The Fall of Mr. M

This artist’s impression of the former French teacher known as ‘Mr. M’ was drawn at the peak of his career by some of his year 9 students. (Bless ’em)

The PGCE teacher training course I was on… Didn’t Work Out™ .

And so here I am: a half-digested excretion of the further education system, with time on my hands. I’ve tried washing the stuff off but  it seems to be sticking, so this is a good opportunity to bust out the old writin’ fingers once again; fragile, atrophied twiglets that they are after half a year of no use… Not to worry though – plenty of opportunity to practice, and this blog is getting back up and running!

If I had knocked out an entry over the past six months it would have been eye-strainingly awful. The PGCE course is a ravenous beast and time is its very favourite chow, as a result any entry would have been dull, rushed and full of me bitching about not getting any sleep.  However, I wouldn’t want you to think you’ve missed out on anything, so here’s a quick summary of my life since December:

December – Avatar rocks me ’till I’m blue in the face, then I go on my own journey to exotic climes: Thailand. I wage war upon the native curry and beer populations, prevent my cousin from stealing Thai babies as part of her nefarious scheme to gain citizenship, and, less entertainingly, witness a murder at a beach rave.

January – At university, learning new and exciting teaching super powers.

February – Teaching in a new school. Powers begin to wane. Kryptonite clearly present in the canteen meals.

March/April/May – Realise problem might not be Kryptonite. Failing to eat; to sleep; the course.

June – End of the line. Punctuate, and press life’s Enter key. Start new paragraph.

Total number of creative writing ideas : 0

Students who have learned French: 110

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The last little thing I can be proud of, at least. And now we’re up to date. To expand just a little, I was struggling to keep up with paperwork, and students weren’t getting enough learning out of the material I was presenting. Hard as I might try, I couldn’t seem to rectify these issues satisfactorily enough for the course supervisors, and with this being a 66% timetable, it was decided that with only 3 weeks to go of the course, a) I would not be able to make the necassary progress and b) even if I scraped through, it wouldn’t be beneficial for my health in the long run, and I’d probably not pass the NQT year anyway.  Joyous, right? If I can’t be a good teacher, then I don’t think I should be a teacher at all, so for better or worse, Mr. M the French Teacher is no more. Rising from the ashes… who knows?

Let’s find out, shall we?  😉

Wiped

The dust has been blown off distant, hazy memories of what it’s like to really look forward to and appreciate weekends…

I’m still flailing around a bit and trying to get a handle on all the forms, paperwork and folders that need to be filled, but I’m gradually getting a firm grip on myself and ‘the PGCE Situation’. I’ve even somehow ended up the Modern Languages representative on the student-staff council, though only god knows how that happened.

At any rate, as someone who enjoys having time to himself, that particular luxury has been a bit lacking recently. Though it is awesome to have a load of stuff going on, I get the feeling that my opinion will start to change a few weeks from now!

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As my brain’s currently more burned out than a Croydon wheelie-bin, here’s Philosoraptor with something to ponder over:

Imaginarium

I’ve been knocking up a little extension of sorts; something to hold the gribbly bits of writing I have and will come up with. I’ll keep it updated with bits and pieces every now and again as things claw their way out of the cobbles of my mind / my writing folder!

Other than that, I’m still riding high on PGCE euphoria, and this weekend will be one of reading through forms and leaflets to try and get to grips with everything I should be getting to grips with. It feels fantastic to have a sense of purpose and stability to keep me grounded and to look forward to. Not that I don’t get that with my novel, but you know what I mean. This is a purpose that gets me paid 😉

Teacher In Training

Fate did not give me a push so much as a friendly slap on the shoulder… I got the PGCE place!

Much beer, celebration, and Tekken Tournaments are taking place to celebrate this most awesome of developments 😀

Edit: I’ve no idea how beer can ‘take place’, but there you go. We managed it somehow…

Shaving Foam

is something I may need, seeing as I now dance a merry jig upon the razor’s edge. On one side of the blade lies PGCE and teacher training, and remaining in Leicester. On the other, a return to York, and getting a job while doing assistant teaching volunteer work in to improve my chances for next year. All that remains is for Fate to give me a push.

Bloggish melodramatics aside, yesterday wasn’t actually as intense as I was expecting. Most of the other candidates seemed to be fairly taciturn, which surprised me as the last interview day I went to was for a sales company, and all the other candidates there were stone sharks, who would happily compare how many family members they’d sold for a raise in commissions bonuses.

I was also quite surprised to find myself almost the youngest there, with only one exception, another bloke called Alex. He was how pretty much how I expected myself to be; twitchy, shambolic and mumbling. Five minutes in and his name-sticker was tattered and falling off, and within ten he had lost it, and there were no stickers left. Apparently he’d also only gotten three hours sleep the night before – it really wasn’t the poor guy’s day!

As for my assessments, yeah the spoken part of the interview might not have been the best part of the day, but aside from that I think it went great overall. The first part was a group exercise in which we had to sort through thirty or so cards and put, in order, the top five most important aspects of being a teacher. Most of the rest of my group were rubbish, and it was I who got them sorted out, so I’m hoping that stood me in good stead.

The actual interview part lasted half an hour, and seemed to fly by, and all in all it was actually a pretty enjoyable day. Let’s see what Fate makes of it, because I’ve done everything I can on my part.

Also,  I did actually get round to shaving my beard off,  so am currently in mourning over losing it. I miss having something to stroke pensively.

(Get your mind out of the gutter, Jaym! What would your family think…)

Short and Sweet

Just like my ex, ohoho. Anyway, feeling stupidly superstitious this evening. If I talk about the PGCE, I might jinx it. If I don’t talk about it, I might jinx it. Also nervous that because I have no formal teaching experience I won’t get it. Trying to get my French back up to scratch. Feels like too much of a rush trying to compensate for my applying with such short notice. Short sentences are lazy. Gah.

Set Blog Headlines to Predictable!

While the old idioms and adages remain, Star Trek was seriously cool. And very lens-flarey, which is fine; it reminded me of Mass Effect’s visual style – no bad thing. I won’t review it, but suffice it to say that it was one of the most fun sci-fi films I’ve seen in a while.

Had some great news today; I’ve been waiting to hear back from Leicester University about my application to do a French PGCE teaching course, and this afternoon I got a letter telling me I’ve made it to the interview stage… Now these things usually come back to bite me on the arse, so I’m not getting my hopes up, but it’s a good start. The interview day’s on the 11th of June, so got a bit of time to get myself back into French mode – it’s been a year since I’ve *really* focussed on the language, so better start greasing the old cogs with garlic butter and wine…

Got a load of documents that they sent me to read about why nobody’s bothered with taking Modern Languages any more that’re filled with charts and graphs ranging from the useful and interesting, to…

To be fair, my decision to study languages was greatly influenced by free lasagne and chips.

So does the future begin here? We’ll see.