The Scribbler

“Down the decades every year Summer leaves and my birthday’s here And all my friends stand up and cheer And say man you’re old Getting old Old Getting old”    © Paul Simon, 2000 In just over two hours, I will be celebrating my thirty eighth birthday and boy do I feel old. I spent the day meetings kids and their parents, carrying out student reviews. There I was, sitting with the parents and telling the kids that they had to get to school on time, go to bed earlier, do their homework etc etc etc. I sounded like my mother and more worryingly, their mothers/fathers were nodding their heads in agreement with me! Jeez. I feel old. I stand in front of class after class and suddenly, all these kids are my responsibility. Why am I not a kid in that class? Where is my teacher? G-d I feel old. I come home and my four daughters greet me with a happy pre-birthday welcome. Where did these children come from? Why is my mom not in the kitchen making me   supper? Damn I feel old. Tw...

I have given up counting the amount of the times some students have looked at me over the last few weeks and uttered the utterly incomprehensible phrase: “That’s deep, Sir, that is”, after I’ve said something or other to them. Today, I decided that I had to find out exactly what it was that I was saying to merit this response, so I plucked up the courage (giving into the notion that I would appear like a total dweeb) and asked a Year 10 student for a definition of the term. I wish I hadn’t bothered. Apparently, “deep” is slang for “evil” so that you can now draw your own conclusions about me. Moral of the story: Sometimes, it is best to be kept in the dark.

I’ve always been a fan of the army, probably because I’ve never been in one. I just like the rough and tumble associated with stalking out the enemy and getting him before he gets you. It’s romantic claptrap and I know it, but, hey, we all have our fantasies. I’ve enjoyed FPS (first player shooting) games for quite a while, particularly those that allow you to command a troupe of men and take them into a theatre of battle. Today, however, I got to live out my dreams, albeit on a very minor scale. In other words, I went paint-balling. Along with two other adults, we took 14 kids paint-balling and we had a blast (although not literally). Here, I had the opportunity to throw myself onto the ground and do a leopard crawl, dodging paint bullets that whizzed above my head. I got to fire at other guys from behind walls and barriers and even scored a bull’s-eye on another fighter’s head and knocked him out of the game. That was the high point of the day! Yes, I was hit twice, once in the leg a...

I know I said I would post the answer on Friday, but I’d hoped at least one person would try to work it out and add a comment! Anyway, the answer is: The man asks him “which is the way to your village?”

Here’s a riddle that I heard today: A man is walking along until he comes to a fork in the road which leads off in two directions. At the end of one path, there is a town of Cannibals who lie about everything. At the end of the other is a town of gentle folk who always tell the truth. The man does not know which path to take but sees an inhabitant of one of the towns standing at the junction. He is only allowed to ask him one question. What does he ask?   What do you think? All comments welcome and I will post the answer tomorrow.

I’d like to wish all the Americans out there a very Happy Thanksgiving. If you’re a turkey who’s reading this….my commiserations. You have my deepest sympathy.

I decided to try out something “new” today. The school is always on the lookout for teachers to help out during lunch. If you volunteer for “lunch duty”, you might find yourself at the front of the dinner queue; patrolling the corridors or walking around the playground, making sure that all is in order and that the kids are not finishing each other off. I’ll be honest here; my reasons for volunteering my free time were not that altruistic. By giving up my lunch break, I am paid extra for each time that I’m on and I am also entitled to a free lunch. The latter is not a factor, since I bring in my own kosher lunch, but the promise of extra dosh is a huge incentive. Since returning from the half-term break, my Wednesday’s have been full teaching days, so the request to spend three quarters of an hour in the fresh (read as cold !) air, walking around the playground really appealed. I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did, but I came back to the class, refreshed, relaxed and much m...

As a teacher, who sees how students believe everything they read in text books as being "the Gospel", I am extremely worried by the findings of an investigation carried out by the Jewish Telegraph Agency site about the brainwashing that is taking place inside American classrooms. ________________________________________ NEW YORK, Oct. 23 (JTA) - With the school year back in full swing, do you know what your children are learning? In thousands of public school districts across the United States, without ever knowing it, taxpayers pay to disseminate pro-Islamic materials that are anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. Often bypassing school boards and nudging aside approved curricula, teaching programs funded by Saudi Arabia make their way into elementary and secondary school classrooms. These teachings enter school systems with the help of a federal program, Title VI of the Higher Education Act, that is now up for renewal. Expert analyses of these materials have found the...

Over the last few days, a number of my friends have commented that they find my blog quite negative in tone. I suppose that when you are caught up posting entries on a daily basis or so, you don’t really think about how the overall effect will appear to someone who passes by every now and again to “catch up”. I have to say that, upon reflection, I probably agree with my pals. True, I’m working in a tough school with some very difficult kids and this no doubt impacts on my writing. However, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m not enjoying what I do. Yes, there are bad days, or rather, bad moments in the midst of the good days and inevitably, these do get reported but overall, I can’t think of another job that I’ve felt so much a part of. I honestly, honestly love teaching. The kids can be, and often are, horrendous but, give me a brattish child any day over some power-hungry bitch or so called friend who can’t wait to stick a knife in my back. I couldn’t hack working in an o...

I absent-mindedly left my electronic register (or Bromcom as it’s known in the profession) on the desk in my room at the end of school on Tuesday afternoon. When I arrived back this morning, post graduation, it had “walked”. I was quite distressed as I use it quite a lot to refer to student attendance and data. Saying that, I have been aware of my over-reliance on the damn machine and so have been slowly transferring the records by hand, to my A4 planner. I digress. The register was gone. I looked everywhere, but it soon became horrendously apparent that some kid or kids had walked off with it. In truth, it’s not much use to them as they don’t even know the log in code (which I had intelligently left hidden in the plastic pocket, but let’s not dwell too long on that.) A technician surmised that some dim child had taken it, in the belief that he was probably stealing a laptop. If only! In short, it was gone. I was inconsolable (as I’m writing this down, I’m beginning to think that I’m t...

Without sounding arrogant, this is my third Graduation and to be honest, the ceremonies I’ve attended over the years have all been virtually identical. The whole thing started at 2.00 and my three minutes of fame manifested themselves at around 3.25 when I walked across the stage and shook the Chancellor’s hand. For the rest of the time, I twiddled my thumbs. The best part, as on previous occasions was dressing up in the robes and having the official photographs taken with the family. This time, the participating members were not my parents, but Dana and Shira who both came along to sit for portraits and meet my fellow graduates. In the end, sixteen out of twenty of us made it through to the day and we all sat together, praying that the proceedings wouldn’t bore us to death, whilst looking forward to getting on with our lives. At 4.00 it was all over and we headed back to our daily routines. The course of study is now officially ended and I relish the challenges that I face. That’s it ...

It occurred to me that, when writing about teaching, I always end up reporting the negative events. So here’s some good news. From this week, my timetable has been altered so that my dreaded Tuesday afternoon class has now been moved to Friday mornings. This is great as I believe that they will be more receptive to me earlier in the day (in theory at least).

My Year 7 class just didn’t want to calm down or keep quiet. In the end, I kept them twenty minutes into lunch. Meanwhile, the kids outside the room wanted to use the computers for their daily IT Club. I told them to go away and wait until I had dismissed the class, but they refused. In short, there were 25 kids inside the room and about 20 outside. Oh – and me. I closed the door. The kids outside kept on opening the door or peering in through the window and making a general nuisance of themselves. After a while, I’d had enough and when finally dismissing the class, told them that, due to their behaviour, I had decided to cancel the club for the day. The little morons couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. No, I wasn’t running the club today and no, they couldn’t come in. “Go away and run around in the playground as THERE IS NO CLUB TODAY !” I let in a few students who needed to finish off some homework but the rabble refused to disperse and so I was left with no option but to lock myself i...

To my delight, my extraordinarily generous parents are offering me an iPod for my birthday (1st December - please note it down). The only problem is that I don't know which one to ask for. I am less concerned with the amount of storage, than actually choosing a model which doesn't run out of juice after five minutes (or so to speak). I hear that the Nano scratches easily, whilst the bigger model drinks batteries in the same way that an SUV guzzles petrol. Do I go for a 20GB iPod or sacrifice memory for a Mini? Should I forget both and opt for a Nano? My bottom line is that I'd be happy with a model that holds 1000+ songs, is easy to use and gives a good run on batteries. I do not want a Shuffle though. Any iPod gurus out there? Which model would you choose?

Over the last week or so, Michal, aged five, has started exhibiting a very worrying tendency - she crosses roads without bothering to look whether or not a car is approaching. Today, once again, I had to grab her out of the path of a car. Last Friday night, a friend did the same – in the nick of a time, because she was seconds away from certain death and I am at my wits end, thinking about how to get her to realise what she’s doing. Road safety does not seem to play a part in her life whatsoever. I tried a different tact today. Having administered the usual disciplinary measures, I took her home from Synagogue and whilst standing in the kitchen, took a cherry tomato out of the refrigerator. I placed it on the counter and told her that “she was the tomato.” I then took a piece of wood and told her that “this was the car.” I slammed the wood onto the tomato. She burst out crying (probably due to the shock of it all) and looked visibly shaken. We both looked at the grisly remains of the s...

Yesterday, three significant events took place around the world. Firstly, a suicide bomber killed nearly sixty people in Jordan. Secondly, Australian Police disclosed details of a plot to carry out numerous terrorist attacks around the country and thirdly – and this is the one that totally baffles me – the British Government ruled against Tony Blair’s Bill (backed by the Police and Security Services) to detain terror suspects for up to ninety days without charge. Keeping in mind the fact that London was bombed four months ago and terrorist atrocities are taking place all around the world, could someone please explain the logic of curtailing the Police’s powers to prevent more attacks? I’m sorry but I don’t buy the “what if they arrest the wrong man?” crap. We are at war, people. War! These are not normal times (and by the way, does anyone remember living in “normal times”?) and so the rules of engagement are totally different. There is a concerted campaign by some fruitcakes around the...

It's been a rough ride. I spent yesterday mostly visiting different worlds - unconscious (well, sort of) but the bug seems to have disappeared as mysteriously as it struck. I have spoken with a few people who have also been affected, so I guess it wasn't food poisoning. I wasn't at school today, so tomorrow will probably be unbearable. Anyway, the most important thing is that I feel better. The teach is back.

I feel like death warmed up. I've spent most of the day asleep, when I'm not in the toilet either vomiting or expelling things through every orifice in my body - and that's as about as descriptive as I'm going to get. I'm particularly peeved as I need to be in school this week to carry out the student assessments. I guess I'll have to do them when I feel well enough. I don't know if I've got a stomach bug or food poisoning but the sooner I can shake off my high temperature and keep some food down - the happier I'll be.

As if Thursday's incident wasn't bad enough, I had a run-in with another kid yesterday. He spent virtually the whole lesson working on something else that had nothing to do with my lesson. I repeatedly told him to get back to work on my subject and he ignored me, intimating aggressively that I was "picking on him" whilst the others weren't working either (go figure a 15 year old's logic). I gave him a worksheet which he ignored and when challenged, said that I hadn't told him that he had to "fill it in". I told him to do so but when I returned, he was still focussed on something else. I'd had enough, so I took his work, scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. He started swearing at me, using the "F" word numerous times. I sent him out of the class. Ok. I could have handled this differently. Admittedly, I shouldn't have thrown his work in the bin and I accept that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. In hindsight, ma...

This blog probably won't make any sense if you haven't spent time in the UK, so I've provided a link to explain why I took my kids to a firework display this evening. Dassi and Tali had a great time and the fireworks were truly out of this world. As this was a) Saturday night and b) the 400th anniversary of the plot (see, I knew you'd wonder what I was talking about....go click on the link!) there were parties going on everywhere and you could see fireworks for miles around. 5th November was never this good when I was a kid.

It’s been a very long week and I’m just about awake. Today, I said something to a student that I’ve regretting since. I told him, in front of the rest of the class that he was a “waste of classroom space” and I fully admit that I was wrong in calling him this. Yes, this student has not done any work since he walked into the first lesson in September. Yes, this student is on the way to being kicked out of school, because every other teacher is fed up with his immature behaviour. Yes, I’ve had to throw him out virtually every week because he keeps on disrupting. Later on, I had him removed because he was holding a conversation across the room with another pain in the neck and he was giving advice on how to steal cars. But all these reasons, do not give me the right to say these things to him. I promised myself that I would never denigrate a student in such a manner. I feel that I have really let myself down here. I have discussed this with a number of other teachers and bar one, they’ve ...

I see that the French are rioting in Paris. Oh dear. What a shame. I bet the Police are adhering to their long-held national policy on how to deal with “the enemy”. Run Hide Surrender.

According to my mentor, there is a correlation between rainy weather and difficult kids. I can certainly testify to this, if today is anything to go by. I taught three classes and most of the kids were all more challenging than usual (which is a diplomatic way of saying that they were pretty obnoxious) and yes, it rained all day. I knew I was in trouble when I asked for the patrol to come and remove a difficult child and when she eventually turned up; I was told that the respite room was “full”. I know that we Jews just celebrated Sukkot, at the end of which we made a prayer for rain. The idea is that we ask G-d to provide rain to the Land of Israel, to ensure that crops grow and that there is enough water. The good Lord, in his infinite wisdom has decided to move the clouds a little to the left and as a result, my pupils have been hyperactive. If You are reading this G-d, can you please send the rain eastwards? Teaching is tough enough without having to factor in the weather condition...

Dana just told me that she was on the Underground last week with Shira. Apparently, Shira looked at a man who was sitting in the carriage and shouted out “ That’s Daddy!”. Dana shook her head at the man, reassuring him that he was not the father and she tells me that he breathed a visible sigh of relief, whereupon everyone in the train started smiling. Shira decided to finish off her mischief by going round to everyone saying “bye bye” and they all reciprocated.

He’s smart, funny and gregarious. He lives in a beautiful house, with a lovely, charming and pretty wife and three adorable kids. They have a cuddly dog and chirpy budgie. When we visited him in Great Neck, NY, we were treated like royalty. Thursday evening was certainly most memorable and Hadassah had a wonderful time. I’ve wanted to meet him ever since we started chatting using Instant Messaging. It was worth the wait. He’s also extremely pissed off that I forgot to mention all of this in my previous blogs and I sincerely apologise for this. Are you happy now Paul? Ps. He’s also my cousin.