Funny life of a teacher of Arts

this week we had a chat about the attitude of pupils towards their study at work. We couldn’t help but we compared our own attitude to that of our pupils. We realized that the way we we were thinking about our development differs a lot. “In the old days” we we scared like hell when we got a bad mark. Nowadays somehow they don’t care at all. We couldn’t sleep when we hadn’t finished our essays or papers. Nowadays they say: “well, that’s to bad but give me an F and we’re finished.” What??? and they couldn’t care less?

I don’t think that this has just something to do with school or homework. I’ve found this totally careless attitude in their way of thinking and life. Some pupils somehow seem to have no conscience at all when damaging possessions of others or hurting an animal or even destroying their own lives. Even worse: a lot of youngsters don’t care about their own body when using drugs and/or booze, let alone care about their own dignity or self respect.

I simply don’t understand them anymore. I think this way of thinking and living has nothing to do with a hopeless future. So that’s no excuse. I think it a kind of attitude that reflex too much about materialism and too little about what one really needs: a safe home, love, and care from those they really want to be close to

This morning I had to deputize. It’s not one of my favorite parts of my job. However, now and then we have to do this, only to avoid sending classes home or having them in class without anything to do at all.

This morning I had to deal with grade 3 at our school. With nothing prepared and no prelimary work at all, I entered class. There, 24 pupils were waiting for me, sitting in front of computers. Some of them (well, I guess most of them) eager to start gaming. Uhmm…… Sorry guys, it’s definitely not what I had in mind. I was eager to let them speak English. And I promised them, they would be allowed to play games 10 minutes before ending class. Well, to keep this story short: we didn’t reach that point of gaming at all. I had them talking to each other for about 10 minutes, in English of course. After those then minutes I asked them questions and during this kind of game my pupils and I found out they were making a few mistakes when using the wrong tense in verbs. So, I started to explain. And you know, the most funny part of it was this: when one of the students reminded me of what I had promised, he was booed away for most of pupils wanted to continue. They felt they were learning something. Lol, no gaming, but explaining grammar and exercises.

It really gave me a good feeling as I had finished this class.

Sometimes internet gives us the chance to find material that can by used in class when teaching a little part of English history. Here are the lyrics:

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye!

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclouds rend the air
Baffled our foes stand on the shore,
Follow they will not dare.

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye!

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean’s a royal bed
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye!

Many’s the lad fought on that day
Well the Claymore could wield
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden’s field.

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward, the sailors cry
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye!

Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men
Yet e`r the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again!

The origin of this song is to be found on Wikipedia: “The Skye Boat Song” is a Scottish folk song, which can also be played as a waltz, recalling the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. “Come O’er the Stream Charlie” is a Scottish song whose theme is the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Written well after the events it commemorates, it is not a genuine Jacobite song, as is the case with many others now considered in the “classic canon of Jacobite songs,” most of which were songs “composed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but were passed off as contemporary products of the Jacobite risings.

Too tired to write something. Have been in my car for 4 hours!!!! Four hours and only 63 kilometers to drive. Just because there was a bit snow. Well…. a bit more than a bit snow….. uhm……..about 8 cm. And a van obstructing the A15. Sure….. why not? after all, there’s just a bit snow on the road…… pffftttttt.

nothings special today. Just a normal extremely cold day (-7 in daytime) See you laterrrrrrrrr

‘Drie heksen bekijken drie Swatch horloges. Welke heks bekijkt welk
Swatch horloge?’

En nu in het Engels:

‘Three witches watch three Swatch watches. Which witch watches which
Swatch watch?’

En nu voor de specialisten:

‘drie Zweedse transseksuele heksen bekijken de knoppen op drie
Zwitserse Swatch horloges. Welke Zweedse transseksuele heks bekijkt
welke knop op welke Zwitserse Swatch horloge ?’

En in het Engels (hou u vast) :

‘Three Swedish switched witches watch three Swiss Swatch watch
switches.Which Swedish switched witch watches which Swiss Swatch watch
Switch ?’

EN NU MAG JE HET SCHERM AFDROGEN MET EEN PROPER VODDEKE!! (TRANSLATION: NOW YOU MAY CLEAN YOUR SCREEN WITH RAGS!!!)

This morning I had to deputize. It’s not one of my favorite parts of my job. However, now and then we have to do this, only to avoid sending classes home or having them in class without anything to do at all.

This morning I had to deal with grade 3 at our school. With nothing prepared and no prelimary work at all, I entered class. There, 24 pupils were waiting for me, sitting in front of computers. Some of them (well, I guess most of them) eager to start gaming. Uhmm…… Sorry guys, it’s definitely not what I had in mind. I was eager to let them speak English. And I promised them, they would be allowed to play games 10 minutes before ending class. Well, to keep this story short: we didn’t reach that point of gaming at all. I had them talking to each other for about 10 minutes, in English of course. After those then minutes I asked them questions and during this kind of game my pupils and I found out they were making a few mistakes when using the wrong tense in verbs. So, I started to explain. And you know, the most funny part of it was this: when one of the students reminded me of what I had promised, he was booed away for most of pupils wanted to continue. They felt they were learning something. Lol, no gaming, but explaining grammar and exercises.

It really gave me a good feeling as I had finished this class.

Before starting to write my blogs, I’d prefer to explain how the schoolsystem in the Netherlands works.

We have a pretty complex system, if I may say so. Twenty years ago it was much simpler. However, time changes and so does every system.

When our pupils leave primery school most of them are about 12 years. Some of them 11, others 13. In the Netherlands we basically have 3 kinds of secondary school:

1. VMBO + very special education (these children have behavioural or educational problems or both)
2. Havo, which has a bit higher educational level
3. VWO, which is a combination of grammarschool and grammarschool without classical languages as Greec and Latin. This school is the most straight road to university.

Where as the numbers 2 and 3 are a kind of scientific preperation, VMBO is a type of school meant for children who prefer to work and earn a living instead of studying.

We have 3 different levels for those pupils who want to learn how to earn a living. At VMBO pupils are taught the basics of what they would like to become in their lives later on. Parents are not that keen on putting their child to a VMBO school for these schools have the reputation of being dustbins: when your child doesn’t have the mental capabilities to study (read – as most people see it – : is too stupid for studying), just put it to a VMBO. At least they have a diploma in the end at the age of 16. Most of them think HAVO and VWO have much more distinction and appearance. They are disappointed when their child has to leave Havo/VWO in order to enter a lower level of school, so VMBO.

However, they seem to forget that their child will be much happier when joining a school where there is less theory and much more specialisation to what the would like to do.

A level higher than VMBO is MBO, where they will be taught a profession like a butcher, a carpenter, a hairdresser, or a nurse, or something else. Another level higher is HBO, which is more or less close to university although HBO is more or less directed to practical experience than on scientific knowledge. At this level we find teachers, dancers, actors, musicians, engineers, and so on.

At this moment of speaking I work as both a teacher of the arts and of English at a VMBO. So everything you will read is about this level, a lower level where they will be taught to speak English on a average.

to find out whether one will be become a fine teacher we have to have the guts to have a look in the mirror. Only the teacher who is honest enough to understand and accept his or her own shortcomings will find out how to help a pupil or student.

I’m willing to walk this road, though I’ve been a teacher of arts for almost 15 years. Now I’m going to try to become a teacher of English.

Hello everyone,

I’m just trying to work this out. Give me some time and I might understand how this all works, lol