Funny life of a teacher of Arts

Whenever I enter classroom I always have a little basket with me. A white small basket that I put on the table. In this basket all the cellphones of the children are collected. They can have them back at the end of class.
Now, at first all my colleagues laughed at me. But after half a year most of them had to admit that I did the right thing.
I am not against cellphones in pupils’ hands. Most of my pupils live too far away from school and have to cycle up to 15 miles before the are at school. All the way long there are a lot of dangers and I support parents who give their kids a cellphone for this reason. But I disapprove the use of these objects during class. I do not want to be filmed, I do not want to be recorded and I certainly don’t want my pupils sending and reading text messages, let alone answering the phone. It’s really amazing that these pupils think it normal to have this object in their hands. Believe me or not: when pupil A is in class 1, he sends a text message to pupil B who sits in the classroom next door.
Hang on, don’t you see each other during the breaks?
Another thing to think about. After school they do their homework ( or they are supposed to do their homework.) However during these hours they are on line on msn and they have their cellphone in their hands when doing their writing, and in the meantime they keep up reading their texts they are receiving. How on Earth are they studying?

Well, I don’t think they do. They are not concentrated because of all the media things that are surrounding them. Hence marks like D en F are quite normal.

In the Netherlands we are worried about the bad level of knowledge. I’m not surprised at all as long as we allow our pupils to handle their cellphones and use msn during their time of study. Perhaps we should start with a bit of discipline by asking them to put their phones downstairs with their parents and make sure that they won’t be on the internet whilst doing their homework.

A few days ago I received nice comments on my blogs. It is funny; I never realised that people would be interested in my writings especially because I am a teacher of arts. Being a teacher means also being an educator, whether I like it or not. I’m not complaining because I like my job though the after work like correcting tests is a bit boring, to say he least.

I promise you, my dear readers, that I will continue writing my blogs. Some of them might interest you, some of them won’t. That’s a rule I can’t change. Now and then you’ll probably will find me nagging about small things but I’ll try to write positive things as well. I’ll try to give you some information about the country where I was born and where a grew up. Lol, the Netherlands will always be the Netherlands, no matter how weird this nation might be.

I’m not a fan of soccer so you won’t read anything about it. Fortunately one of the channels will broadcast Scandinavian and Britsh detective series like Lewis and Silent Witness. I’m a huge fan of British detectives.

Anyway…… We’ll surely meet again soon. Have a nice day, evening, where ever you are and take care.

Regards,

during the last few weeks I’ve had moments of surprize, amazement, being stupified, felt appalling, every word that comes up when observing my pupils’ language. Now, it isn’t that I am not used to the type of language my pupils use the way they use it.
But… Well……Somehow I have got this feeling as if they don’t care what they’re actually saying. I doubt whether they fully understand what they are shouting, screaming, taunting and scolding. It really is unbelievable. And worse: they just don’t care. Somehow that kind of knowing that they simply just can’t say what they’re thinking of of are thinking about, lacks. The moment I tell them that free speech also means having and showing responsability, they gaze at me, and raise their shoulders. “We live in a free country and we are allowed to speak out what we think”.
Yes, we do live in a free country and we do have the liberty of free speech. Thank God for that! However it doesn’t mean that we can ignore the feelings of the rest of the world. I teach my pupils that every word that they speak has consequences, in the way of probably offending someone near to you.
Believe me or not: they just don’t seem to care! They just don’t mind that someone might be hurt by words or actions. Somehow, they seem to lack conscience.
I’m certainly not the kind of woman who thinks that everything was better in the old days. No way…. I think that some events and some things were worse than the present world. But…. I think that our pupils need a bit of discipline in free speech before they don’t understand anymore what the verb “to insult” means.