Occasional Tales

Boxing Day: some are sick; some just have the day off. In normal countries we’d have the day off today, but this isn’t a normal country, nor one which respects weekends as something distinct from holidays and inviolate. Most of us were back at school. Mr Looms, on the other hand, was absent because – allegedly – he’s sick. I was lucky in that my one mostly free day remained my mostly free day and I was able to deal with various matters. But I could also have ended up losing all that precious time because of Mr Looms. There’s something decidedly papal about him. The Catholic Encyclopaedia tries to portray popes as nice, pious chaps, but ends up making them sound like a bunch of pervs. Mr Looms is like the pope. He’s desperate to be liked, but ultimately comes across as odd, being a little too interested in everyone else’s business and not, it seems, being aware of social boundaries. I suspect his classes and their form teachers picked up on his oddness, which isn’t offens

But you are. His Lordship phoned Mr Looms yesterday and informed him that he wouldn’t be returning; nor would he be moved to another school. As far as I could tell, Mr Looms was unlikely to remain here. He’d been whining a lot about the place as if he expected all to be in accordance with his idealised expectations. Nonetheless, this is another instance of a bunch of irritating 16-year-olds dictating who gets to work and who doesn’t, and Mr Looms has my sympathy. He seems to have rubbed his pupils the wrong way, and their form teacher also seems to have had it in for him. I was wonder whether Class β, who were particular pests early on in the term, might be responsible for his downfall. Correction. Mr Looms got the boot because of his frequent absences, which could well have been self-inflicted on some occasions. The little darlings probably did complain, but they’re not really responsible for his dismissal. I thought he might scarper during the winter holiday, but he’s retur

Class now? Since when? I normally see Pre-AL α 8th period on a Monday. I’m sitting in the office lamenting the brevity between periods when one of the students arrives and informs me that we have class. In spite of checking the revised timetable later on, I find that there’d been no such change indicated on my copy. It appears that some of this year’s Pre-AL students are as overwrought about test results as their contemporaries were two years ago. I can see that the speaking exams are going to be a trial for some of them. It was all happiness in the office. Mr T was sick again (making me seem the model of healthy vitality) and complaining about the absence of café culture, and the perceived unfriendliness of the locals. Mr B and the Cyberman were devising parodies of songs to mock the shortcomings of the city. Mrs S was pissed off at Mr S for being a dick when she needed him to be helpful. In other words, it’s the shit which happens at about this time of year when the di

Isn’t quite over. 120 pieces of writing; about 16,000 words; a little over a week. It will haunt me in my dreams tonight as I have pieces of paper chasing after me while I fend them off with a red pen. The average for the Ass classes is probably about 15. That’s probably a little on the low side, but not by much and after all the crap I’ve had to wade through, I’m disinclined to care. I dished out a zero to mute Myrtle for plagiarism, and I’m sure there were others who deserved the same fate. In fact, I think it was mute Myrtle who happened to have an exchange with self-deluding Sid during the course of the exam. (Unfortunately conditions for the writing part of the exam were less than ideal and students had to sit in their usual configuration. I’m sure there was a deal more cheating than I was able to observe. Again, I don’t care because Chinese students are so rubbish at cheating that it does them no favours.) Self-deluding Sid initially seemed quite capable, but has turne

The writing is gooder; the ideas are worser. I’ve finished going through Ass β’s writing. I haven’t actually given it any marks just yet, but have made comments about the four parts so that I can go back later and do the business. They’re still going to end up with fairly good marks for language, but the marking criteria for SL are so nice that ‘ Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’ It’s very hard not to get prizes. They’ll also get reasonable marks for message, although I must keep an eye on my comments where I’ve observed that the writing is disorganised. The one part where they could be punished, format, is also worth the fewest marks. Again, the InterBac programme aims to flatter because for the sort of money it charges, it needs to feign results which will please the mummies and daddies who are spending copious sums of money on their imbeciles. However, my remarks about the parts of their writing should leave them in no doubt as to their true competence. They a

Or, the Rise of Mr Foucault. We got a mail message telling us that the Reichsmarschal was being shipped out for some unspecified reason, which means that Mr Foucault will be our temporary Führer for the next few weeks. Not a fun day today. I had two long writing tests to administer, and a had a full afternoon. In fact, I now see all of my classes on a Friday. And for that reason, I can’t really be bothered writing any more.

There will be some notting. We had a staff meeting during morning exercise time, which is far more sensible than having meetings at lunchtime. It was a repeat screening of yesterday’s departmental meeting. Students shouldn’t be allowed to sleep in class. True. I think it’s rude of them to do so, but Chinese students are so stupid that telling them not to sleep is only effective for the brief period of time it takes them to forget that they were told not to do so. Then they must be told again. “This class is boring,” they’d like to say. Perhaps if they participated actively and displayed some degree of self-motivation instead of cabbage-like idiocy, they’d find it less boring. By the same token, not every class is going to be screamingly interesting. Most never are, but are pedestrian steps on the way to some end. We should give them homework once a week. I have given them some homework over the past couple of weeks, but have only been gradually clearing it away because o

Who cares? I got exclamation marks!!! I was waiting for the lift when I remembered I’d left today’s Powerpoint presentation on my laptop, but had no way of getting back inside, restarting the machine, and copying the file without losing too much time. It didn’t matter. I did the whole thing manually. Got to school and Mr Foucault is reminding us that we start at 7.25am. “No,” we said, “we start at 7.30.” No, it’s 7.25 . “There was this other mail message which not everyone got.” After some running this way and that, we started at 7.30am. Forty minute classes really are too short. I’d planned the timing quite carefully, but could not get everything done. I’ve started showing the Ass classes The Social Network, but thought I ought to check the English subs beforehand. Oops! They were not done to a professional standard. No subs for the Asses. I expect all the little darlings will be watching the film with Chinese subs and ripping reviews off the Internet for Friday’s writing.