Sunday 3 May 2009

We don't need no...

After that wonderful week before this week off PLUS this week off it's finally time to go back to school. And I mean IT'S TIME. I'm getting so lazy...

The kids might (most of them probably do) feel the same way, maybe without that last statement (IT'S TIME).

So tomorrow we'll be preparing for that test on the 12th. How exciting! Yaay! Nooot.... And if they think that "Nooot...", I get that energy, too. I'd better think of something to put things in balance.

So I figured I might do something which might make them think of me as a weird teacher (Naaah, they probably think that already, may it be in one way or another) and play them a song I'm sure they can sing (Yes, I've heard them sing it!):

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Teaching them the wrong thing? No need for education? Not me! Education is not everything, it is however very important and I believe in developing one's potentials. So we'll listen to this one, too:

When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children in any way they could
By pouring their derision upon anything we did
And exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids
But in the town, it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives.

At 14, 15, some of them, I hope they're mature enough to get it. They love the song and I want them to understand why it is as it is. I think these young people attend a different kind of school and they have no need to reject it. I know - it's not always nice and easy, but neither is life. But it is far from what Roger Waters described in his interview in 1979:

Um. My school life was very much like that. Oh, it was awful, it was really terrible. When I hear people whining on now about bringing back Grammar schools it really makes me quite ill to listen to it. Because I went to a boys Grammar school and although ... I want to make it plain that some of the men who taught (it was a boys school) some of the men who taught there were very nice guys, you know I'm not...it's not meant to be a blanket condemnation of teachers everywhere, but the bad ones can really do people in -- and there were some at my school who were just incredibly bad and treated the children so badly, just putting them down, putting them down, you know, all the time. Never encouraging them to do things, not really trying to interest them in anything, just trying to keep them quiet and still, and crush them into the right shape, so that they would go to university and "do well."


And of course, that is not all we are going to do. They will have a worksheet to solve. To show me what they understand. And we WILL revise for the test.

I'll end this now and do some more googling - I mean, I know what "pink" means (isn't it obvious? :)), but what is "floyd"supposed to be?

OK, found it on this website: PINK FLOYD - taken from the names of two Georgia bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council - from the early days when the band saw itself as a blues band.

10 comments:

  1. Love the glasses! Actually, I think that is a REAL cool picture of you.

    I recognize the Pink Floyd lyrics, because I grew up with them, but I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that other limerick is supposed to imply. The (male) teachers are mean at school because their wives are into S&M? Just a guess. You can straighten me out at your leisure.

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  2. Those last two lines, I think, just imply that teachers have other problems and take it out on the kids. They are not the most important of all the lines. You can listen to the song on Youtube (The happiest Days of Our Lives). Basicly, it just confirms the statement that they are mean. Or were - it is about the grammar schools they attended.

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  3. I love to learn about etymology. I would never have guessed that pink floud were two people's names though.

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  4. Me neither. That's why I had to look it up. Besides, kids love asking questions to which they think I know no answers. But I don't mind teaching them where to find them instead of giving them all the answers they want. I was curious about the name, though. But I'll keep it pink for a while, anyway :) even if it's not about the colour.

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  5. Hi Minka,
    I flew over here when I saw your cute pic on my own blog.

    So! You are a teacher! Me too! I am a librarian in a middle school. I don't have any kids, but I do love working with those pouty teens!

    What subject do you teach? And is pink your fav color?

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  6. My favourite colour is red. I also like orange and other warm colours, I also like change and this blog changes colour from time to time - yesterday it became PINK as in Pink Floyd.
    I teach English (as a foreign language).

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  7. hey, i learned something today! i never knew where they got their name from! thx!

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  8. You're welcome! We had this lesson today and it was fine, too. I think they got the message (I was in doubt, you know) - they have nothing to complain about when it comes to school and teachers - LOL - and YES, I know, our school is not perfect, nor are we, the teachers, but I think we're pretty much normal.

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  9. i always enjoyed the teachers that took time to make th classroom more of an experience than a lecture-quiz-lecture... it's the teachers that make all the difference in the opinion toward education. know its not easy for all the testing that is required now a days. thanks for all you do for the kids.

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