Unreality TV

I love Susan Boyle. I love her in the way I love Ugly Betty in all her international versions, and, clearly, Hugo. Oh, and Spiderman. It's always nice to have the underdog suddenly getting karmic revenge and becoming the hero, for a day, for a minute or for three increasingly bad movies. The problem is, Susan is pretty real. She's a flesh and blood woman with a splendid voice, and since I heard her audition video for the first time something seemed slightly manufactured over there. I mean, how flabbergasted could the jury be when the camera has been following her around?
Well, apparently they had very good reason to follow her around, as there had been talent scouts looking for her for the program (they explain it better at Susan Boyle and Paul Potts: Not Quite Out of Nowhere - TIME). Well, good for her, and good for the program, but I just wish they had been just this bit honest about it and save us the "oh dear so surprised really" speeches, because, people, Cinderella stories depend on fairy godmothers and hard work.

Now, this was Susan in 1999. She deserved it big time, already, ten years ago:

Too often on television we are sent these messages that your life can change suddenly, and for the better, and we don't hear the stories of tough luck, frustration, dusting off and starting again. That's the fun fact of reality TV --it seems so indistinguishable from reality itself that unless we keep a cynical eye open at all times we overlook the constructions, the editings, the half lies and the make up. Or did you think that dress suddenly happened on poor Susan? Two scenarios: someone told her to wear it, or nobody told her not to wear it. In any case, my guess is people in the public would have laughed a lot less if she had come in different clothes. And yep, that's what I call manufacturing.

Serendipically, today I've also encountered the news that Elle Magazine, French edition, has decided to run an issue on stars without make-up, or photoshop , i.e. to Susan Boyle them a little.

...but just a little. Real beauté comes

with an electric fan and tweezers.

And damn good genes.

This is something that happens quite regularly on glossy magazines, like, once in approximately every five years. The lesson seems to be something like "hey, you can be beautiful without make up, but not so much, so, hey, feel good about yourself, but duh, you better get some products, it's totally worth it. Oh, and did you notice how pro-women issues we are?." Well, thanks. No, really. These issues have to appear every five years or so, so that the new generations stop and think for a second about something schools don't usually make them think about, i.e. reality in the media is ma-nu-fac-tu-red. Make up and hairdressers are nice, photoshop and surgery, ok, not so much, but in any case I do hope that Susan gets some in the near future because, damnit, she deserves it (certainly that's what google seems to be implying by having "makeover" featuring so prominently when you search her name in it). But please don't come and tell me later she woke up one morning and her hair was suddenly longer and straighter please.

And the best of luck, really, on the media jungle she's just gotten into.

The holiness of the multiplication table

...didn't know this film existed! I definitely have to get a copy :)



Inherit the Wind

How do you solve student violence?

... you go OK Corral on them!!!

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started," he wrote on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's web site.

Mr Thweatt [the superintendent] said he believed the school's proximity to a large, busy motorway could make it a target.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Guns for Texas school's teachers


Well at least the teachers are taking crisis management training!

Now, seriously. A few things worry me about this article:

1) parents apparently did NOT object (?)
2) being close to a motorway makes it a target (last time I checked, most of the school shootings were done by students, not truckers, but hey...)
3) I'm getting flashes of that Boston Public pilot when the man fires a gun to make the kids go silent... pity I can't find the video on youtube anymore because it was priceless...

Bottom line is, you don't really want teachers with guns. I have some friends that have joked about giving us tasers ;) but jokes apart, teaching is stressful enough without having firearms involved. Jn just 5 seconds, I get a few scenarios based on the fact that so far neither students nor teachers have become flawless cyborgs:

a) teacher gets really really pissed, fires at ceiling (see Boston Public above)
b) teacher argues with spouse, comes pissed, gets even more pissed at trucker at the motorway (see upper above), gets to class gets totally pissed, student becomes rowdy, teacher yells, student becomes abusive, teacher loses it, student gets shot.
c) student argues with parent, gets pissed, argues with teacher, teacher yells, student steals gun from teacher, uses gun.
d) teacher accidentally fires gun
e) student accidentally fires gun
f) bullets accidentally end up at chemistry lab. Hilarity ensues. Explosion follows.

I'm sure TV watchers worldwide could go on thinking scenarios around this. I'm just very surprised that Superintendent Thweatt didn't seem to be able to.


Now, how about some "Let's work around why we love violence so much we can't think outside the barrel" workshops???

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you know you live in science-fictional times... (or at least kafkaesque) when...

Ok so this is how teaching positions in the public system get handed out.

First you do this exam that consists of two parts, one of theoretical knowledge and the other of so-called "practical" fake-a-lesson knowledge.

After that, they check all sorts of elements in your CV that they believe are relevant, e.g. work experience, random courses, whether you have been an elite sportsman (true) or can speak Chinese and prove it (true).

All this is minced and blended and you get a mark with four decimals.

With that mark on their hands, they put you on a list and round you up in this high school auditorium at 10 am and keep you there for 7 hours while each of the people on the list choose from different positions neatly arranged in a similar numbered list.

Same again for next year...

... and the next...
... and the next...

... and the next...
... and the next...



...sigh. I'm tired...

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quotable quotes on King Kong

[Remedial class of 11 fourteen-going-on-16-year olds. We're watching King Kong]




Student A. "Oh, teacher, this is like Titanic but with a big monkey"
Student B. "What? are they going to crash into the monkey?"

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The kids are (not) allright

All over the world, teenagers give their parents headaches. Why are the migraines induced by British kids felt across a whole society? Part of the reason may be that parents aren't always around to help socialize their children — or even just to show them affection. Compared to other cultures, British kids are less integrated into the adult world and spend more time with peers. Add to the mix a class structure that impedes social mobility and an education system that rewards the advantaged, and some children are bound to be left in the cold [...]

A study in 2000 by the OECD found that British parents spend less time with their children compared to other nationalities, leaving them more open to influence from their peers and a commercially driven, celebrity-obsessed media.

Britain's Mean Streets - TIME

This is becoming more and more common over here with Spanish kids as well. And the reason is, again the same. Kids simply DO NOT spend time with their parents, mostly because both their father and their mother spend a ridiculous amount of time working. In Spain, it is common to start work at 9 and not come back until 8 or 9 pm. The idea of "conciliation" (of work and family life) is a pretty new and often considered "softy-liberal-utopian bs".

The article also talks about guess-what... yes. Ratios. Again. But neeever mind... you won't hear any politician talking about that, at least not in my country. Go figure. Maybe we'll have to wait until kids start bringing guns to school here as well.

So, continue blaming the TV, the videogames and the teachers. Because they're the ones that are raising the kids.

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I want to shoot bureaucrats, badly.

It turns out that for my examinations this June, I need to prove the Board of Education that I've been working for the Board of Education for a "·$%"% 1 year, 2 months and 14 days. And to do so, I need to go to FOUR DIFFERENT PLACES, all conveniently located around 40 kilometers away from each other, and demand for such proof at hours when I'm supposed to be, well WORKING.

This is Orwell at its finest.

And this is the sort of thing I should be studying at teacher training... oh wait

...I don't get no teacher training...

It's quite a story. A Hasidic Jew with a military training in a Black-Hispanic school in the Bronx that had managed to get rid of six principlas in two years. The system? A school uniform, hallway patrols, meeting with teachers individually, a student congress, dividing the school into eight different "academies", and giving them "a taste of worlds beyond their own" by doing things like taking them to etiquette lessons.

For me the most important part of the article is the idea that schools (and classrooms I guess) should have a right to admission. Nope, the *right* to an education does not equal the *right* to remain in a building whatever you do or say. This is the major problem, I think, with failing schools -- we've turned them into jails, not places you are priviledged to be in for free (ironic how the administrators jumped more at him expelling students than, it seems, at the police asking for a backup). This is related with wearing a uniform -- besides the gang-color mentality, going to school is not going to a disco or to a park. A few years ago, I would have thought that these measures are too harsh, but I've come to realize that sitting back is the real backwards measure -- low or no expectations are the most demotivating thing you can do to a kid. Dumbing down, obviously, leads to dumbness; and the more you push the line of what you consider unacceptable, the further the "mean" students will go.

And, as for meeting with teachers... it would be nice, for a change, to arrive into a school and get the principal to talk to you for more than five seconds, or, well, introduce himself. The school I work for this year, for example, apparently seems to be a quiet, well-run school, but, as usual, the new teachers are at the bottom of the food chain, and, sadly, sometimes it has to do with not having been told at the beginning of the year how the school is run. We're expected to come, see, and conquer. Well, it doesn't work like that.

In any case, an article worth reading.

He focused relentlessly on hallway patrols, labeling one rowdy passageway the “fall of Saigon.” In an effort to eliminate gang colors, he instituted a student uniform policy.
He even tried to send home the students who flouted it, a violation of city policy that drew television news cameras. In his first year, he suspended so many students that a deputy chancellor whispered in his ear, “You’d better cool it.”

In Bronx School, Culture Shock, Then Revival

Quote of the Day

In Spanish: "Vuelve a escribir las frases poniendo las palabras entre paréntesis en el lugar correcto" (Rewrite the sentences putting the words between brackets in the correct place)

1. I reading a magazine (am)

______(I reading a magazine)________________



And so the 5 sentences of the exercises. Should I laugh, should I cry or should I write my resignation?

Ps. On the up side, most of the kids in this class have had above average results in this class. Considering this is a remedial class, I'm so proud of them I could do somersaults. But some are hopeless (see above).

The Fed-up-o-Meter

I've finally come up with a pretty efficient method for keeping my students silent during an exam. You would think "well, it's an exam, they're supposed to be quiet", right? Wrong. It's taken me a year and a half to come up with my efficient method. It consists on the following points:

a) Stare at them with the exams in your hands until they shut up.
b) Give them the precise time when they will be listening to the CD for the listening test.
c) Give them the date and insist that the exam must be done in pen, not pencil (yeah, I know, but believe me, it must be done).
d) Deliver the exams once and only once there is total complete silence in the classroom.
e) Once the exams are on the table, patiently explain how to do absolutely every question in the test. Include the total number of points and how many points they need to pass.
f) Refuse to say any other word for the remainder of the hour. Believe me, this is hard. But I've become the Mime from Hell.
g) The Amazing Fed-up-o-Meter (Aguantómetro). This has been intelligently described by one student today thus:

"Mira, ese es el aguantómetro de la profe. Primero va a por el boli rojo. Luego, le quita el capuchón. Y luego, te quita un punto."


"Look, that's the teacher's fed-up-o-meter. First she goes for the red pen. Then, she takes off the lid. And then, she takes off one point"

That was so accurate I had a seriously hard time trying not to laugh. I told you, (f) is hard.

The teaching profession, an allegory

- How was your day in high school?

- Complex.

Ahhhh... I've said it before, and I'll say it again... gotta love Forges....

Today, I've had a conversation with a student that considers I deserve better than to be a high school teacher. But as I sincerely told her, you can really love this job as long as you keep your sadomasochistic streak. And then I run into this...

Ps. Minutes after posting this, Windows Media has randomly selected the MP3 version of this. Heck I didn't even remeber I had an MP3 version of it.

Syn-chro-ni-ci-ty!!! Syn-chro-ni-ci-ty!!! Syn-chro-ni-ci-ty!!!