Teacher’s House Blog

Kids can be so cruel

Since I started teaching myself I’ve found myself thinking more and more often about what an obnoxious bunch of little horrors me and my classmates were. There was one teacher in particular whose life we probably made unbearable. He was a young bloke – I would imagine we were his first teaching job – and he used to turn up in designer suits and driving an open top sports car. He seemed to think that because he wasn’t a lot older than us that we would all get on like mates and he’d have no trouble from us. How wrong he was. By the end of that year, there wasn’t one of those fancy designer suits that wasn’t torn or stained with some mystery substance and one of the really rough lads from fifth year got suspended for stealing his fancy car and leaving it dumped in a ditch. God knows why I wanted to go into teaching after that little performance!

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Things to help those first few days…

Teaching abroad is, 90% of the time, amazing. You get to go amazing places, meet fascinating people you’d never have met at home, eat new foods, experience different cultures… It goes without saying that having these opportunities is rare and you should make the most of your time away.
The 10% mainly covers the regular classroom frustrations that all us teachers encounter whilst working. Endless paperwork, trying to get through to a difficult pupil, or just general overwork can be draining, and of course whilst teaching abroad the benefits far outweigh any negative points.

The benefits far outweigh any negative points

Those first few weeks however, bring their own unique challenges. I’d imagine they’re similar to those you’d face if you moved from say, Exeter to Glasgow to follow a teaching job. The exhaustion of a new job and a big move, compounded in this case by jet lag, and often with home sickness can make any minor problems seem major.

Obviously within a week or so when you’re in the swing of things this will all seem far behind you. But for those first few days there are a few things I’d recommend to help with any lonely or home sick feelings.

I always make sure I take a few things with me that might seem useless, and maybe a bit like extra baggage, but I’ve found they really help in that first week:

• Photos of family and friends to put on the wall or just have around. I usually take a really small soft cover photo album with me so that they all stay together.
• Two, or three, or four (!) good books. I usually include one old favourite from childhood (Paddington, in my case) to read in times of insomnia. These usually have the advantage of being very thin books, too. If you have a Kindle then of course you’re sorted.
• If books aren’t your thing, then make sure you have a few DVD’s in a soft case.
• A phone card to use until you get a local mobile.
• A dongle for your laptop.
• Something to help you while away any long evenings or afternoons before you start making friends. I’m not suggesting you start googling www.chesssets.co.uk for anything quite so bulky, but a set of cards or a sketch book will help.
• They may not allow it where you’re staying, but I always take my favourite incense with me so that my room smells like mine from the start. If I can’t burn it then I can just put the packet into a drawer or my bag and it makes my clothes smell lovely and familiar.

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Teaching Amidst Chaos

Teaching abroad still continues to humble me. The kids and adults I’ve worked with are both dedicated and industrious. Even the ones who struggle with the basics work hard and this determination is reflected throughout every class I teach. I’ve received a lot of questions in the past week regarding the riots that happened in the UK. Needless to say I was just as shocked as my pupils have been with everything. It still seems hard to imagine that London, Birmingham, Manchester and many other major cities became little more then thieves'playgrounds.

I think perhaps the worst thing about the riots was seeing the strain the emergency services were clearly under. Not for the first time, I felt deeply sympathetic toward all the police officers out on the streets. They looked frightened, undermanned and lacking in any significant riot gear. Being attacked by mindless thugs is probably scary at the best of times, but when you’re being attacked by thousands of the swine it must be terrifying. My students kept asking me why Britain didn’t have more police on the streets that night. To me the answer seems simple enough – the police never expected that kind of trouble.

The other service that deserves a lot of credit but rarely receives anything but criticism was the NHS. With all the injuries and several deaths, the hospitals must have been inundated with casualties. I even read that one poor chap in Ealing lost his life after he was attacked trying to put out a fire and two police officers are still lying in hospital with severe injuries following a hit and run incident by some of the looters. Doctors and nurses get a lot of flak considering their over worked and under paid, yet they strive on anyway.

My students like many people from around the world are still in slight awe of our national health service. It may have its problems and NHS nurse jobs may still be challenging to fill, but it is one of the most envied services the world over. I’ve been teaching my kids the history of how the service was first begun after the Second World War and how it has faced problems and challenges greater then the ones it faces now. They are right to be envious of the service and we are wrong to be so lacking in respect for it.

Now more then ever the emergency services need people to go and work for them. Several of my pupils who are qualified nurses and doctors have already stated a desire to go and study and work within the NHS when their English has got to the required level of fluency. This is what has made me so humble teaching abroad. The UK is the envy of many nations in Europe and beyond, yet we seem so intent on focusing on the negatives that we fail to appreciate the positives. I am proud of my country and I am exceedingly in awe of how the police and the NHS conducted themselves during the recent riots. There aren’t many emergency service personnel in the world who can conduct themselves in such a patient and protective manner.

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End of Term Projects

A colleague of mine is obsessed with project based learning. It is a great idea. Basically, you choose a real activity for the students to do and they propel their own learning in an organic fashion. We decided to do a class DVD. The students staged and filmed a series of English language music videos. It was absolutely hysterical. The only rule was that they had to speak English the whole time. They did pop version send ups of children’s More

Vocabulary for shoes

I was teaching a class the other day we were focusing on vocabulary and the lexical group of clothes. When we started talking about shoes, it occurred to me that we have literally hundreds of words for shoes even just within British English but including international versions of English there could be thousands. Here I am going to list some of them in groups determined by usage. Perhaps these lists can be used for some kind of vocabulary game in More

Smart or Dumb

Teaching is not just profession for me but also my passion, which is why I never looked for gp doctor jobs. As a student I had noticed that there are some teachers who are easily understood and then there are others who could repeat a concept as many times as they want, but understanding could still remain a challenge. Probably this is when I thought of becoming like one of those who could be easily understood. Well, there surely More

My Next Move

It is amazing to think that while my friends who I studied with are comfortable enough to look for horse insurance, I am trying to master Spanish and Mandarin Chinese in preparation for my next move. Teaching overseas has provided so many delights, and for my next adventure, I would like to head to either Asia or Latin America. It is such a huge choice and the cultures are so incredibly different. I know in order to make this More

First Winter Experience

I used to think the cold weather in Glasgow was exaggerated until I got off the plane at the airport from my home country via Amsterdam. Unlike people who took London flights, we had a long stay in Amsterdam airport before flying down to Glasgow. My dark and usually strong skin began to fail me almost immediately. In a bid to save my life, I immediately rushed for the zipper of my back pack and unearthed a thick sweater. More

How To Make Your Long Distance Boyfriend’s Birthday Special

One of my closest friends disturbed the solitaire card game I was playing one day to ask me my ideas on what to do as a birthday for her boyfriend who was overseas. Here is what I told her. Hopefully she listened.

Now planning a birthday surprise for long distance boyfriend can be really difficult as the distance apart can be a big challenge. You may not be able to throw a party but More

Kids say the funniest things

Being a teacher is a very rewarding career; you get a real sense of achievement at the end of the day, knowing that you’re doing your bit to help a group of little people develop and learn. It can also be a very funny career, as sometimes the kids in your care come out with some comedy gems!
Ninety-nine per cent of the time, of course, the kids don’t plan on being funny. In fact, a lot of the time More