So, this week I’ve been helping the school to process data about pupils’ progress into little tables. I’m kinda lucky that I quiet like numbers and tables and graphs, so I find it really interesting, which helps me go. I’m on my second day of it, with at least one more to go, and I think I would find it a drag if I didn’t. It’s also something that I’m enjoying learning about now, at my own pace, rather than when I train, and I’m so grateful that the school trusts me with such precious statistics. (This isn’t sarcasm. Statistics are possibly the most important part of inspections. If those are bad, the rest is moot.)
I don’t, though, really remember being tested so much when I was younger. It wasn’t that long ago, and I don’t remember doing a test every term. Unless I just wasn’t aware of it happening. It’s just a couple of days, up to a week, a term, but I look at data for these little ones and wonder about how much it’s all changed in those 12+ years. I haven’t been in this long enough to be able to tell if it’s for the best or not. For the children that is, not for the school.
I had my own flagpost of progress, too. When I first started, a teacher-friend I worked with recommended I try, what I call, the scary-deep-teacher-voice on misbehaving children. It’s a controlled way of shouting at them, without losing your grip and getting involved emotionally. The first time I yelled at children for bad behaviour, I had to leave the room to cry. I decided that was the last time I was going to let that aspect of teaching get to me personally. Discipline is important, especially as, in many cases, children are just left to it at home, for better and for worse. Of course, it’d make my job a lot easier if I made it clear that I’m the alpha female straightaway as well. So, I decided I needed a trick, and this one was offered to me with a very good success rate. I hadn’t had to use it as more than a menacing growl until yesterday, when an unidentified someone made a mess in a classroom that was being tidied. After calmly asking, my scary-deep-teacher-voice came out of nowhere, and everyone went silent for the first time in my career. And then I went back to what I was doing, victorious against a class of 25. Oh, and the mess was tidied away. Success.
If anything shows me that I can do this thing, it’s that moment. I’ve always known I can do the calm, balanced, fair, teaching side, but I’ve always been made to feel nervous about the discipline and strictness, more by other people than my own misgivings, because I am a calm, ‘nice’ person who is not terribly prone to yelling. I feel so ready for September to come now, but I know I have lots of things to keep watching and learning for myself. The best teachers, I know, have the children who progress the best. And succeeding children, however much they’re counted and graphed, are never a bad thing.
The Absurd Abecedarium 