Occasional Tales

All the geniuses come and go. I saw the last of my Senior 3s for the last time yesterday. That was the more dutiful of my two classes, but they made no effort to solicit any last-minute advice from me about today’s exam through which many of them slept. I can only assume that they’re so brilliant that their knowledge of English, and competence in the language surpasses mine. Last week, I asked them some impromptu questions about Paper 2 (writing). The results were not encouraging. They seemed largely incapable of recalling what the text types were or their cha­r­ac­ter­istics. I resumed my grilling on Sunday (yes, Sunday – Bank Holiday + China = stupidity) and noticed various students scribbling down notes as if they were seeing these things for the first time. Actually, that’s not beyond the bounds of probability. One thing I will say is that this year’s Senior 3s did not reach the heights of arrogance and in­suf­fer­ability which have characterised their predecessors for t...

I don’t remember voting for the monkey in the paper hat, but I’m sure I did. When the cardinals gathered to elect a new pope, we thought that Lincoln Green would probably get the job by default. We knew the school didn’t want Ms. Giggles even although in many respects, she was a potentially ideal candidate. (Aside: She might’ve been the better candidate, but we also had no problems imagining rule by diktat under her wise and benevolent governance.) But it was the outside candidate who got the job. Why? Probably because the new pontifex maximus wanted his own man in place even although he (the new pope) has no InterBac experience. [ 30.08.14. I also heard that Ms. Giggles did not acquit herself well in the interview.] In addition to this omission, he’s allegedly rather young. Of course, he may be a natural at the job, but I suspect the rest of us will be there to guide him to the right decisions. I won’t be too surprised if I end up reprising my role in Fuzhou as the wise ad...

We get the idea, but what about the details? We knew that the start of this term was going to be fairly horrendous, but barely two weeks in, the winter holiday seems to have been weeks or months ago. The first week was spent on practice for the InterBac speaking exams. Last week was the first writing exam, which seemed to be an opportunity for us to relax – fat chance. Instead, we spent hours having to pull the writing apart so that the final drafts could be copied, reassembling it, and then finding what’d happened to the bits that’d gone missing. On Monday this week, we had the practice for the Pre-AL speaking exam, which we were forced to conduct in the space of one day. Next week we have the real InterBac speaking exam, which is followed by a brief break before the real pre-AL speaking. There has been a certain amount of whining and complaining because of all the cover our work is generating. It’s the reason why next week’s speaking, which ought to happen across the week,...

Comings and goings. It did not take long for Ms. Giggles to lose it. She is obviously one of those people who a.) thinks she must do everything and b.) that everything gets scheduled in advance and, therefore, will happen regardless of the amount of time available. The evidence suggests that Ms. Giggles is a time waster because she’s trying to do everything within a limited schedule. I know she’s driven by the belief that the students may get the marks, but the results are her fault. If that was the case, I would almost certainly have to have done the honourable thing every year since 2003. At the moment, Ms. Giggles is away on personal business, which means that the office is peaceful and relaxed. It won’t be when she gets back. We also know that she keeps Them Upstairs in the loop by making sure they see her e-mail messages. Whether they care, I don’t know. Whether Ms. Giggles has any real influence with them, I don’t know; but someone who forwards e-mail messages to t...

Mistress of none. Ms Giggles continues her annoying ways. She is so loud that she cut through the noise at one recent social gathering, and on the street a few days late, I was able to hear her three to five metres after passing her. She continues to announce that she’s tidying her desk (no one cares) and that she’s going to have to come in at the weekend (again, no one cares). I often have to do work-related things at the weekend, but I don’t announce it as if everyone should be praising me for my virtue. I realised on Friday that Ms Giggles is one of those teachers who thinks that she must cover absolutely everything in class. If the syllabus says “Jump”, her response is “How high?” She also insists on doing extra stuff in class, which seems to do little apart from vacuuming up the time which should be being used for what we’re actually supposed to be doing. Sometimes I do waste time in class. I managed to drag out a couple of lessons last week, which might’ve taken a sing...

And no, you can’t use class time to revise. I had eight pupils missing from class today. I know that one or two have had official permission to be absent, but this was one of those occasions when several took it upon themselves to disappear. A mail message this afternoon informed us to be nice to this particular group of egos because they’re off to do their SATs on the 5th of October. I still don’t understand why Chinese school children do SATs on top of everything else. It’s an exam for American school children who have been through the American school system. While Chinese pupils may get 100% in the maths exam, they usually make arses of themselves in English. (That said, some of them still get exceptionally good marks overall.) What I’d like to know is whether American universities are even remotely interested in the results Chinese pupils get in SATs. I’m not convinced that any of my pupils need to do this exam, and suspect that this belong right up there beside the fall...

And on and on and on. This week seems to have been a succession of days when I’ve been at school till late and then merely go home to do more work. Although my afternoons tend to be free, it seems that I just don’t have enough time to do everything I need to do. Some of it is research, and some of it is indecision, but some of it is also Ms Giggles making a nuisance of herself. There are times when she is silent for some reason, but more often an endless stream of noise emanates from her. At one stage, she insisted on announcing that her desk was a disaster area and needed cleaning, although she doesn’t seem to have asked herself whether anyone else needed to know. She spent a lot of time putting things into folders in the first week, and I suspect there are a few OCD bats in her belfry. I also had to wonder why Ms Giggles has yet to deal with last week’s topic while her Ladyship and I have dealt with it. What has Ms Giggles been doing for the past two weeks? How has she...