Professional Wednesday in the Pit of Despair

So, you admit you don't know what a NOUN is?
I'm an artist for f*ck's sake.

Another Bloody Wednesday.

Another morning of Bloody Professional Torture.



Every Wednesday morning, before we set off to meet our hordes of little angels, we undergo what is supposedly an hour and a quarter of Professional Learning. This term it starts with a session of Te Waa Hononga, which is supposed to help us understand Maori cultural imperatives and increase our understanding of the way our Maori kids learn.

No, no, no.  You point the bloody guns at the enemy.
How many times do I have to tell you?

What we actually got was a 50 minute session of composing as many words as we can (in groups of our Departments) from given syllables and vowels.  At least I think that was what we were supposed to be doing, but the instructions given were a wee bit mumbled and unclear, and quite frankly, I didn't give a f*ck.

Then we had to identify nouns, adjectives and verbs from the words, write them onto laminated labels bearing the words nouns, adjectives and verbs to help us differentiate the various types.

Wow!!!

I've got a BSc(Hons) and an MSc.  I've been teaching for over 15 years.  I went through school when it was compulsory to be able to parse sentences, write down rules of syntax and compose grammatically correct sentences.

I've written Management Documents of over 200 pages, a Master's Thesis of over 500 pages and corrected countless mistakes in students' and teachers' work.

I KNOW WHAT A F*CKING NOUN IS THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

You don't have to waste 50 minutes of my valuable time in trying to teach me how to write f*cking English.  There were lots of mumbled grumbling in the "Bad Boys' Corner" where I was sitting. I noticed Richard [of RBB] doing some quiet texting.  Well Done, Richard [of RBB].

What the hell is all this to do with Te Waa Hononga?

Admittedly the presentation was given by one of our Maori colleagues, but it was focused (mostly) on examples in English.

There were a few times when I was really tempted to just walk out and leave, and go and do something a bit more productive.  Like cut my toenails, trim my ear hair or even PREPARE SOME F*CKING LESSONS.  But I wimped out.  The semblance of collegiality had to be maintained at all costs, otherwise chaos would rule.

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Back to Reports.

After the cancellation of the whole staff after school meeting, (see here) when we were supposed to be allowed to give our opinions and recommendations for improving the utter f*cking balls-up which is our reports system, we were given an A4 Report feedback sheet.

We were encouraged to complete these and hand them back in, so the Management could improve the system for the next round of reports, due next term.

Quite frankly, one A4 sheet isn't nearly big enough, and as far as I know, the paper hasn't been treated to stop it combusting when the true vitriolic hatred of the collective staff is honestly expressed.

But that's life in Nuova Lazio High School.


We're all bloody mushrooms.

Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.

YONKS, I came across this whilst searching for mushrooms.

 Says it all really.