Yehudi Menuhin

I started reading Yehudi Menuhin's autobiography Unfinished Journey several years ago. Actually, I first found it in a library in Manchester in June 2003! I spent an hour or so browsing it there. But Manchester was a depressing place—it drizzled constantly, and there were basically no trees. So within days we had decided to hire a car and find someplace else to live.

But a few months later I found a second hand copy for sale for £2.50, and grabbed it. Yet I didn't get around to reading it until we'd been back in Australia for some time.

Two years ago, here's the brief review I wrote of what I'd read so far:

In accordance with the book's title, I have only got half-way through this book, and now it must be packed for our move to Mackay. Sigh. Worth reading, although I'm skipping quickly through some of it that I don't find interesting. I'd rather know more about his attitude to the violin (but he says he talks more about that in the latter half, which I haven't got to). I share his opinions of San Francisco (positive) and New York (negative).

Fortunately, he did talk more about violin playing, and music in general, in the latter part of the book. Technique-wise he puts great emphasis on flexibility. He gets a little carried away when he compares the violin to the piano! (“Who could lavish affection on a piano? Or cuddle it, or carry it in his arms, or put it to bed in silk and velvet?”) He also discusses the school he set up in England. He even mentions Suzuki, by whose method I first learnt to play the violin.

His cultural commentary makes very interesting reading. As a travelling performer he has been to many, many different countries around the world, in peace-time and in war. He makes remarkable cultural comparisons based on his experience, for instance in regard to individual performers vs team and chamber players, and the corresponding differences in sight-reading ability.

I especially enjoyed Yehudi Menuhin's stories about his music because in some ways my own musical journey has been quite similar. I also began with violin (though not as early), and later added viola. I also am careful with my diet and (as I get older) with stretching before I play. And I also was an ugly violinist who married a beautiful wife!

The prose is easy to read, although being topically- rather than temporally-organised the story jumps around a little in place and time. My edition includes an index, of mostly names of people and places.

Recommendation: Worth reading if you like biographies or music, especially if you play strings—but beware if your favourite instrument is the piano!

Computers and board games

Yesterday morning Laetitia's computer died. It failed to load a stack of drivers, including for the trackpad and USB ports, which made working out what was wrong painful (no mouse). In the end we booted into Linux off a CD to copy off what had been changed since her most recent backup, then reinstalled from the “Recovery” DVDs. I really wonder about that term; somehow “recovery” has come to mean “wipe the slate clean and start again”.

Over the weekend I also did some programming. It was good fun to get back into “the zone”. I used Microsoft's Visual C#, their new(ish, in programming language terms) language based loosely on C++. I'm actually impressed: already knowing C++, C# made it quite easy to build a functional and usable GUI-based tool. Indeed, contrary to what I expected before I started, the hardest part was not the GUI at all, but rather the all-pairs-shortest-paths algorithm, for which I had to go back to one of my old programming textbooks.

What I created was a ticket generator for one of our favourite board games, Ticket to Ride: Europe. I was so impressed with the “1910” expansion for the USA board that I wanted to do something similar for the Europe board. And besides, playing with the same set of tickets every time gets predictable, and personally I prefer more variety.

So now I can print off a new set of tickets for every game. I get to choose a standard game, a “Big Cities” game or a “Mega-Game” (you'll understand those terms if you have the 1910 expansion), for the Europe board. Yippee!

Welcome to Term 1 2008!

Week 1 of Term 1 is over. Phew! I have five classes this year, all maths: Year 8 & 9 Maths, Year 10 preparation for Maths A, Year 11 Maths B and Year 12 Maths A. I also have a Year 8 HFG (house family group—our school's name for a home group/form class/…). This is much less work for me than last year, when I had six classes, including a Year 8 science class. This year I have six spares a fortnight instead of about three and a half.

My Year 12 class is made up mostly of students I used to teach last year. I am delighted to have them in my class again! (After losing them in Term 4 last year, thanks to a rearrangement of classes due to changing numbers of students doing Maths A vs Prevocational Maths.)

My Year 11 class promises to be great—if I can keep them all from failing. There are two Maths B classes in Year 11, each with about a dozen students. It's a fantastic situation for the students. But if too many of them drop back to Maths A, we'll have to combine the classes in order to make a new Maths A class (the current two Maths A classes are close to full).

In Year 10 I have 28 students. This is a lot! In the one lesson I've had with them so far, I had to keep them in for 15 minutes because they couldn't stop talking. That's okay, they'll learn. I'll give them a seating plan on Monday. I'm much more confident of my ability to cope with this class now than I was last year, with a smaller but equally disengaged and talkative Year 10 Maths A class!

In Year 9 I had hoped to get my previous (then Year 8) class back, but I didn't. That's okay. In this year's class of around 27 I seem have up to a dozen students who are much quicker than the rest; I'll have to work hard to stay ahead of them, finding appropriate challenges to keep them engaged and learning. I also have about half a dozen who really struggle, several of whom are already on the point of giving up.

And that brings me to Year 8. In sharp contrast to last year's enthusiastic and energetic group, this year's cohort are quiet, shy and a bit nervous about this whole high school thing. In my first Year 8 maths class, they made almost no sound at all for most of the lesson (and we have 100 minute lessons—that's a long time for a group of 25 twelve-year-olds to stay quiet)! My HFG are very slowly starting to come out of their shells.

In terms of my teaching skills, I can really notice a difference from the start of last year. My stress levels are so much lower! Not only do we already have somewhere to live, a friendly church and local friends, I also have a much better idea of what I'm doing in the classroom. My self-confidence is much higher. I know what to expect, and (most of the time) how to respond. And, of course, I'm no longer a “new teacher” and therefore the students aren't quite so eager to check me out and see what they can get away with.

School's out

School is over for the year—yay! I survived my first year!

I've sorted through all my paperwork for the year, too. My desk is almost clear again. I still have a stack of maths worksheets to sort, though, ready for next year. That's Monday's job. :-)

Now I'm contemplating how to go about selling my photos. I intend to submit a fair few to a stock photo agency. But I think I can do more. I think I'd like to talk to a business consultant about it. I have the skills I need, but I lack wisdom: I can budget, but I don't know what are reasonable amounts to expect; I know how to plan, but I don't know what are realistic, achievable goals; I can build a website, but I don't know what style of website will attract the most customers and achieve the best sales.

Do you know anyone who can help me with this? Please let me know.

Celebration week & Mr Muscle

Whew! What a week.

On Monday evening at square dancing, someone stood on my foot. It hurt. I've been limping since.

Tuesday morning I lost a lesson I'd planned for because instead we had a whole-high-school practice for Celebration Night. Then I lost the next lesson too, because my year 12 students were practicing for their final Chapel on Thursday morning. I had intended to do a “maths in the kitchen” (i.e. cooking) lesson with them. But that was okay, we did it at lunch time instead. They loved the cake I made, and the chocolate cubes and chicken stir fry that two of them made.

Tuesday night was Celebration Night. It was exciting and action packed (no, really!). In a distinctly different experience from my own high school graduation nights, the principal spoke for only 20 minutes. The school's Jazz Ensemble played at the end, and they were simply fantastic!

Wednesday morning was Celebration Morning, when they gave out all the awards they didn't have time for on Tuesday night. After that I got to supervise a year 10 drama class; I think I'll ask to teach drama some time in the future, it was a lot of fun!

Then this morning was Senior Chapel. The year 12s came in free dress, and produced a morning of music, short speeches, advice, and teacher awards. I am now officially “Mr Muscle”. (“Although it looks like there's nothing on the outside, all the power is on the inside!”) My year 8s asked me in the next lesson whether they could call me that. (I said, “Sure, for the rest of this year—but I don't promise to answer!”) The teachers sang “I cannot tell…” for the graduating students; I played violin, a last-minute idea that worked out quite well.

Tonight is the Senior Graduation Dinner. I hope I survive!

What a beginning teacher says about his first year

For one of the final subjects in CHC's Bachelor of Education program, the lecturer sets an assignment which is fairly free-form; one of the options for the assignment is to interview some beginning teachers to find out what they thought of their first year of teaching. I remember doing this assignment last year, and very much appreciating the helpful responses I got.

Anyway, one of my fellow students at CHC, who finishes this year, asked me if I would answer some questions for her. Remembering how much I got out of it myself, I told her I'd love to! Little did I know how many questions she'd ask..

It took me a few hours to type up the answers. (She ‘interviewed’ me by email.) And I thought, maybe others might be interested in my answers. So I've made them available on the web. Enjoy! (Warning: It's quite long.)

Graffiti and punishment

Today I encountered my first unsupportive parent. I guess I'm doing quite well, really, considering I've made it nearly to the end of October.

After a term and a half of almost no graffiti, the first science lesson this week ended with serious marking of almost half the desks in the room. Who knows why it happens like this? Anyway, as instructed by my HOF, I implemented firm consequences: after the next lesson, all the students sitting at each group of desks where graffiti had been found joined me on the playground for litter duty.

Today I got a letter from a parent: “My daughter has been brought up to respect furniture and would not dream of writing on a desk.” (I'm paraphrasing.) “Yet apparently she was punished for what some other child did. I want a written apology to my daughter from the teacher who accused her of writing on the desk.”

So I called the mother back after school, to explain the situation. Yes, I understand your point of view; yes, I agree, your daughter is a lovely girl. However, at least one of the four lovely girls in her group left some serious graffiti on the desks. (And it's not the first time, either. But I didn't say that.) “I don't believe in group punishment.” I'm not trying to punish the many for the sins of the one, I'm trying to inculcate some respect for school property and to build some responsibility for preventing re-occurrence. (Not quite what I said.) “But my daughter was not responsible for the graffiti.” Perhaps not, but then she sat idle while she watched her friend damaging the desk. “You didn't even ask my daughter whether she did it.” Correct: I've tried that before. Every student disclaims responsibility. Then what? Nobody did it? It just happened all by itself? (No, I didn't actually say that. Just wanted to.) “Well, that's your responsibility. It's the school's responsibility, and the teacher's.”

What I wish I could have responded with was: Fine, you come in to the next science lesson, I'll line the kids up for you, and you can try to figure out who did it. They're all yours. (Perhaps when you see how hard my job is, you'll reconsider what you're asking of me. Oh, this isn't the perfect environment you envisioned for your daughter's education? Then maybe you ought to consider home schooling.)

Instead, what I actually said was: I understand your point of view; I'm doing the best I can.

Open Day 2007

Well yesterday was Open Day. I was surprised at the number of people who came. Even some of my students who left to attend other schools during the year! Obviously this is quite a community event.

I'd love to post some photos, but unfortunately the only ones I have are of some of my students.

I climbed the climbing tower! Well, I didn't quite make it all the way to the top. You get about three quarters of the way up and then suddenly it's like, I have to put my foot where? It was not a question of strength, but of inexperience with knowing how to get from here to there. Two of my smallest students were also the best climbers: up they shot like little monkeys, ring the bell, even turning around and waving, and hanging off the wall facing out.

The fireworks at the end were pretty impressive.