HellyBelly

Bon mot for the month -: a minim is a little fish!

All you musicians out there should appreciate that one ( except for trombone players. They have a very odd sense of humour1)

Another few weeks have sped past since my last epistle. Actually, I don’t think anyone out there reads these missives, but it gets a load off my mind just sending my thoughts out into the ether. I don’t suppose it is ether, being a phone line, and in case any clever clogs wishes to explain what actually happens on – line ———— I’m not interested, thanks.

We’re busy at home doing all kinds of DIY jobs connected with the installation of 2 1/2 new bathrooms last September. There may be really organised people who get their DIY jobs done in a short space of time, but we are not those kind of people. We like to take our time and do lots of other things in between whiles. It will be my husband’s 50th birthday at the end of March, and I am hoping for a big party which will also celebrate the fniish and grand unveiling of our bathrooms. We are actually having 2 birthdays for him, one here at home and one in Nottingham, where most of our friends live. 2 weekends running, so I don’t suppose our minds will entirely be on our jobs for that fortnight.

March promises to be a busy month as he has a musical weekend connected with one of his choirs the first weekend, and the next weekend is our daughter’s show. ‘Guys and dolls’ at Saffron Walden town hall from the 9th – 13th March. The next 2 weekends will be spent carousing, and then I go to France for Easter. Ain’t life fun?

As most of you will have gathered, I am a peripatetic class music teacher, and I have entered a choir from one of my schools into the local music festival in 3 weeks time. They sing like angels, and I am hopeful they will do well. I have a boy in this choir with a most unusual voice – a real natural tremolo – I have slotted him into one of the choirs run by our local music service, but I feel he needs to go on and develop his voice in other ways. He is in year 4 so is quite young. Does anyone have any good ideas?

Not too many moans about kids this time. I have one school I go into on a Monday afternoon which is the blight of my life, but then the week improves after that.

Must stop, need to write up this week’s lessons. There’s another rant in itself – why do teachers havve to spend so much time on plans? It doesn’t make them better teachers. I have been teaching 37 years now. and I think that the really talented teachers are being held back by the stupid national curriculum. Where has the idea of taking a particular topic the kids have shown an interest in, and covering that topic in as many subjects as possible? Take the nat. curr. in music. Some good ideas, but mainly aimed at white, middle class kids in the leafy suburbs. How do you teach all these hifalutin ideas to kids whose second language is English, or who come from a background which has no prior knowledge to draw on. These are the kind of kids I teach, and I just pay lip service to the ideas in the nat. curr. and tailor my lessons to suit the kids. I would be interested in hearing what other people do.

Have a good week!

We have visitors for the w/e and one of them is Chris and he has been nagging about the wiblog so here goes another unpunctuated entry Actually one of our visitors is another nutty computer geek like Chris (possibly worse) name of Frank aka Paul Zernikazof he’s a TOG and if anyone out there knows what that means your’re A SADDO TOO
Chris says "no punctuation mother that’s terrible" tuff – life’s too short to bother about dots etc
Moan of the week how do the government get away with it? Surely there are some sensible people out there who realise that no one has come out of the debacle of the last few months with a squeaky clean image
Aother rant why can’t parents take complete responsibility for their kids’ bad behaviour and why can’t they be held completely responsible? We have so many horrible kids round here with completely uncaring parents They would not be happy if I went and threw stones at their windows so why should they expect me to put up with this behaviour from their kids
Another rant all this literacy and numeracy is squeezing out the fun things about learning Music art and drama are almost non existent in primary schools yet when the school does buy in someone like me the kids respond fantastically and excellent work is done
Further rant I can’t see much improvement in the overall ability of the pupils in some ways I think they have regressed in the last 20 years
I’m making myself miserable so will sign off till the next rant

Had a real good rant at the weekend and then found that I put in the wong password, so all that was wasted. Boohoo. I guess I’ll never be computer literate like the rest of the family, but I’m dead good at voice to voice combat, and I have a black belt in projecting the voice! This is needed, as is the baleful look over the top of the glasses, because this nation is slowly being taken over by louts with language ( bad) who think the rest of us should put up with their vile behaviour.
Tonight’s rant. I have just come back from the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, a superb venue for a great concert. The seats aren’t cheap, but I had a treally good one. Behind me was a boy of apparently 10, with a biox of lego. He insisted on sitting on the steps in the aisle and proceeded to click about with the lego all through the concert. A black look and a pointed ‘ get in your seat ‘ had no effect. I blame the parents. Why can’t they teach the brat some civilised concert going behavoiur? Actually, I think the blame for ALL kids’ bad behaviour should be laid at the parents’ door. They have the kids for more hours than we do, so they should be laying down the basics. Send the parents to boot camp, and then send the little darlings after them. What is left in school should be raring to learn and will make great strides in next to no time.
End of rant – bedtime. GFoodnight

Did you know that a tangerine is a member of the percussion family? All music teachers should be aware of this.

This is only my 2nd visit to wiblogging – we had a serious mishap with our provider and were off line for quite a while, but we’re up and running now.

You will notice the title – I do intend to rant and rave, although hopefully I shall not be libellous or scatological!!!!!!

I have had the misfortune after 37 years of successful teaching to meet up with a young teacher who clearly thinks I came in with the dinosaurs, ( and should have gone out with them too). She picks me up on everything I do, even to the extant of telling me I must put away everything I use in her classroom before the next lesson. This is the heinous crime I committed – I left a glockenspiel ( small ) on a work top! Last week I was talking to a class about different percussion instruments and demonstrating the sound with reference to timbre and dynamics. I had brought in a lot of my own instruments, but I also showed some of the rather battered ones in the class which were all jumbled up in a box. I was reminded that all instruments should be kept in the correct box and returned thereto after every outing!!!!!! I was also in trouble because my method of disciplining a class is different to the aforementioned young person. I do try to treat the students with respect even when I am giving them a telling off. How can I expect them to respect each other and me if I am constantly shouting and slagging them off? I am also in trouble because I make up my own worksheets to augment the work I have been asked to do, and I print them up at my own expense.

As I was talking with this teacher I asked how long she had been teaching. 11 years was the reply, all in the same school. I am sorry to report that I said to her that ‘ It shows’ and walked away. Needless to say I shall be giving my notice in at 1/2 term to leave at Christmas.

Those of you who are teachers will know that in every department there are people with quirks and foibles and I can deal with those, but such pettiness is not to be put up with. So, off I go to pastures new. I already have a school lined up to fill the void. It’s a shame, because I like the children and they respond well to the challenges I give them in my teaching, but ‘ tant pis’ as my friend in France would say.

Anyway, enough of the rant. I do hope everyone is enjoying the autumn, fall, or whatever you call it. The sky seems particularly blue these days, and every contour on the moors stands out in stark relief. This is a most beautiful part of England, and I have seen nothing like it anywhere else in Europe. If it were’nt for the government, the yobs, the constant use of uneccessary bad language and this silly teacher, it would be Utopia. ( Read Sir Thomas More!)

Will sign off now or our Chris will moan at me for wasting space. There’ll be another rant next week!

I’m actually Chris’s mum and he set me up on this wiblog. I haven’t the first clue what I’m doing, but he explains in words of 1 syllable as befits a mere music teacher and all becomes as clear as the bottom of a muddy pond. Actually, he speaks another language alltogether, as does my husband, so it must be inherited. Anyway, enough about him and on to me.

I shall set down various bon mots for the delectation of the whole world (ain’t teknology a wondrous thing?) and hope that you will be somewhat entertained.

Bon mot for this week. Did you know that the French National Anthem is the Mayonnaise? No? Well you do now.

I’m not too sure what to put, but Chris assures me that as long as its not under the Official secrets act, scatological (he doesn’t know what that means) or slanderous I can have free reign.

Just had my first week teaching in a load of new schools. The good thing about being a peri is that you only get to see the kids once a week for 1/2 an hour, so the myth of me being a fire breathing dragon lasts for a long while.

I class teach the QCA to children aged 5 to 13. Mostly it’s fun, sometimes it’s a pain, and it’s always exhausting but exhilarating.

One of the sad things is the low ability of some of the kids. Some of the little ones can barely talk, and have great difficulty understanding the simplest thing I say. I wonder whether this is a spin off of the TV culture, where they hear the spoken word, but are not expected to reply, so they can’t actually hold a conversation. Add to this the fact that mealtimes as a family seems to have gone out of fashion, and you end up with a monosyllabic generation.

To say nothing of the behaviour – but I could go on about this ad infinitum so I won’t! Time to sign off. Ta for listening