I Got A B!

I’ts been so long since any of my own grades were in letters, I’m so used to dealing in percentages and calculating the horror of a degree result (I swear if Lexie hadn’t been there I’d have had tears!) that I had forgotten the letters. Well, I’d forgotten them as applying to me anyway I’ve been A-B-C-ing to other people for weeks as I marked kids work.

When I was at school I had this weird attitude to grades, the school made you feel as though anything below an A was shit so I took a perverse pride in attaining Cs. C; satisfactory, so I’m not actually doing anything wrong but not an A so the teachers were pissed off. When I was marking the kids work there were a lot of Bs handed out and a fair number of Cs but I think I mark too harshly because it took a lot for a kid to get an A, partly due to my own biases I guess but partly because I think an A should be special, it shouldn’t be what everyone gets so that when you do put that extra bit of effort in then the A is a reward in its self.

I don’t think theres anyone on the planet who thinks like that anymore, none of the children I was teaching gave a shit about their grades as long as they passed. To be honest I don’t about this course really because theres too much to do, I’ll put the effort in to the bits that interest me, so the actual artwork and the lesson evaluations and schemes of work but most of this course I’m coasting. I used to put effort in to essays though about Rauschenberg and artists I wanted to learn about, but nobody below the age of 18 cares about learning anymore. I haven’t met anybody not at university who actively wants to learn: its a bad sign for my teaching career that whilst I feel curious about the whole damn world I can’t empathise, I simply don’t understand, people who don’t care, who don’t want to know…well…everything.

Theres a sense of wonder I have about the whole world that leads, I guess, to my remembering about Oxbow Lakes and river meanders, about Force being Mass times Acceleration and lightspeed being constant or as near as made no odds, I remember all kinds of shit and love knowing that the colours of paint is down to what sort of light the paint reflects, that I can mix every colour I need on stage with three sorts of gel, that Empress Maud and King Stephen had the first English Civil War really way before Oliver Cromwell came on the scene. How can people not love the facts of life? Not sex and all that crap but the way stuff works and is working all around us.

I hate the cry, constant in schools, ‘but I won’t need that for my job’ it makes me want to shriek back at the child: How do you know? You’re thirteen! How can you possibly know what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life? What if, when you’re eighteen you want to become a research scientist but you decided you didn’t want to pass your science GCSEs, you’ll be screwed. How do you know who you’ll be in so many years time? You never know what you might need to know so try to find out as much as you can before it’s too late!

I won’t make a good teacher because I want children to want to know things and they don’t. However interesting I try to make a lesson there’ll always be the voice at the back who thinks that shelf stacking in Sainsburys is a great career move, that going down the pub every night is a social life and how many pints you had to drink and whats going on in your lovlife/the lovelives of the character’s on your favourite soap is a conversation.

Am I guilty of intellectual snobbery? Am I being elitist in saying this? I don’t think so actually. I think that everyone should be able to think, should be able to process thoughts more complex. To understand Wittgenstein or Engels or Dickens or somebody other than themselves. To understand themselves would be a start.

Anyway, I got a B, it’s nice to know and it makes me smile; thats one thing done.

You are the blue moonlight. You are peaceful and
serene, kind and loving. Your heart never
stears you wrong. You let out uncertainess with
tears, and you let out fear with light. The
blue light means distance. You are afraid to
get to close to people. You have been betrayed
once before and can’t do it again. Your dream
job could consist of a counsler or a traveler.
You love humanity and lonliness. You will have
love in your life and will never pass by
unnoticed. Your beauty attracts many, but your
personality is rare. The uniqness in your mind
will always separate you. You can always find
yourself lingering near the ocean, thinking
about life. Your head seema to be up in the
clouds, though you body is down omn Earth. You
change and each time come back a better person.
The blue moonliht will always guide to safety
in the darkest hour.

What shade of moonlight are you? (Boys or Girls)
brought to you by Quizilla