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jenthelibrarian
Jul. 1st, 2009
08:32 pm - Compare and contrast
Early this morning there was an electrician in, along with our Site Services Manager. Showing my age here, but when did school Caretakers vanish and get replaced by these guys? Anyhooo...they were banging about with cables and fuses and switches and routers and servers. I was warned there would be drilling and banging and to expect my power to go off briefly. I got the guys to warn me though, so I could shut my PC down and sort my back-ups rather than have it crash. Phew.
Miss Holland from Modern Languages came in with a sweet little girl with a heavily plastered leg and crutches. Miss Holland is nice. She asked if her pupil was OK to spend some time with us, handed over work for her, gave me a copy of her timetable marked up to show which classes were upstairs and thus out of bounds and added a note showing me where she'd be teaching in case of questions. I warned them about banging and drilling going on, but we all agreed it'd be OK. She thanked me for my help, I thanked her for being so well-organised and anticipating all eventualities. All well and good.
A little later a very important Head of Department bustled in, ignored me and failed to respond to my slightly pointed "Good morning!". She looked around and announced "Yes, this will do. We'll sit in here" and three women wearing visitors' badges followed her and they all sat down.
Almost at once Mrs Worry followed them in bearing a tray of tea and biscuits. She smiled nervously at me but failed to respond to my mouthing "Who the hell are they?" at her as she passed.
I decided that as I was too lowly to be spoken to or introduced I'd better show proper respect and not speak to these VIPs or interrrupt them to point out that drilling and banging would soon start up again. It duly did and Very Important Head of Department had to yell over the noise to be heard.
I just sat smug and eavesdropped and pinched the biscuits as soon as they left.
I realise the above most likely makes me sound rude and petty and something of an arsehole. I know, but I don't actually care.
At lunch time I cruised around the computer suite where lots of small boys were playing online games.
"Look at this, Miss! It's the best game in the entire world, ever!" said Dean, excitedly glued to some animated blobs and arrows.
"Ahhh!" I said, trying to sound interested, "What's it called, then?"
"Dunno" [shrug] "But it's well wicked, Miss!"
Jun. 17th, 2009
04:55 pm - Anyone got a big knife or an axe? A sharp pointy stick? Any weapon?
Gorgeous bright sunny morning.
I bounce into the library bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to see a group of girls, one of them weeping rather hysterically, being bundled hastily into our office by a senior teacher.
"Can you please look after them for a minute while the police are called?" he looks grim.
"Has there been a fight?" I ask, warily.
"Nope, flasher on their way in to school, poor kids" he hurries out.
Gingerly I open the office door. There are three girls. Amber is still crying and being comforted by Scarlett, Jade sits in silence, head down.
I don't know what to say but I proffer tissues and offer to make them cups of tea. They ask for water so I fetch a jug and cups and another box of tissues.
There is much self-important to-ing and fro-ing of senior staff and then a police-car rolls up outside. I gather that two of the three saw the flasher, the other is their friend who they call for on their way to school. I am asked if I can be spared from librarianising to sit in as witness and chaperone to one of the girls while a police officer interviews her in Mr Head's room. The hysterical girl is to be interviewed by the only available female officer.
I go to Mr Head's room where I ask Jade if she is happy to have me there. She nods silently, sitting hunched up and hiding behind her hair. The policeman is fairly young and kindly. He explains to us both that he wants Jade to tell him what happened so basic details can be sent out quickly, that he will then write up her account for her to sign as her statement and that I will be asked to sign this as a witness to the interview. His manner is very matter of fact, but friendly and Jade perks up a little.
She speaks up well for herself, sounding confident and increasingly angry as she comes to terms with what happened. She describes how she and Amber were walking along the edge of the local housing estate, next to the woodland park, when a white van passed them. She thinks the driver may have whistled at them, but the sound may have been squeaky brakes. The van passed them again, going the other way, then when they drew level with the entrance to the car-park it was stopped, the driver stepped out from behind the open door and exposed himself.
The policeman radios the basics to his control room. Jade doesn't recall a number plate, or know what make of van it was. The policeman does rather good cartoonish sketches showing outstanding features of common makes of van but it doesn't help. He starts to talk her through the details of her account, writing notes as she tells her story again.
"So, you were walking up Woodside Avenue, towards the shops?" I nearly interrupt, that's not what Jade told him.
"No" she says, firmly "We were walking the other way, towards school"
I realise he is making sure she sticks to her story and is neither confused or easily swayed into contradicting herself.
When he reaches the difficult part of the events I am impressed by his manner and the way he gets the facts out of Jade.
"OK, this is the difficult part. I'm sorry I have to ask you this" he says, "I'm going to ask you some yes or no questions, OK?" Jade nods.
"Did the man expose his private parts to you, that is: could you see his penis?"
"Was he excited, I mean did he have an erection...do you understand what I'm asking you?"
"Was he touching himself?" "Was his hand moving?" "Rapidly?"
Our nice policeman's written account records the man as having exposed himself, fully erect and masturbating without Jade having to say the words herself. He writes up the statement and gives it to Jade to read though, approve and sign and then to me. He tactfully withdraws from the desk and speaks on his radio again so we have to chance to speak and I ask Jade if she is sure she is happy with the interview and with her statement. I tell her to come and see me later if she wants to talk again, that I will happily give her a lift home and that she can hide in our office if the attention and gossip around school get too much, either today or later. The policeman thanks us both and promises to relay any news
I am left feeling very impressed by Jade's bravery and dignity but indignantly angry.
I feel like getting up a lynch mob and going on the rampage.
Jun. 5th, 2009
09:14 pm - That's good....that's bad...that's brilliant!
Good?
I went to school today in a new summery white linen top and got lots of flattering comments. A rather attractive nice colleague whose clothes I always admire assured me I don't look even close to my age. She says I have good skin, a welcoming attitude and a youthful habit of bounding up and down the stairs rather than plodding like an older lady librarian. I walk about in a happy glow of self-satisfaction.
The bad?
Seduced by flattery I agree to allow a thoroughly unpleasant boy do some work on one of our PCs while the TA who is his usual 'minder' helps out in the classroom. He has a text-book on Cubism and an essay to write but immediately starts playing games on the computer. To my annoyance he is joined by another pain in the arse who is illegally out of his lesson. We call for the senior member of staff on patrol to sort him out, but no one shows up and he is refusing to budge.
Miss Bronte from the English department has a huge class out in the computer suite where not all of the machines are working. She asks nicely if she may send some sensible trustworthy kids out to work on our PCs, and they quietly get stuck into their task.
My two pains, meanwhile are getting noisy and sillier by the minute. I phone Cubism's TA over in the teaching block and she says it's his look-out if he fails to complete the work. I remind him yet again of the need to do his essay.
"Whatever..." he says, glued to his game.
He and his neighbour have a short burst of squabbling which makes me look up from my work to tell them to be quiet. One or the other of them reaches over and flicks off the switch that controls the power to all of the library PCs so they all go off at once. Miss Bronte's pupils all groan and protest as an entire lesson-worth of work vanishes. I take them out to see her to explain it's not their fault.
The brilliant?
As a result of the above we realised we had, at last, a guaranteed watertight copper-bottomed excuse to ban two of our least favourite characters from the library.
Result!
May. 19th, 2009
04:08 pm - Awwww....thanks guys!
Me: [being my usual tactless, rude and thoroughly unprofessional self] "I probably shouldn't tell you this but..."
Kid: "That's what we like about you, Miss. You tell it like it is"
May. 11th, 2009
10:20 am - It was Monday all day today
Emails first thing today included a request from a history teacher for an article from an academic periodical, something that is sadly unusual for Black Pit.
I was surprised, but got onto my little network of contacts in other local libraries. No success. Tiny wee alarm bells began to ring. It's entirely the wrong time of year for A-level Coursework project research and the topic of the requested article is not on the exam board syllabus. I began to wonder if this was a bit of private research and nothing much to do with Black Pit at all.
I wrote a very fawning email to the nice Schools Liaison Librarian at our nearest university library, thanking her once again for the very helpful and enjoyable visit we made earlier in the year with some sixth form students and just happening to wonder if a copy of the article could be sent to us, or if a temporary Athens login might be forthcoming. After all, it is just the one little, insignificant item....
Then there came a thrilling bit of gossip. At last the Black Pit thief has been caught on CCTV, helping himself to a purse out of a girl's bag. To everyone's shock it's a really nice kid, a former pupil, who is now at the local college but has been allowed to sign in as a visitor to see teachers for extra help and to catch up with old friends. The police have been called in and the family are going to be absolutely horrified. So sad.
The kids signing in at break are highly amused to see that 'Barack Obama' had apparently been into the library and a good-natured competition begins to come up with famous celebrity names to put on the sheet when I pretend not to be watching. 'Beyonce' has been in, together with 'Lady Gaga'. They have to tell me who this one is, though.
The nice Librarian at the uni library gets back to me, thanking me for my kind words but passing me onto the Inter Library Loans department. They want paying. It'll be £10.00. I pass this information back to History.
Apr. 27th, 2009
09:41 pm - Summer Time, and Black Pit isn't easy, the kids are jumpy, these two have got high...
Officially it's the summer term now. Things should be quietening down in the library as coursework deadlines pass, kids go off on study and exam leave and the nicer weather means they're spending break and lunchtimes outside. We have happily filled the diary with bookings for the library to be used for exams come May and June.
Forthcoming exams and coursework deadlines make for nervous and bad-tempered kids. Many of the usual suspects show up in the library claiming they have work to finish or to print out but using this as an excuse to bunk off lessons. We are caught up in budget-wrangles and our Head of Department's constant questions about our planned expenditure for next year. Do we really need to buy any more books? After all, our shelves seem fairly full....*head-desk
Mid-afternoon a TA comes in with two boys. One holds a wodge of blood-soaked paper towel and a bag of ice to his nose.
"Have you been fighting?" someone asks him.
He lurches about helplessly.
"He's sniffed something" says the TA, shortly. She has been put in charge of the pair of them until the bell goes for the end of school and they can be sent off the premises. The two of them are totally incapable, high as kites, giggling and staggering, their eyes rolling and unfocused and their speech slurred.
Black Pit will not ever, under any circumstances, admit that drug or alcohol use might take place in school.
Heads are tuning in the library, which is full of sixth formers. The TA apologises to me and, after several attempts, gets the boys into the room next door. I fetch more paper tissues and a jug of water and cups. When I return nose-bleed boy is drawing on the wall in dribbles of snotty blood.
I leave them to it.
Apr. 2nd, 2009
08:30 pm - In Which Mrs Worry Worries Me
Today I was visited by Mrs Worry, accompanied by Mrs Fielder, who is a PE teacher of the more bullying and sarcastic kind and who usually ignores me.
"I was telling Mrs Fielder how your photographer friend helped me out with those photos" says Mrs Worry.
She has the excited air of some unpopular little geek who is suddenly in the good books of the cool kid.
"Yes, I gather you have a helpful "friend" " says Mrs Fielder, her tone suggesting that I am the lucky owner of a sugar daddy or a hot secret lover.
"Do you think you could get the face of a kid blurred out in a picture?"
"What, sort of Photoshop a paper bag over their head?" I ask, rather incredulous at this request.
"Well, Mrs Worry has taken some good sports team pictures, but they all seem to feature some stupid kid whose stupid parents won't let them appear on the website" she says, the usual contempt back in her voice.
Alarm bells start to ring. Somehow I don't think this is what parents expect when they deny permission for photos to appear on-line. Also, many of these families are Asian Muslims - do we really want to make it look as if Black Pit disguises their kids in school pictures?
"I'd have no idea how to do that" I say "And I think you'd need fancy software, which I don't think I can access here and I don't have at home, the resizing was done in Paint".
"But how about your "friend"? Couldn't your "friend" help?" Now Mrs Fielding's tone suggests that I don't really have friends, only aquaintances, most likely dodgy ones.
Well, I think that might be asking a bit much" I say, firmly.
"Oh, I see. Perhaps your "friend" isn't so clever" says Mrs Fielding comtemptuously, her tone implying that any friend of mine is a mad axe-murdering pervert drug-dealer.
"Have you tried the IT department, or maybe art?" I ask stalling for time. And then a bright idea dawns.
"Did you run this idea past Mr Head?"
Mrs Fielding snorts and walks away, Mrs Worry looks at me sorrowfully and follows.
Mar. 31st, 2009
04:34 pm - Dewey Decimals or OCD? OCD or Dewey Decimals?
The vast gigantic huge library reclassification job has just reached the end of the 800s. By way of a treat I gave myself a break from this mammoth on-going task to process some new books into stock.
I get a nice rhythm going: scribble on back of library return date label with glue stick and attach label to book, peel off and stick bar-code label, insert Tattle Tape security strip. I usually delegate these tasks but at the moment we're a bit lacking in minions. Anyway, I enjoy doing it. Next there is pause to classify the book if it's non-fic.
Dewey. Sometimes so easy and straightforward, sometimes so difficult. It's a lurve thing.
A group of kids are using the library to video interviews about the death penalty. They ask me if I want to contribute.
"Killing people is always wrong" I say, firmly.
I am engrossed in a book about the design and artwork of the Lord of the Rings films.
"Is this a book about art and design, or a book about film?" I ask the room in general, more thinking aloud than expecting an answer.
There seems to be a split of opinion as divided as that on the death penalty.
Things get surprisingly heated.
I hold up my hand
"OK, thanks, be quiet you lot! We'll see what the oracle has to say about it"
I log onto the British Library Integrated Catalogue.
It's an art book. End of, as the kids say.
Mar. 17th, 2009
09:20 pm - Mrs Worry is worried. Part Two
Mrs Worry is, surprisingly, not a bad photographer and often produces remarkably good shots of sporting events and performances held at school. It was decided that the school website should show photos of kids in correct school uniform and full PE kit. Mrs Worry had the unenviable task of locating kids actually wearing correct uniform and who had up to date permission on file for their pictures to appear on the website. This took time and tenacity. Poor Mrs Worry.
She was so proud of being given this task and took it so seriously that she took the photos on her own rather nice digital SLR camera, brought in from home for the purpose. Then she saved the pictures to her school PC directly from the memory card but could not make them upload to the site.
I found out about this some time later, when Mrs Worry was in full panic mode and too scared to ask the IT technicians for help.
I went to her office and had a look at the photos, hoping to get a look at her camera too. It turned out that they were both going on for 4MB files. The website and mail systems will only load/send up to 2MB. I had no idea what to do, but I did know a man who might. I told her not to worry, I'd ask my good friend Mr H. who is kind, helpful and an excellent photographer.
"Can you ring him for me?" asked Mrs Worry
"No, I'll email him this evening" I said, instantly regretting this mistake.
Mrs Worry lives in fear of computers and the internet, being convinced that they are full of perverts and porn. Which of course they are.
"You won't email the photos to anyone, will you?" she pleaded. She was nearly wringing her hands by this point at the thought of some online nutcase accessing photos of anonymous Black Pit kids fully clothed in glorious polyester.
"Don't worry - the files are too vast to email, remember" I said, soothingly.
Sure enough, the ever-reliable and generally lovely Mr H knew what to do, and sent clear instructions, and I quickly managed to reduce the files to manageable sizes and insert the pictures on the website for Mrs Worry. She was very relieved.
"You didn't need to email the pictures, did you?" she worried.
"No, I just sent Mr H a link to the page to show him it all worked"
"Should you have sent photos of children to some...man?" she said, having another worry.
I pointed out to her that the school website is accessible to anyone who cares to look, a thought so worrying that she decided to ignore it.
Thanks, Mr H.
Mar. 16th, 2009
05:15 pm - Mrs Worry is worried. Chapter One.
Mrs Worry works in the general admin office and on the school reception desk. She worries about things.
Before we organised the delivery of our daily newspapers I used to worry her by running over to the corner shop to pick them up. She wanted me to sign out of the building and then back in again. I took to leaving via the side door and then returning through the main reception area, but then she worried that I seemed to be coming in late for work. If I just disappeared she worried that no one was on duty in the library.
Now the papers are delivered she worries that if they are left on the reception desk they might be taken by someone, so she brings them into the library, but worries that someone might read them before I arrive. Who knows what catastrophe might befall us all if a newspaper was read without the proper supervision of a librarian? I kept this thought to myself in case she made me write a risk assessment.
She recently had a little worry about my stationery order and brought it back to me, to point out that ordinary sellotape is a lot cheaper than the posh proper Scotch magic tape stuff that I had ordered. I showed her some spine labels stuck on with common or garden tape and how they'd gone all dry and crispy and fallen off. I showed her how I hide the tape dispenser with the expensive tape so that only I can use it, strictly for sticking labels on books. So that was all right, then.
Mrs Worry was horrified to find a couple of bottles of wine in the small fridge in the library office, along with the 'downstairs' milk, various staff packed lunches and some kid's spare insulin injection pack. She worried that children might see it.
Generally I find Mrs Worry more amusing than annoying, but she did manage to drive me to the edge with her daughter's homework. She had told anyone who would listen about this precious homework and how they could not make it open on their home computer. Rashly I offered to have a look and got Mrs Worry to mail to me over the school network. It opened in one go, a sort of newsletter thing about some history topic.
I showed the work to Mrs Worry on my desk PC and then on her own one in the office. I was baffled. I could only suggest one possibility:
"Do you have a different version of Publisher at home?" I asked.
"Well, that's just what the IT technician said when I asked him" she said slightly crossly. "I've already told him we don't have Publisher at home, but I thought maybe someone else could actually help me."
*sigh, roll eyes
Mar. 13th, 2009
11:19 am - Political correctness
Out on the corridor I meet Sophie, who has Down's Syndrome. Or maybe I should say 'Is a person with Down's Syndrome'? I'm not sure.
She is trailing along very slowly behind her Teaching Assistant who says:
"Hi Jen! Just taking the dog for a walk"
Which strikes me as breathtakingly rude, poor Sophie.
Sophie, who is usually smiley and cheery, blows a raspberry at me by way of greeting and is made to apologise by the TA. She then barks at me, and the light dawns that Sophie is pretending to be a dog. So the TA wasn't being so rude after all, but going along with Sophie, who is disgruntled that the Food Tech lesson she likes is a classroom-based theory session and there won't be cooking.
Although I remain unsure how I should describe Sophie, I have recently been told that children should not be described as 'mixed-race' any more. The correct term is now 'of dual heritage'.
The Black Pit kids themselves use 'racist' to mean any form of discrimination or unfairness, which is a bit confusing.
We had a large meeting going on the library. It was exam invigilators and moderators and was fairly confidential so I put up a sign on our door saying
Meeting in Progress
Library Open for
Sixth Form Study Only
"Miss, that is sooooo racist!"
"How is that racist? I am really sorry about it, but it's not my fault" I am taken aback.
"It is racist, and unfair and mean. That's just discrimination!"
"Well, I agree that it's annoying. Even that it's a pain in the neck. But I fail to see how it's racist" Does he know what racist means, I wonder?
The bell for end of break goes, so our philosophical debate comes to an end.
Mar. 9th, 2009
10:23 pm - It's all one big conspiracy
One of our autistic kids is in the library waiting for his taxi to take him to some specialist classes off-site. He is accompanied by a Teaching Assistant but, as usual, is pacing around the room counting under his breath. I know I must not interrupt him by saying 'hello' or he will have to start again and will get very anxious that his taxi might arrive before the ritual is complete.
The TA is a very amiable young man who sits down with today's newspapers, the front pages full of economic doom and gloom.
"You know this is all planned?" he says suddenly.
I am taken a bit by surprise since I am deeply engrossed in Dewey's 820s now that I've hit English Lit in my great reclassifying quest.
To my surprise the TA, who I thought was sane, normal and reasonable launches into huge conspiracy theory-type rant.
We're all going to die when the huge magma chamber beneath Yellowstone Park blows this summer. We won't all die, but will be plunged into a nuclear winter and it'll be survival of the fittest. We'll soon all be at war over food and water supplies. The powers that be will take over our property and rent it back to us to raise funds. They know stuff we are not being told. Manufactured artifacts are regularly found fossilised in coal seams. The ancient Egyptians could not have built the pyramids. Atlantis was real. We don't know the truth about dark matter. Time is only relative. Everything is down to vibrations.
I am so taken aback by all this that I say "Really?!" in a tone that he takes for genuine interest rather than total amazed bafflement that anyone could believe all this utter bollocks. He looks around us suspiciously and leans towards me.
"This is all on special websites, you know. But, you know what? They are all, that is all of them, blocked in school"
So, obviously it must all be true.
Before he leaves he gives me a pink Post-It with some web addresses on it, in tiny weeny neat handwriting.
Feb. 10th, 2009
04:18 pm - A grim day down the Pit
Today got off to a fairly nice start. I caught up with a nice group of A-level students and their research for their coursework projects. I filled in a questionnaire one of them has compiled in order to collect some data and I walked a bright capable student through Google Scholar for ambitious work on Women in the Tudor Court.
Later things went a bit downhill. There was a lot of shouting and banging around in the corridor outside the library and, in mid-yell, in crashed Billy with a female senior teacher in hot pursuit.
He's a very large lad, tall and broad and can be rather aggressive. He swore at the teacher and she turned on her heel, temper well and truly lost, shouting that she would go and get reinforcements.
I attempted to calm Billy and reason with him. Out came a long and convoluted tale of teachers' unreasonable attitudes, unfairness and general arsehole-ish-ness, generously peppered with curses and bad rude words. I listened in silence. Billy caught my stern look.
"Miiiiisssss..." he groaned, pleadingly.
He's not really a bad kid, just rather stupid and easily bored and frustrated.
Then Mr Darwin arrived. He's a science teacher. I like him a lot. He is tall and wide with a much-broken nose from long-ago rugby playing. He walks with a slightly uneven gait, no doubt from an old injury, but the story among the boys is that he is so generously endowed that he can't walk like most blokes, a tale he has never contradicted.
He spoke quietly and reasonably to Billy, rather than yell. Billy pretended he wasn't there and continued to address his remarks to me. Mr Darwin caught my eye and grinned. Suddenly I was struck with an immense pang of futility and weariness and for a fleeting moment just wanted to lay my cheek on Mr Darwin's nice soft-looking grey lambswool sweater and weep, and have him hug me. I bet he is lovely and warm and reassuring to hug...
With a huge effort I pulled myself together, spoke firmly to Billy and warned him of the consequences of disobeying Mr Darwin and, with much shouty grumbling on Billy's part they left the library together.
Mr Darwin is gay but the kids flatly refuse to believe this.
Jan. 21st, 2009
03:43 pm - Fun and Games
Happy quiet morning being busy.
First of all I heroically shifted a couple of bays of the fiction stock to free up some space and make the books less packed on the shelves. After this I felt I deserved a cup of tea so I had a bit of a sit-down with my References and Citations guide and my rather large email inbox.
There have been warning and threatening notes from the Systems Admin about server space and how we should all have a good old clear-out of documents and files. At this point I duly hang my head in slightly guilty shame, btw.
At lunchtime a small boy asked if I could help him on the computer, so I took myself over to have a look.
"It's this game, Miss. I can't get onto the next level" he whinged pathetically.
"Tough luck" was my reply, if I recall correctly.
The kids are not supposed to play games on school computers but it is impossible to stop them, and it does keep them fairly quiet over break and lunchtime.
At the end of lunch a different kid complained that he was unable to log off the system and that he was frightened of being late for afternoon registration, so I sent him on his way and said I'd sort out his PC for him. His screen was displaying the "empty your files" message so he'd obviously come to the limit on his storage.
So, to be helpful I deleted his Games folder for him and logged him off.
Jan. 16th, 2009
12:28 pm - Of course
They let me out today. I went on a course at a different school. It was all about the latest release of our email/intranet/VLE package and all of its fancy new features.
The course venue was an all girls' school, similar buildings to Black Pit but much cleaner and brighter inside. I had made the effort to wear my new smart [sale-bargain] trousers and to put all my stuff in my lovely Radley bag. As I sat in the school staff room with my clip-on Visitor badge someone asked me which post I was having an interview for. I did ask if they had any nice jobs going...
The course was in a very hot, stuffy computer suite with blinds drawn at the windows. All the monitors were fixed behind plastic screens and the chairs were not adjustable so I soon developed a headache. Our tutor talked us through the new software. I felt a bit that I could have just RTFM but it is always nice to get out and about and meet different people. I amused myself by turning all of Black Pit's web pages bright Barbie pink with purple lettering, then purple with pink. Which is remarkably unreadable, btw.
Happily fooling around with colour themes and lurid page backgrounds I was brought back to earth by hearing Black Pit's name mentioned. Apparently we use a blogging feature that most other schools haven't enabled on their sites. Proudly I offered to log on to this to show the rest of the group. To my horror the blog thing was full of rude abusive comments about named members of our teaching staff, assorted sexual abuse and threats of physical violence. This amused the rest of the people on the course, at least.
After bad instant coffee in the school staff room and another session in their migraine-room I scurried back to Black Pit to raise the alarm and get our blog feature disabled.
And to check that I hadn't actually enabled that pink lettering...
Jan. 14th, 2009
03:35 pm - Multitasking for England
Today I was trying to work on a new resource guide for a group of A-level students. And to update some material on citations and references to include such modern innovations as websites and assorted broadcasts.
People kept interrupting me. The usual reasonable ones, like people borrowing or returning stuff. The nice ones, like colleagues saying hello and offering company, human contact and gossip. And the less routine but inevitable ones...
A teacher produced a large bundle of print-out off the machine in the computer suite. A vilely disgusting obscene image of the grossest kind of kinky porn. Yuck. This is the second time this has happened within a week. Since the teacher had a class to teach I trotted off to hand it all in to the techies for them to try to identify the culprit.
Porn sites are, of course, blocked in school but kids bring in usb memory stick thingies and have phones with all sorts of features, and jobs can be sent to print from almost anywhere on site. Had to discuss this incident and field a few phone calls on and off through the day as names were raised and leads and hints investigated.
Then I did a lot of trailing back and forth to and from various offices to claim back the money I've spent on newspapers over recent weeks. The amount is over a fiver and so is beyond the petty cash. I must photocopy piles of tiny receipts, most of them for forty pence, and fill out an expenses claims form.
At lunch time it was attempt to help Susie with her homework, the topic being 'the aftermath of World War I'. Susie looks vague and baffled. After some time I gather that she has no idea of what 'aftermath' means. Her grasp of the history is very limited. She thinks Germany won the war, and this is probably why we had to fight them in World War II. I'm not a historian. I find her a book to borrow.
After lunch it was time to remind myself of what I had hoped to achieve today, to try to find all my links and notes and to try not to let it get to me...
Jan. 9th, 2009
06:05 pm - Liar, liar pants on fire
Today there was a minor electrical fault on some fuse box in some godforsaken corner of Black Pit and the servers kept crashing.
Two girls ran past me to call shotgun on the only two free PCs and so I asked them not to run in the library and also warned them that the system was down.
Needless to say the system magically sprang back into life at that exact moment in time. Did the girls say:
"Oh, look, the computers are working, but thanks so much for your kind and helpful warning, miss"
No, they happily told the entire room:
"Miss lied to us!" "She's a lying liar!" and so on and so forth until I most heartily wished I was allowed to feed them feet first into the cross-cut paper shredder.
Then some boy made a giant paper aeroplane out of today's edition of the Daily Telegraph. Which is probably about the most use anyone has ever made of it, but all the same I wasn't best pleased to have it whizz past my head at the desk so I chucked him out.
It made me feel marginally better.
Jan. 6th, 2009
06:16 pm - On the twelfth day of xmas... my pupils threw at me: the foam stuffing from inside the chairs
Meanwhile, back at Black Pit....
The new term started today. There was snow on the ground first thing. The library is always cold so I dressed in layers, imagining that the whole school would be absolutely freezing. It did turn out warmer than I expected, but when I returned from fetching the newspapers there was snow all over my coat in a rather charmingly pretty, if chilly, sort of way.
At lunchtime some girls did tell me that kids were throwing the foam stuffing out of the chair seats in the computer room but I was busy so didn't follow this up very promptly.
Sure enough, at the end of lunch the floor in there was littered with lumps of upholstery foam. There is CCTV in that room, but this can only be viewed on the say-so of someone suitably senior. With amazing timing Mr Head came into the library, carrying an 'on duty' walkie-talkie handset, so I asked him to come and have a look.
He was suitably aghast by the sight and agreed that the TV tape should be viewed so I happily fired off and email requesting this from the head techie, who usually likes telling me that I am insufficiently important to request access to the records. With any luck some stupid kid will now get his come-uppance.
A teacher asked today if I would speak to some Year 13 pupils about doing citations in written course work. I am worried that this is too little, too late but didn't argue. I have some good links to websites for this and am thinking of making a hand-out myself using real examples from Black Pit's pupils own work. Except I'm not convinced that many of them either read things or would dream of referring to anything they'd actually read.
Happy New Year.
Dec. 18th, 2008
03:13 pm - In The Bleak Midwinter
First thing in the morning I have to pop over the road to the corner shop to collect our newspapers. They don't deliver, a slightly more distant newsagent does, but won't encroach on another shop's territory.
I see loads of Black Pit kids coming into school. At the crossing of three busy roads I wait primly and properly for the lights to change while the kids dodge the traffic. It is freezing cold, waiting in my duffel coat, woolly scarf and gloves, yet many of the kids are wearing just a shirt and their uniform blazer. I don't know how much of this is teenage bravado/fashion and how much parental neglect/poverty. The school uniform jumper/sweatshirt is deeply unfashionable at school for some reason. The uniform blazer is cheap, washable and deeply practical polyester that gives me a static shock just looking at it. No danger of me being tempted to molest a kid, their clothes set my teeth on edge!
Mid-morning I am very unexpectedly called to visit Mr Head in his office. He wishes to put an end of term message on the school website. He wishes to sit next to me while I log on and set up the page and then he wishes to dictate to me while I type in his words. He is wearing a novelty christmas tie [sprigs of holly, tiny gold bells] and his nails are much, much nicer and more manicured than mine. He smells of posh cologne. I feel a bit flustered.
Mr Head is rather inarticulate and I helpfully re-word much of what he says, for which he thanks me. He says 'You're very good at English, aren't you?' This would be flattering, but I was told that he used to be an English teacher. He is hopeless on computers and as I save his message and it reloads as a page on the site he asks to see how I made it happen. He does this every time but never remembers how to do it himself.
It is time for the dreaded admin staff Secret Santa event. We all pile into the office of Mr Head's PA and are handed a glass of sour white wine and a mince pie to put us in a festive mood. I carefully compose my face into 'happy and appreciative' as I am handed my parcel. Why do we do this? I am the lucky recipient of a fairly nice leather-bound notebook that might make a useful photo or postcard album.
Dec. 10th, 2008
09:41 pm - And those that can't, teach
This was sent out as email by a member of our teaching staff today:
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