The best lessons are varied and interesting. This means make your lessons different with a number of activities. Yes, this take a bit of planning, but sometimes, just gettin your students moving around the classroom helps keep them motivated. We will start with the four-part lesson plan.

FINAL TIP: It’s always good to check how much YOU are talking; the best way to do this is to write down TT (teach talk) on your lesson plan wherever you are talking. The key is NOT to talk AT your students; if you think it is not useful, don’t say it. This will combat the time you “lose” during lesson, which stops the students actaully DOING something! If you want sample lesson plans, or even blank lesson plans you can use for yourself, let me know!

Students are only as bored as their teachers make them!

At first, the Japanese names and confusing relationships between characters make this novel difficult to get into.  But after initial confusions have been cleared and you’re completely clear in your head about who is who, you won’t be able to put this book down!

It took a while to get into, and each time you stop reading, it’s difficult to get back into; this is why I read it for 6 hours solid one night!   I must admit though, there are times where the reader longs for a more detailed fleshing out of description of place, and forming three dimensional minor characters rather than reducing them to walk-on parts, used only to further the narrative. 

There are a few absurd moments in the novel (I do not want to reveal them and spoil the story) but leaving these aside, I still thoroughly enjoyed it!  Maybe due to the fact that I haven’t read anything in a long time!  Book-deprivation does weird things to the mind!

Described by some as Harry Potter meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, this novel was full of medieval Japanese tribal warfare, love, betrayal and ties of mutual trust.  I personally believe it’s nothing like Harry Potter; Harry Potter was pretentious, written by an author who was assured of her success; this, on the other hand is more like the movie Hero, or Crouching Tiger. 

It was so powerfully moving, despite being fictional; one cannot help but overtly care about what happens to the characters.  Particularly poignant was the portrayal of the position of women in the tribal society, treated as pawns, married for alliances and power, women are treated as useful commodities, but at the end of this first book in the trilogy, the beautiful Kaede gives a slight indication that she may take matters into her own hands…

All in all, a great read; a wonderful piece of escapist fantasy that allows the reader too escape from reality and enter an unpredictable world of blood, war, betrayal and love.   But refreshingly, the love is kept to a minimum, there are no clichés and romantic illusions in this novel! 

 I’m currently racing through the second novel in the trilogy….watch this space!   

Note: Lian Hearn is a not the author’s real name…It’s supposed to be based loosely on a Japanese historical figure or something; I wasn’t interested enough to actually read up about it!

Today, as an irate parent had called my head of department, claiming that her daughter was scared of me, and scared to come to school as a result, I found myself being falsely nice to this girl!  It shows how much power children wield in the classroom and it’s scary.

This particular girl had lost her exercise book weeks ago and had made no attempts to get a new one, despite me asking her pleasantly to do so.  Therefore, she had no new work that I could grade before her report went out.  As you can imagine, this mother was particularly concerned that I had lost her book, and her daughter couldn’t possibly be lying!

After threatening to have her daughter removed permanently from my classroom (as I was so incompetent) my head of department informed me that I would HAVE to give her a new book and ignore the fact that she didn’t have any previous work; not only that, I was told to be pleasant to her!

I could see the satisfaction on the kid’s face when she saw I had to give her a new book AND be pleasant to her.  We both knew who had lost the book.  But we both also knew who was in control. 

Such is the state of the education system today.  But, we do it for the ones who we feel can be moulded into human beings.  We do it for them.  (Yeah right!)

 As a note: let the students believe the power lies with them; ultimately, it’s YOUR classroom and your rules, if their parents don’t like it, they can teach their kids themselves!

Most of you won’t know about my love-hate relationship with teaching.  Leaving aside the misgivings or the “Islamicity” of teaching in a mixed gender secondary school, there are many other issues with putting your life on the line for the sake of the next generation. 

I have recently discovered, that relationships with collegues can be based on mutual mistrust, with backstabbing and lack of support from heads of department (or CDLs as we are supposed to call them); but they can also be based on a love of the subject, or even who we would have on our imaginary Staffroom Slap Wall (if it was legal!)

However, leaving all this aside, it is the parents who cause most grief and stress to us soldiers of the teaching profession.  Not only is it not enough that we fill in data sheets on their children, put up with the sight, smells and sounds of said children, but we are also expected to pander them. 

It is beyond comprehension for a parent (especially in the school I teach in) that “Little Jimmy” is far from perfect; in fact, Little Jimmy would never lose his book, or refuse to work, or even be anything less than a star student! Living in the ethos of “pander to the parent” means teachers must make endless phonecalls, answer endless emails and endlessly justify themselves to parents, CDLs, PDLs and even students themselves.   

My recent dillema has been filling in data sheets for all of my classes.  Being that my desk is literally “organised chaos” and my lack of regard for consistent marking or authority, I had not marked the books.  After speeding through and quickly giving levels to pieces of work (a pointless task if you ask me) I filled in the data sheets, disregarding the fact that the new levels were considerably lower than the old levels! 

Much to my dismay, after the reports left my capable hands, they ended up with the parents of “little Jimmy” who in turn did not hesitate to get onto their email and send me messages regarding their beloved son’s attainment (or lack of it in this case).  As the emails flooded in, and as I replied at super speed, diplomatic as ever, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was being forced to justify myself to a bunch of parents! I mean, I quite pleasantly explained that is “Little Jimmy” didn’t use a comma, or any other punctuation within the sentence there was no way I could grade his writing at anything but a level 4!  Don’t blame me; blame the National Curriculum ”Little Jimmy’s” Mum!  It makes no iota of difference whether “Little Jimmy” was star student in his last school, or that he was top of the class, the fact remains there wasn’t a comma in the piece of work and therefore, “Little Jimmy” is a Level 4 in this case!  

What parents do not understand is, that with English, the only way is NOT up; you CAN actually get worse before you get better, and rather it being the incompetence of the teacher, it is more to do with the work produced by Little Jimmys everywhere being dependant upon whether MSN Messenger was working that evening…

So if you ARE a parent reading this, the next time you blame the teacher’s incompetence for your child’s lack of progress, think twice!  Making teachers pander to the parent turns us into bitter creatures that feel disinclined to acquiesce politely to your badgering! 

Well, Islam states you should be patient at times of adversity; you are not to despair in the face of hardship.  Easy words to say, difficult words to implement.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not “Losing my Religion”, in the words of REM, but difficulties do take over, casting shadows over the sun and light of Islam; blocking out the technicolour glow from the T.V of Imaan. 

Imaan-building difficulties.  At least in theory that’s what we like to believe.  But in practice and in the harsh reality of this world, the main difficulty one faces is this: Imaan-building!

Difficulties present themselves as obstacles in our path, but translating the pain, the tears into an Imaan-building exercise involves a complex denial of ourselves; a denial of who we are, in order to overcome the nafs (loosely translated as ego).  This denial involves fighting the urge to curse whom we want, fighting the urge to scream at the wind, replacing it instead with a wave of contentment which washes over us like a floodtide. 

Those of us who struggle with this will find the floodtide of contentment replaced with a whirlwind of tears, headaches and Imaan-wrecking thoughts.  Those who struggle find themselves drowning in another’s floodtide of contentment, battling with the urge to give up and drown.  But it is those who struggle who, after the storm, feel the serenity of a cool breeze blowing. 

It is those who struggle who appreciate the beauty of the “breeze-block” of Imaan. 

It is those who struggle and strive through the Imaan-wrecking difficulties, passing through to the other side, those who can say, “Been there, done that, bought the hijaab.  Lived to see another day.” 

It is those who struggle…

I’ve got myself well and truly addicted to the internet!  The final phase of living life through fonts is complete with my new and fantastic blog!  After facebook and MSN Messenger, comes the all new “Livin’ On A Prayer” blog from the crazy hijaabi northerner!

I’ll be posting random thoughts on Islam, my creative writing and perhaps (but more than likely) be ranting about work and school and the state of “kids today”. 

So watch this space!  But not for too long, because that would just be sad.