A Play and Some Flaming Sword in the Classroom

That last post took two sittings to finish and, re-reading it, you can tell. But I've decided not to be too hard on myself re the quality of my writing but instead to just get stuff down.

So far I haven't been doing too well :-)

The follow-up to the plate smashing episode was seeing the Year12's actual performance last week. The play was entitled 'The Nerd' and it was a hoot. The main character was brilliantly played by a lad I had taught way back when he was in year 5. In those days he was a quiet and conscientious boy with a nervous laugh and an air of insecurity. On Tuesday night he was a fully fledged clown with multiple 'voices' and not a shred of self consciousness to be seen! He wasn't the only surprise. The son of our PE teacher had been a little more lively in his primary school days but known more for his musicianship than anything else. He strode onto the stage as a 6 foot tall 'business man' who 'hadn't laughed since 1974'. He was hysterical. I still smile thinking about it. Sadly, the two girls still hadn't really got the plate scene working, although I could see where they'd incorporated things we'd done into their performance. Oh well, the boys more than made up for them.



ETBED boy has been giving us hell again, of late.  The Friday before last saw him removed from his classroom, by the Head of School, and deposited in my care. He proceeded to try and trash the place although, compared to Slugger last year, he is really a bit of a light weight.

Firstly, he turfed all the furniture out of the doll's house and proceeded to throw it over the wall into my office where I was sitting, trying to ignore him. Seeing that this wasn't working, I came out and tried to engage him, to no avail. He overturned a chair and moved on to the whiteboard full of magnetic letters. Scraping them off in handfuls, he scooped them up and began hurling them at the wall. My good humour and professionalism was beginning to wear off. I grabbed both his hands and held them in his lap.
"You will NOT throw things around my room, I don't care how angry you are!" I seethed at him.
"What gives you the right to come in here and throw my things around? I don't care what you do with your own things, but you are NOT going to throw mine around. And if I have to sit here for the rest of the afternoon holding your hands...SO BE IT! It's going to be a pretty boring afternoon!!!!"
We eyeballed each other for a few moments and I let him go. He belted over to the opposite side of the room and picked up a rubber ball (don't ask me why we have these sorts of things lying around the room, it's a pretty multi-purpose room) and stood there holding it and looking at me. I decided to switch tack and spoke nonchalantly to another teacher in the room who was quietly trying to do some marking and ignore the ruckus. He walked past us with the ball and began to deliberately bounce it.
"I don't mind if you hold the ball, it's good for squeezing, but please don't bounce it in the classroom," I said, in what was a pretty good rendition of a calm voice. He immediately bounced it all the more. As he saw me get up and come towards him, he flung himself over the ball and curled up so that it was trapped underneath him. Fortunately he is Extremely Tiny, so it was no problem for me to flip him over like a turtle and wrench the ball from out of his grasp. He glared at me in fury and lashed out with his foot. I side stepped and in a mammoth show of self restraint, just stopped myself from kicking him back. "Don't test me," I spat at him," I will always win." And I strode away to secure the ball elsewhere. Something clicked within him and he rolled over, located a toy on a low shelf and began to play quietly with it. He did this happily for the next 20 minutes.
"By the way folks," I announced, rather breathlessly, to the other teacher and SSO present, "that was not how the text book tells you to do it!" They grinned.

By the time his mother arrived, he had cleared up the mess he'd made, with only one prompt, and was standing next to me at a table, completing his maths worksheet. He leaned into me as we read the words and glued them under the appropriate shape pictures. We were friends again.

Last week he had a relatively good week and I was only called down to the classroom once. We're all praying it can be sustained this week. His teacher is in a better 'place' with him and I'm hoping we don't need to repeat the power struggle of a week ago.

Keep us in your prayers if that's your thing :-)

Tales From The Chalkface

As my figure, identity and sense of humour spiral down the toilet of middle age, I can at least report a few  LOL moments from school of late.

The first one concerns some plates.

On a chilly Friday morning, having been absent from my place for work for approximately 24 hours (yes, I do have a day off....theoretically), I was greeted by an extremely anxious older teacher with the news that I was supposed to be doing a play reading with her at lunchtime.

Now usually, I have a fair idea of what I am expected to be doing on any given day at any time so this came at me from left field. I rapidly rifled through the card catalogue of my mind (hat tip to Megan) and  wondered if she was going the way of all 'oldies' and basically forgetting what she had been told?  There are, after all, a number of people with the same   or similar names to mine in our workplace; surely she had the wrong person? And yet, at the back of my mind I knew this was an appropriate question to ask me. My very, good friend, the Drama Teacher, has worked with me before in a semi professional capacity so I knew it was the kind of thing she might ask me to do. But surely she would have asked me in advance?

Deciding that it was a case of mistaken identity, I left the confused older teacher and headed back to my room to start the day. However, as Drama Teacher stuck her sheepish and giggling head around my door jamb, I knew there had been no misunderstanding.

"I'm sorry I didn't warn you," she laughed at my confusion, "I forgot you weren't in yesterday..."

So, exactly what did this 'reading' require?  I wondered.
Drama Teacher filled me in. Two of her Year 12s were stuck on a scene for their upcoming production. Her answer was to give them some other people to 'look at' doing the scene. Curly and I were the appointed two. Sheesh! No pressure then!!

My biggest problem was that I was scheduled to see WildBoy for his weekly 1:1 slot at roughly the same time. As he has been doing really well lately, I decided that I could reasonably invite him along as the 'audience'. I was pretty sure he would be excited by the privilege. Friday morning saw Wild Boy and I heading down to the drama centre to do the play reading. He was pumped! The idea of someone like a teacher playing the part of...anything...was hilarious! He chuckled non-stop all the way to the performance space.

The year 12 students were delightful. They gave us scripts and explained that they were going to do the scene for us first. It seemed they were 'blocked' and needed some alternate input. (That would be us!)

As I watched the scene unfold I was consumed once more by my natural sense of belonging in theatre. It has been 6 years since my tiny feet last 'tread the boards' but I buzzed with the frisant of participation and wholeheartedly embraced the nuances of character. (Why am I not doing this as a job???)

The best bit was that the scene involved breaking plates. The older, uptight character admits to the younger girl that she keeps her sanity by breaking things. She demonstrates this with plates. Younger girl initially indulges the older woman's habits and then joins in ! Drama Teacher said to me as  I mimed my heart out. "Oh, no...we want you to actually break the plate. We'd love to see how you do it...."

I glanced out into the audience as Wild Boy sat back watching me smash a plate to smithereens. The grin stretched his face from ear to ear. But there was no malevolence, no desire to join in; he rolled in the aisles at my silliness. He appreciated the humour. He talked to me about it non-stop as we walked back to the classroom!

"Oh Mrs A, hahahahah, *smash* flip, it went right up in the air!"

I smiled to myself as I imagined the conversation at the Wild Boy dinner table that night: Hey everyone! Guess what Mrs A did today in my lesson? She SMASHED A PLATE!!!!!


More later

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Nostalgia Central

With all the baby girls that have been arriving around here both at church and at school, I woke up with a deep desire to see this little girl again. Praise God for video cameras and parents who transfer the hundreds of segments of tape onto DVDs. I sat myself down with a box of tissues and a disc entitled 1999 and listened to my beautiful baby with her funny little English accent telling me about her sore back and opening Easter eggs and birthday presents.

When the 17 year old version emerged from her lair at 9am with long, tousled hair and sleep laden eyes, she plonked herself down on top of me like she used to do, and I slowly lost feeling in my legs.

Even Himself observed how weird it was to see her there, like that, and here, like this, at the same time.

What would our ancestors have made of it?

Sage Advice From an Expert!

I thought this article from psychologist Kirrilee Smout was worth sharing. Her website is: www.innovateonline.net Why are Teens Rude? I saw a mum, Tina (names/details changed) this week who was despairing about the rudeness of her 15 year old daughter, Jess.  Tina said Jess was polite and friendly to her teachers, other adults and friends, but as this ended as soon as she walked in the door at home.  Tina told me that Jess  would often rudely make demands, grunt when she was asked questions or just ignore her.  Unfortunately, this is not an unusual story.  Teens are often surly and disrespectful with parents.    There are many reasons for why rudeness happens – and I thought it might be useful to outline a few of them below. Social tiredness:  Teens often spend many hours of their day thinking about how they are perceived by their peers, trying to be liked by friends, thinking about past and future conversations and what to say, the intricacies of teen relationships, comments on facebook, how they look to others and who is going to invite them out next.  The social thinking and planning teens have to do to survive these days is extensive – and exhausting.  Some teens don’t have much energy left for more social interactions with their parents – and rudeness results.  Lack of understanding:  Most teens aren’t fully aware of the impact of their rude behaviour on their parents.  They don’t really know how parents feel when they are ignored or snapped at.  They don’t fully appreciate or understand that their rudeness seems like a rejection or a lack of caring or appreciation.  Having not experienced  parenthood themselves, they are often ignorant of how much their parents care about having a positive relationship with them, nor how much it hurts or disappoints them. Lack of practice in switching attention:  Teen brains are not good at changing focus or switching attention as quickly as adult brains.  When teens are in the middle of another train of thought, or absorbed by something, they are physically less capable of quickly changing their focus of attention onto what a parent is saying.  This often feels rude to observers. No costs to being rude and no benefits of being polite:  Some teens live in families where they are regularly rude and never experience any problems or costs to this rude behaviour.  Mum or Dad don’t like it, but they don’t talk about it or respond to it.  At the same time, if they do make the effort to be courteous, no-one seems to notice.  From a teen’s perspective, there is not much point exerting effort and energy into being courteous when it really doesn’t seem to matter either way. Lack of skill in being polite:   at times, polite behaviour is more complex than we think.  For example, as adults, we are practised in asking questions of others, responding to their emotional state, being aware of effort people have made for us, knowing how to apologise without grovelling – and so on.  These skills are not that easy, and given teens have had much less practice in them than adults, they often simply don’t know what to say or do. So now what?  It helps a lot for parents to play detective and figure out which of these factors are impacting on a teenagers’ rudeness.  Once parents know what is contributing to the rudeness, it helps them feel less guilty, less angry, less frustrated – and they usually have a few more ideas about what to do in response. Options as to how to respond include: Ignoring the behaviour (if it’s relatively minor) and carrying on as normal.  We are all snappy with family at times, and sometimes it’s not worth making a slip up an issue.  This doesn’t mean we are condoning how the teen has spoken, but it means we are allowing for it being a bit harder to be polite for the teen than an adult. Making a very short, extremely calm statement at the time about how the comment made you feel:  “I’m sure you didn’t intend it that way, but that felt quite harsh to me”, or “When you ignore me, it feels as though you really don’t care about what I’m saying”. Walking away from the teen – very calmly and without showing anger – sending a message that we don’t appreciate the way they have spoken. Calmly refuse to help them out with something after they have been rude:  For example “Sorry mate, but I’m not really in the mood to drive you to Sally’s/help you with that essay/wash your uniform/make tea now, as I feel quite upset about our conversation just then.  Hopefully we will have a better time tomorrow night and I’ll do it then.”  Don’t yell and talk angrily – say it matter of factly.  But don’t back down either.  Asking the teenager questions about the rudeness later, when they are in a better mood:  “It seemed you were a bit grumpy earlier tonight.  I know you don’t mean to talk in a rude way to me.  Is everything okay?”  OR:  “I noticed that you were talking in kind of a short way yesterday, and were forgetting to say please etc.  I know I can do that sometimes when I’m focussed on something else.  Was there any reason you were talking like that do you think?” Being really, really specific and clear on what polite behaviour you would the teenager to work on.  It might be that we actually give them the actual words to say, for example, “I’d really like it if you could give me a brief apology when you forget to put your plate on the sink, like “sorry Mum” or something like that”.  OR, “It would be great if you could remember to ask me about my day most nights, after I’ve asked about yours.  It would make me feel like you cared” Making sure you "model" polite behaviour:it goes without saying of course, that it is essential that we behave politely and courteously to teens ourselves.  Unless they see it in action, they are not going to learn it. These are several equally valid options (and these are not the only ones) but the most important move you can make here is to stay calm and not take it personally.  Try not to yell, snap or be overly upset with the teenager.  Rudeness in teenagers is not your fault – you are not a bad parent – and it’s not entirely their fault either – they are not bad teens.   Helping your teen act in courteous and kind ways takes a lot of patience, persistence and time.  Don’t give up on it, but don’t feel like it has to be accomplished tomorrow either.  Good luck!

As Time Goes By. Or Gallops Past.

This week we have celebrated the, somewhat astonishing, passing of the 17th anniversary of my Baby Angel's birth.

I mean, not really astonishing, after all, last year she was 16 so I can hardly claim to be surprised. But when I think back on the event in question- the number 17, especially when associated with the word 'years', leaves me with a surreal feeling.

Time messes with your head.

I mean, how did this

become this?
  

If nothing else convinces you of the existence of a divine plan, the glorious emergence of a full person from the tiny creatures we birth must surely come close.

Last year we had many proclamations of neglect:

"I didn't even get a birthday party!"

Well BA, let me remind you what you did on your birthday

Sorry. Was the whole Formal experience not enough??????

What about the cake?

Was not enough attention paid to you?
Welcome to the life of someone born ten days before Christmas! But enough about MY issues.

This year was a 'big one'. After all, seventeen means driving, and finishing school......and to tell the truth, perhaps I was feeling a little guilty over last year. Plus, as I reminded myself, we had always done a bigger birthday on the odd years.

So I started planning. I booked an Italian restaurant, because that's the type she likes. I ordered those concert tickets online for her, getting an extra one so she could take a friend, and finally I facebooked a few of her oldest friends (from the 978 she apparently has!!!!!) to meet us in town at the restaurant for a surprise.

Her birthday dawned and she had a package to open in the morning.

The gang were there to meet her at the restaurant.

Boyfriend was on hand, attentive and had bought her nice things!

Even if he does look a bit cagy here. In his defence, apparently the flash was quite bright. I assume this means he has not spent most of his childhood being photographed by his doting parents...I mean...does the BA look fazed by the flash??

And LOOK! We had the Small Boy with us!!!! (Also looking slightly cagy and fazed by the flash.
Maybe it is a boy thing? )

Great silliness ensued. Boyfriend looked on indulgently. Really, he is incredibly indulgent. I would have got fed up with all that giggling months ago!

Gotta say they are pretty gorgeous kids though.

The only minor downer was that I actually ran out of time and space and had to buy her a cake.

Oh well. She wants to do a 'gathering' at our place later in the year so perhaps I will do one of my tacky homemade cakes then? I mean, a tradition is a tradition!!!!

Happy Birthday my beautiful and precious girl. I can't believe it is 17 years ago. A lifetime. Literally.
Certainly the best part of mine.

You Know My Methods Watson!

As I savoured the last minutes of my 'lie-in' this morning, I heard Himself exploding at the other end of the house.
"BL***Y CATS!!!!!!"........
There-in followed the thump of feet up the corridor. His enraged visage popped around the door jamb, the steam fairly issuing from his ears.
"You know those sausages we left out on the counter last night (I know, I know....don't say anything....)? Well the BL***Y cats have EATEN THE LOT! There were about TEN of them!!!!!!"

I processed this information.

Firstly, it was unlikely that there were ten left over, but I decided to let that anomaly pass.
"Well,  surely they wouldn't have eaten all 10? Surely No 2 Son might have come home late and had some?"
"There was one left out on the counter!!! No 2 Son wouldn't have done that!!!" Himself roared.
"To be fair, he might have if he was....ummm....indisposed."
The thunderclap clanged shut and Himself humphed, set his jaw and stalked back down the hallway muttering under his breath:
"Bl***y cats. You can all go and live outside. Waste of bl***y space all of them. Bl***y cats. Mutter mutter mutter. Animals don't belong in the house! Mutter mutter etc"

Slightly perturbed, and concerned for the safety of the cats if nothing else, I levered myself out of my prone postion and wrapped myself in a dressing gown. As I pattered down the corridor towards the kitchen I tried to analyse the situation in my mind. Firstly, Pippin doesn't eat real meat, raw or cooked. He rather likes the idea of raw meat and hangs about my feet if I'm cooking (he's way too savvy to hang about Himself's feet!) but if I toss him a sliver of raw chicken, or open a tin of tuna when the dry cat food has run out, he looks at me in confusion. Surely that jelly like stuff cannot be the source of that delicious odour? He paws at it and walks off in disgust. So the culprit was unlikely to be Pippin.

Now Mortisha leans a little more towards whole foods. She is our mega hunter, bell and all, and frequently brings home a mouse or a bird. Mind you, she never eats the whole thing. We are frequently dodging a mouse head or pile of disembowelled, slightly sticky feathers in the laundry, or outside the bedroom door; highly dangerous whilst barefoot first thing in the morning! The thought of her scoffing ten whole sausages (or even the more likely count of 6) seemed highly unlikely.

Now, Lily. Lily is a wild card given her feral beginnings. She has been known to get up on a bench, she certainly enjoys a bit of raw meat, but she too never finishes the whole mouse and if truth be known, she's often out at night.

By the time I reached the kitchen I was feeling less and less convinced that the cats were to blame. This feeling was confirmed as Pippin dashed in, squalling and rubbing up against me, ready for food.

"Sweet heart, I really don't think the cats could have demolished all of those sausages," I said as I surveyed the lone sausage which had obviously been dragged across the bench. "For one thing Pippin is waaay too hungry to have pigged out on sausages last night." I glanced around at the scene of the crime.
"Oh, and also," I said, my eye lighting on a large, nearly empty glass bowl nearby,
"I really don't think they would have eaten the salad!"

We have yet to catch up with No 2 Son to confirm my suspicions. Nevertheless, the cats get to live indoors a bit longer :-)

Hello Ma Baby, Hello Ma Honey, Hello Ma Ragtime Gal

She inevitably goes off to parties dressed like this: a bit short on the skirt but otherwise modestly covered.

Then I find the hot pink, bandeau bra top in the wash the next day and know that the modest look had not been the predominant style statement of the evening.

It's a minefield, this value laden judgement we place upon our children. I mean, if I had to think back upon the things I wore way back when.....mind you, I think my belly was mostly covered but that may have been due to my complete absence of melanin.

Nowadays I would be happy to have a stomach which was worth uncovering!