll document some of my struggles.
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