One of the many benefits of getting older is the ability to drop of to sleep during the day. These little "Power Naps" revitalise the mind for the inevitable encounter with PC bullshit, AND as an (almost) senior citizen, it's recognised that it is a part of your normal ancient and decrepit life.
Comments can be vaguely heard; "The poor old bugger just can't keep his eyes open", "Look at him, completely worn out by our kids", "Mistah, what exercise should we be doing next?"
But never was the ability to render myself unconscious more precious than during the after school meeting on Monday.
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| After school meeting in Nuova Lazio |
The entire staff gathered in the staffroom at 3:15. We're all pretty knackered after a hard day's teaching, and comfortably ensconced in the "bad boys corner", away for the gimlet eyes of the powers-that-be, I snuggled down in my chair.
The guest speaker began his preamble, and I felt my eyelids start to droop. He was an educator of many years experience, and he was talking about a national program that we are trialing at our school, all to benefit Maori achievement.
He had a PowerPoint presentation running on the data projector, and I distinctly remember slide 4....then all is a blank.
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| Wow, another f*cking PowerPoint |
I emerged into a hazy consciousness as he was about ½ way through, so I dipped under the surface again, re-emerging as the final slides went up on the screen. I glanced around the staff. Many nodding heads, not in agreement, but fighting the charms of Lethe. Some were doing their marking, some lesson preparation and one young thing had her head bobbing in time to the (presumed) music in her iPod. I couldn't actually see that she had her headphones in, but I sincerely hoped so. If she was listening to the "music in her head" to such an extent, then I'm afraid the "voices in her head" were not far off.
The speaker finished whatever he was talking about and wandered off, and then we had the delights of a completely pointless "game", vainly attempting to demonstrate that as a collegial body, we would be much more effective with better levels of intercommunication. The "game" was originally supposed to be part of our teacher-only-day
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| This game is much more fun. |
Unfortunately, we had to move about and talk, so I couldn't drift of again, but had to stay awake and look interested.
I hate these after school sessions ALMOST as much as I hate the Wednesday morning "Professional Learning" sessions.
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| Don't shoot until you can see the errors in their pedagogy |
I watched you with envy as you slept.
ReplyDeleteword verification = coldvent
You shouldn't hang around with envy, people might talk.
ReplyDeleteDear Twisted, Powerpoints put even the most alert and keen participants to sleep. Just so long as you weren't snoring. I do love your take no prisoner approach to pedagogy. Lindaxxx
ReplyDeleteMy old team would invite a guest speaker from a hardware vendor to our monthly meetings, who would usually subject us to "Lethe by Powerpoint" about their latest product. My manager would send a text to whoever was sitting next to me, telling them to wake me up, as in a small room of 15 people, it's apparently rude to fall asleep. Nobody ever mentions it's also rude to stand in front of 15 people and bore the very soul out of them with some half-baked digitised drivel, though, do they?
ReplyDeleteRichard [of RBB]: I enjoyed the nap
ReplyDeleteTC: People always talk. Don't be envious.
Linda in Chile: What's evem nore ironic is that I teach ICT, so I'm probably responsible for many kids developing their PowerPoint skills. Just think I could be the cause of sending thousands of people to sleep. I do snore, but a colleague nudged me when it got too loud. Pedagogy? Dasmn the edagogy and full steam ahead.
SH: Mind destroying, isn't it? When I was in sales, one of our team had a penchant for sleeping, snoring and farting all through the presentations. Kept them nice and short.