Imperial War Museum

I have a week off due to the schooling system here. To be honest, I'd rather work, but a vacation is a vacation. As I'm trying to save money I'm hitting all the free things London has to offer. One such attraction is the Imperial War Museum. In fact, most of London's museums are free. At least the best ones are. Go figure.

(please remember all pictures can be clicked on for larger versions)



It would take a better man than me to explain everything in this museum. I can say that there was a huge amount of authentic items from V2 rockets to colonial kitsch.











These guys are representations of the world's major powers in WW1.








It goes without saying (though I'll say it anyway) that everything behind these glass windows is authentic. Reminds me of a sketch show I just saw. Two Nazis are sitting around in a bunker and one says to the other:







"Fritz? You think we might be on the wrong side?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well it's our hats."
"Our hats? What about them?"
"Well, it's just that...they have skulls on them."
"Right."
"Well, aren't skulls for the bad guys?"
"Hmmmmm..."



(see, that's what I'm talking about)





A real Enigma machine. Basically, the Germans had this machine which would send and receive coded messages that seemed impossible to decipher. Eventually, through extreme effort on the part of the British, the codes were cracked and the Enigma was defeated. There's a movie about it, simply named Enigma. Also Mick Jagger is said to own one of the machines, so if you happen to see him you might be able to have a look.




OK, I really should have spent more time on this one. First of all, it's a real Molotov cocktail. But that just means a glass bottle filled with gas that's lit on fire. Why didn't this one explode? Secondly, it says that it's Finnish. What were the Fins up to? What section was this in? Bah, this shouldn't be here.







I'll just keep quiet about this one.



















As the Japanese conquered locations in WW2 they began to issue their own currency.





Old-school Mahjong pieces.





There was a small section on Indonesia's role in WW2.






There are hobbies, and then...



















This particular model was really interesting because of that thing on his chest. I'm really interested to know if anyone has any idea what it might be. Looks like a radio but I'm not sure.




















Finished up the day with a walk over the Thames and through the general Westminster area. Ended up in Chinatown/Soho and walked back home. Took about two hours but was fun to see how the city changed from busy downtown to the suburbs.

Of course, there was a pub on nearly every corner.

Leaving Behind Work

The thing about being a supply teacher is that you need to be left with work. Initially it might sound good to have a job where you walk in at nine in the morning and you have been left absolutely nothing to do. But having been left nothing to do, and having nothing to do are two different things.

Kids sense weakness. They know when their teachers are unsure about plans. When 30 kids come into a room and I don’t have every minute of the day mapped out, I will lose control of the class very quickly. Many kids will jump at the opportunity to act up, lie, cause trouble, or be cruel to others.

This happened to me twice last week. The second time was fine because the kids were young and I had some work I found on a desk. I got to the school early enough to plan out a post-recess lesson where the kids got to write a story. They were also a really well-behaved class and I only had them for the morning.

The other class was far different. It was my first time at the school. It seemed to be in a good neighborhood, but the kids were pretty troubled. I had kids with behavioral difficulties and one with what I suspect was ADHD. The teacher laid out a plan that, on first glance, seemed to cover the day. But every time I got to a new lesson I found that it lasted only five minutes…for an hour block. The morning crawled along with an enormous amount of tension in the room.

By noon one kid had lost it in the playground and had punched another in the mouth. He was sent home. The school had seven supply teachers that day and had to call a special assembly so that the headteacher (principal) could bawl out all the students – from grades two through six – for their attitudes. Immediately after lunch I had to kick two kids out of the room because no amount of logic, reasoning, posturing, negotiating, yelling, or threatening would make them listen to a single word I said. Once they left, things got marginally better.

I hadn’t had to kick kids out of the room yet, but it had to be done on that day. To save the majority of the class I needed to remove the disrespectful students. I did it as professionally as I could, but I wish it could have been done another way. Those two kids missed out and I know they weren’t bad kids. But I gave them enough chances.

As other teachers have said to me, some days just don’t go well. The important part of being a teacher is to shrug those days off and start fresh the next morning. You can’t really do this job otherwise.

Those funny little...

(the above picture shows one of my classes and an ex-pro footballer who came in to do a charity thing with the kids. As part of the charity drive, the kids got to kick a ball at the net which recorded the ball's speed on the LCD at the top. Of course, they loved it.)

On Thursday alone there was a wealth of funny things the kids said.

I gave out an assignment where the kids had to write a diary entry. They had been recording being whisked back in time to ancient Egypt for seven days. One seven-year-old beckoned me over.
“Mr. B.,” he said, “can we do more than seven days?”
“Hmmm well, why do you ask?”
“Because back in time I could make a lot of money,” he said and began to smile. “I was a moneymaker.”
“I see. OK, well how long were you thinking of?”
He stared straight ahead and his smile got bigger. “Twelve days.”
I looked around as if checking nobody could hear us and whispered, “OK, let’s do it.”
He was very happy.

Same class, same assignment: again a hand goes up. A kid asks me to look over his diary which says: “This land was boring…just like my wife!”
His eyes went huge and he had to put a hand over his mouth to stop laughing.

Different class, same school. Kids were asked how to prove different pictures were either plants or animals. Common answers included: “This has wings, so it is an animal. This has roots, so it is a plant.”

In regards to a picture of an old man, one girl cheerfully wrote: “This is an animal because it’s a person, and all people are the lambs of God.”

Animal Cruelty

This is hardly fair. Where is my dog supposed to go? Moreover, how is he supposed to get the lunch rush taken care of?

Regent's Park

I took a stroll around Regent's Park today. It's about 20 minutes from my house and is absolutely huge (487 acres or 2 km²). People often play cricket and football there, or just go to walk around. It borders the London Zoo so you can peer over a fence and see some of the animals for free, rather than paying the $30.00 fee to get in. I saw a groundhog and what I think may have been a sleeping kangaroo.

It was a pretty cloudy day today, so only a few pictures turned out when the sun finally came out.





The above picture is actually in Primrose Park adjoining Regent's. It looks a lot like parks in Ottawa, especially the arboretum by Carleton.




Lots of people were playing cricket. I think about 4 games were going. Other people were playing football with skills that were astounding.



This place sells organic food and seems to be only one of two restaurants in the park. Consequently prices are high.




Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It's owned by the royal family and was originally reserved for the recreation of the family, usually meaning hunting. Even today, the public has no legal right to use the parks. Legal-speak says that people are allowed in the park "on the grace and favor of the Crown", but practically speaking the public has been using the park for about a hundred years. I guess in theory the royal family could shut all the parks down for their own uses, though that probably wouldn't go over too well in London.

Decisions, decisions

The Ghetto

What's great about my job is that every week I'm sent somewhere new. That might not be ideal for everyone, but I like it. I get to see so much to the point where my flatmate has said I'm seeing parts of the city that he's never been to in 30 years of living here.

However, it has to be said that the parts I'm seeing are pretty dodgy. Somehow they are getting progressively dodgier. The first couple of schools I was sent to were in neighborhoods where I felt uncomfortable. I wasn't scared exactly, but I was looking over my shoulder. I definitely wasn't taking out my camera.

Then, after a week, I went to the next neighborhood where I was actually nervous walking around at eight o'clock in the morning and surrounded by people. It got a little worse when school let out. A popular local pass time seemed to be to form gangs in front of the bookies.

Then there was today. I was supposed to go to the 'roughest' school, but the classes I got were full of relatively good kids. By relatively good I mean that after they started to misbehave I was slowly able to reign them in. This is in contrast to a class last week that, more or less, refused to listen no matter what I did.



The neighborhood was run down. Shops were boarded up, or dilapidated. There wasn't a smile on anyone's face. Some very drunk people were on the bus (3:45pm) and one guy just decided to light up a cigarette in the middle of the aisle. But this 'roughest' school was easy. This is the school where I heard about a 9-year-old girl smashing another in the face during lunch time. There was also the time when one student repeatedly stabbed another in class with a pencil because the stabbee didn't like the stabbers drawing.

When I walked into the school I was ready. I had two momentary setbacks. The first was when the teacher I was replacing forgot that she was supposed to be on a training course...meaning she had prepared no instructions for me. The second setback was when the teacher told me that she had been planning on giving the kids saws -- yes, saws -- so that they could make picture frames. They were 7 years old.

But somehow the day went well. No thumbs were lost. The only slip was when the kids were going crazy just before the final bell rang and I said "God, you guys are loud!" There were some gasps and a quick silence.

It's a Catholic school. They did not approve of my language. I guess everyone has their own version of acceptable and non-acceptable.

Some Pictures

Here are some quick shots from around my neighborhood I took yesterday coming home from work.









...and this is a shot of some work one of my kids did.

First Week

I waited a week before updating because after the second day of work I realized I needed more perspective before commenting on teaching in London. I though it would be interesting to do a Q&A-style entry. If you have any additional questions you know where to reach me. I’ll post them without naming names.

Q: So how are things going generally?

A: Great! The job is easy, I live in a great neighborhood, and I enjoy what I’m doing.

Q: Is London as expensive as they say?

A: It is. But there is a difference between living well and living recklessly. I don’t go out (too busy really), I shop at grocery stores where prices are the same as Canada’s, I have all the possessions I need, and I’m rooming with a good friend who is giving me a more than fair price on my room. I also have a tube/bus pass.

Q: What’s a tube?

A: Tube is the slang term for the subway system.

Q: Have you run into any lessons you couldn’t handle?

A: No. But I have had to teach a cricket lesson.

Q: But you don’t know how to play cricket. What did you do?

A: Standard teacher move. First, be honest. Second, solve the problem. The first thing I did was tell the kids I didn’t know anything about cricket. The second thing was to recruit a student (8 years old) to lead the class in the lesson.

Q: Did it work?

A: In a way. The only problem was when students complained to me that someone had broken the rules. I solved this problem by telling the other team that they could now do whatever the other team had done, one time.

Q: What do the schools look like?

A: With a population of 7.5 million (7 times the size of Ottawa) there are many schools. I usually work at schools that are similar to those in Ottawa. The one difference is the ceilings. For some reason they are very high. We’re talking almost church-like. I have no idea why.

Q: Are the students OK?

A: Yes. I have not had serious problems with any student. If you take the standard Canadian group of students it’s the same thing here. You have students that worry, please, gossip, laugh, cry, push, help, fight, babble…they are the same.

Q: What are some funny things kids have said?

A: “You speak like the people from Scotland.”

“Don’t you have trainers (sneakers)?” (I wear dress shoes to work)

“What football team do you support?” (said on first meeting with class before I even said a single word)

“Are you from Chicago?”

“Ummm, you know, our teacher usually gives us biscuits (cookies) at the end of the day.”

Q: What are British teachers like?

A: It’s difficult to say. The vast majority seem to be apathetic. There is a lot of sighing. But I experienced that in Canada as well. There is certainly a lot of yelling in the schools. “RIGHT! THAT IS VERY DISRESPECFUL!” Again though, I’ve seen that in Canada.

Q: How are the lessons different?

A: No question about it, the rapidity of education in England is higher than Canada. The students understand math at a much higher level than Canadian students. Literacy seems better as well, although not with all schools.

Q: You said you’d be in rough schools. How bad are the neighborhoods?

A: They really aren’t bad. They are a little poorer and more racially mixed. There are bookies on every street and not a lot of high-end shops. But I wouldn’t say they’re dangerous. At night it might be a different story. But I’m there 8-4 pm.

Q: What has surprised you about the physical London?

A: Geographically, it’s odd. It’s not a tall city. The core has high buildings. But most of the city seems to be spread out. Imagine Vancouver where some giant has palmed down all the buildings into a huge radius. You can take the train from one location to another and completely change environments. All of a sudden there are nice fields, trees, and flowers. The next second you’re back to the graffiti and kebab stores.

Q: How is transport?

A: It’s good. The tube, overground trains, and buses all run throughout the city. Getting from A to B is a matter of linking up routes between the three. But all of this is done via an online travelplanner that is a cinch to use.

Q: How much is Strongbow?

A: It’s about 7 dollars for four cans. That’s right.

Q: Any other foreigners?

A: London is ALL foreigners it seems sometime. But yes, my accent impresses nobody. And by that I mean my Canadian accent. And by that I mean, yes, we do have an accent.

Q: Any other Canadian teachers.

A: Quite a few actually. Many from Ontario. They couldn’t find jobs there so guess what? They came to London.

Q: Anything else?

A: Before I left, more than a few people said “You’ll have a great time.” I really have had a great time in the last week. I highly recommend other teachers come and try it.

Q: But didn’t it cost you money to come to London?

A: In the last 4 days of work I’ve made it back. Booyah. Good luck with your sub lists.

Q: What’s in the future?

A: Football game at the pub tomorrow followed by my friend’s housewarming. It’s a rough life.

Preparing

Today is a day of preparation. I've walked the route I need to take to the train. I'll be ironing everything soon. And I'm looking up a description of the school I'll be going to. According to the official governmental report I'll be going here:

"This larger than average inner city primary school provides for a very diverse and multi-ethnic community with the great majority of pupils coming from non British backgrounds. The largest pupil groups are from Black African families and White, often Eastern European, countries. There are 150 refugees and asylum seekers and a much larger than average number of pupils whose first language is not English. The number of pupils eligible for free school meals is much higher than average and pupils join and leave the school much more frequently than usual. The number of pupils with speech, language or moderate learning difficulties, is significantly above average, as is the proportion who have a statement of special educational need. There are 11 pupils in the care of the local authority. The school has a designated provision for pupils with statements of special educational need for their autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). The school achieved the Healthy School status in 2005."

Hmmmm...all right. Let's see a bit more detail.

"The school works hard to support the diverse needs of the ever-changing school population. Parents appreciate the school's commitment to their children and the support they receive. One parent, reflecting the views of many, reported, 'My son is very happy in school which has a friendly, calm and positive atmosphere. His additional needs have been met with real care and consideration and I feel well supported as his parent.'"

That's good. Very good!

"Teaching and learning are satisfactory overall, and improving. Relationships are excellent, resulting in pupils behaving well and having positive attitudes."

That translates to: not as tough as it might have seemed at first.

"Pupils are polite, friendly and naturally inquisitive and clearly understand about healthy living and how to keep safe. Their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is good. Pupils show empathy for each other's differences and support each other well."

Gold, pure gold.

As I read on, the school report showed that the school has difficulties but that they're being handled well. The chief concern seemed to be with the consistency of teaching. That means, some teachers don't teach what/how they are supposed to.

Or, in other words, if I do my job, things should be fine.

(source: Ofsted)

Cajun Squirrel

Times are tough in London. Foodstuffs that would not have otherwise been eaten are commonplace. Squirrels (see picture) are delicacies, and are viciously fought over. Or so I'm led to believe.

The last three days have been great. I arrived on Friday, was sped away through London to my recruiting office where I finished paperwork before being deposited at my friend's house. The flat is in a great area and not too far from my schools. I now have a very expensive SIM card for my phone so I can call people while waiting for the Tube using my very expensive Travelcard. I've just dealt with the basics really, buying food and figuring out how to get around. I don't think there will be much sightseeing for a while. I really prefer to live in this country rather than be a tourist. That said, there's lots to see and do.

Last night for example, a good friend and I went to a pub. One strange phenomenon here is that if there isn't any room in the pub, you just go outside...and stand. Or you can sit on the curb. The first time I saw this I wondered why several dozen people were milling about on a streetcorner with pints of beer and cider. No problem, I was told, this is a normal Saturday afternoon.

I think the best thing for this blog is to write in short bursts. A long blog is just not interesting. So I will stop and try again tomorrow.