There’s a blessing for beer!

While the title has very little bearing on what I’m prepared to write, it was a very interesting fact that I learned in 2014.
For those interested, the blessing can be found here: http://www.catholicgentleman.net/2013/10/the-official-catholic-beer-blessing/

I always find New Year to be an interesting time. For one more evening in Christmastide, we lean towards bringing out the best in ourselves with New Year’s resolutions. We aim to be better in one way shape or form and who am I to criticise this?

In fact, I would criticize two things:

1. How genuine are we in making these promises. For all we may claim that it is the thought that counts, it is not the thought that we take stock of when we feel the guilt of failure two weeks down the line.
2. New year is considered a marker for new beginnings. What happened to the other 364 days?

My greatest worry is the latter, that we forget in the other 364 days of the year that we have the power to make little changes and should strive to do so. Perhaps instead of a New Year’s resolution we could make a plan for how to achieve our NYR?

How good could we feel if in two weeks time, we know where we want to be by the end of 2015?
How tough would it be to dedicate some wall-space to a graph showing where we are and where we aim to be over time?

I’ll start the ball rolling. My NYR is to learn more humility.
When do I start? Two weeks ago in Ampleforth where I found a template: St Benedict’s 12 steps to humility.
How will I achieve my NYR? With a small poster on my board, I’ll reflect for 5 minutes on which steps I’m doing well in and which I’m not. Over each month, I’ll make little notches on where I think I did well.

I saw an article that essentially instructs us to forget NYRs and make a jar in which we can place all our good stories and memories from the year. At the end of the year, open the jar and realise what has happened for you over the year.
Actually, I really like that idea but rather than wait, I’ll try taking advantage of my own memory for 2014, here and now:

• I graduated! After all the fighting and wrestling, I found a love for Mathematics that brought me to a 2.1
• I directed my first play. In spite of it being labelled ‘bonkers’, I took a dear friend’s script into the Prior’s Hall of Durham Cathedral with a lively cast and had a ball!
• I began work on the PGCE. I’ve said enough on this from this blog but it suffices to say I love it!
• Edinburgh Festival. Without doubt the toughest experience I’ve ever known, but working with very close friends, stellar reviews and a stand against homophobia it was so rewarding!
• I joined novitiate for the Lay fraternity of the Dominican Order. As Fr Timothy Radcliffe would say, ‘Keep asking those questions’.
• Saw my little sister off to Uni. St Andrews, she’s about as far away as I can (lovingly) get her!

Without doubt, 2014 has been tough on many of us and it’s always tempting to look back on the tough parts and think, ‘maybe next year, none of this will happen’. Let’s not throw away an entire year of our lives. Let’s not pretend that 2015 will be our new best friend until it lets us down at the first hurdle.

But together, let’s step forward and declare every morning and evening that we want to get better; that we want to see each other get better. Let’s turn New Year’s resolutions into New Day’s resolutions. Let’s make every moment of 2015 count.

Together we will tackle the rough lows of 2015 so that together, we can bask in the highs of 2015!

Happy New Year folks

Back to School: Looking Back

If anyone would like to catch an essence of the last few months of my life, the following video will cover all that I can say quite elegantly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUepEkHelk8

To say the last few months have flown by is both cliché and an understatement for this last term with Durham University and High Tunstall College of Science. I was warned at the start of the course that my ‘undergrad holiday’ is a thing of the past, my days of leisure were over and days of hard toil had begun. I’ll need someone to explain to me why I feel like I haven’t stopped dancing since September! Perhaps I slept through some lectures but you know what they say about old habits…

• Apparently I could kiss goodbye to such pleasures as dining and debate long into the night; tell that to St Chad’s SCR who willed to put such a notion to the test!
• Apparently, room for following other pursuits would be restricted by an absurd amount of paperwork and stress; tell that to the Catholic Society, the Dominican Order, Freeman’s Quay, St Cuthbert’s Choir and Durham Student Theatre!

I can only imagine what someone with a trained body feels like when they arc their body and glide across the dance floor. Their talent must make the complicated rhythms and demanding steps feel like play, that I can imagine! My life has kept pace with all pursuits that my heart enjoys, I’ve learned to arc around some of the emotional stresses and tensions of the world (though not always avoiding them completely), and I’ve leapt to feelings of comfort and satisfaction. Developing my understanding of my faith is always a singular pleasure, taking some attention in the theatre will forever play to my ego, debate and laughter with my dearest friends is always sensational. This term a new place in my heart set the stage in the likeness of a classroom.

I walked into High Tunstall terrified with little clue what would happen; would I stick with it or run in terror to some half-constructed idea of working with a PlayStation until any stage-work became available. That is, in no way, playing down my love of the stagecraft, or PlayStation for that matter!

I couldn’t claim divine providence in what followed but I quickly found myself blessed in meeting several teachers (unnamed for legal reasons and one, like me, simply doesn’t need the ego boost!) who transformed my life and opened a third possibility for the term; that I might just come to love the profession. Two teachers had clear caring instincts which shone through in their watch over this young idiot who discovered he hadn’t a clue what was happening; thank God one had volunteered to be my mentor; always asking if the young teacher was okay, sharing a joke, advice, wonderful feedback etc. The foundation stones for comfort, confidence and development were well and truly set.

One teacher had a cool clear demeanour, a clear example of how to lead a lesson making it look effortless in the process. Extra duties were similarly taken in stride. Advice was handed over freely on extra duties that come over time as well as advice on how teach one lesson or another. When one finds out that such a teacher had the same mentor that currently looks after you, the horizon immediately gets a lot brighter!

Finally, the teacher that encouraged me to execute every conceivable mistake, to get it all wrong, to learn at every possible step, brought me to see every moment in the classroom as a dynamic one. I learned to make the slides simple, explanations elegant, plenaries pleasant and so on. The phrase ‘Brains Book Buddy Boss’ will forever be cemented in my mind, among a plethora of other ideas. He knew me well enough within about 5 minutes to lift my ego, in readiness for the less-sympathetic pupils, whilst keeping me grounded and able to learn. Little phrases like ‘Don’t take rebellion personally’, ‘It’s easier to distance yourself from them to capture their interest’ and ‘That’s just what Mr Myers needs, more confidence!’ were enough to learn that I was being looked after and handed priceless advice; yes of course the third comment was set with complete sarcasm!

I’ve learned the value of relating to kids strictly without becoming their friend (a necessary lesson I feel, especially for a young teacher), how to set the stage for enthusiastic learning, and crucially, that using balls as a method for teaching SUVATs requires some precautions and common sense!

I’m forever indebted to the teachers in High Tunstall, the Maths dept. in particular, for allowing me to get it wrong, picking up the pieces around me, and picking me up when I needed it. One should never forget the greatest thing that I found in that school however: the pupils.

I taught a range from lower set year 9’s, higher set year 8’s and stellar set year 10’s. Each group came to me with challenges and gifts, be it in their personality or mathematical ability. In the end, I saw in each of them, sparks of love for Mathematics and a growing sense of laughter between us. When my year 8’s shared a moment for understanding the basis of Trigonometry, I thought my heart wouldn’t stop singing!

Before I began this course, I received many warnings from well-meaning friends, that I was stepping into the world of the “over-worked and underpaid”. I’m pleased to say I didn’t hear such a phrase once at High Tunstall. I did receive a more down-to-earth note that I would discover what hard work means if I commit myself properly. The second half of that note, I received and learned for myself; the unanticipated joy in seeing a happy, curious, educated class or individual pursuing that same academic love you know so well. There’ll be no sound for a long time that matches the grace in a pupil simply saying ‘thank you’ at the end of a lesson.

High Tunstall, it has been an absolute pleasure! Here’s to the future and new mysteries, new lessons and new laughter in a new school!

Merry Christmas folks!

Back to School: When they get it!

Every actor has their moments when everything goes well.
When Macbeth tells the stars to hide their fires with his worried tone, eyes raised fearfully to the heavens, the audience catches a glimpse of his vulnerability before seeing utter resolve brought on by a lust for power; let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
The audience are entranced for that moment where the actor plays the part perfectly and the audience responds perfectly. We all have similar scenarios where, for a few seconds, everything is tuned to perfection and things couldn’t be better.

It only lasts for a moment.

Then it is gone. Before you have the time to savour the joy and triumph, time has ushered away those few seconds. You must stumble on in the wake of that wonderful moment.

Naturally, I think, we stumble on quite joyously!
We tend to be pretty pleased with ourselves and in fact stride on, head high, proud tone etc.
But certainly we will remember that moment and dance with its memory for a long time.
For me, the latest of these invaluable occasions took place in a Year 8 Trigonometry Class…

For those who have happily forgotten SOH CAH TOA or the relationships between angles & sin(ϑ); for those who would like a weird and wonderful way of teaching Trigonometry, I found a beautiful lesson plan for it online.

I began the lesson as requested in the plan and moved through the work as necessary:

• My youngsters did the measurements of their triangles as requested,
• They established the fractions (Opp/Hyp for instance) were the same for similar triangles,
• They seemed quite pleased that they only had to remember 3 numbers (for one particular triangle)…
• I informed the youngsters that it should be somewhat easy to recall 270 different values,
• I put the first 30 values on the board for degrees 1-10,
• They looked to me in terror, rage, misery (or a combination of the three).

The stage was set!
My heart was pounding in my excitement whilst the teacher observing grinned knowingly at the back of the class.

I asked someone to punch sin(3) into their calculators as well as tan(5).
Simultaneously I moved the presentation on to reveal sin(ϑ), cos(ϑ) and tan(ϑ) above their respective collumns.
A moment of silence passed while the kids looked to the board before the resounding:

“AWWW, I GETTIT!”, “Blummin ‘ell”, “Oh is that what it does?!”

The resounding relief and excitement hit me like a tone of bricks. SUCCESS! Now I sit here in joyous reflection of that moment where, from teacher to pupils, everything was in its rightful place. I continue in the wake of that moment teaching 12/13 year olds who know no more fear of the word that hounded us all in school: SOH CAH TOA.

Reflection on that lesson showed me the value of guiding pupils to see through the screen of “here’s what you need to know” into the cogs and wheels that make Mathematics. If I ever needed justification for teaching for understanding, Dan Pearcy provided it; many many thanks to himself for that!

It is now left to contemplate new ideas of teaching for understanding; not in all topics, but in those areas where our intuition with numbers aren’t quite enough to get us where we need to be! It is also left to entwine this success with festive cheer and make that my early Christmas present to myself!