Gove And Mullen

Politicians in the UK (and perhaps elsewhere in the world) have an annoying habit of pretending to leak stories to the press, when in actual fact it has been carefully planned and directed to certain media outlets. Late last night the Daily Fail (please don't feel obliged to click on the link - it will only give them advertising revenue) "broke" the exclusive that our favourite Pob look-a-like, Michael Gove, plans to scrap GCSEs by 2016 and replace them with a two-tier system of O-levels and CSEs, like we had before 1988.

I think this is a monumentally bad idea. He is simply pandering to an elitist bunch of old farts who look back on the 1950s and 1960s as a Golden Age of Education. The GCSE system is not perfect by any means - we could always stand to improve on it, and given proper consultation I would be in favour of this move, but going back to a set of qualifications that were deemed unfit for purpose in the 1980s seems a little antediluvian, to say the least. He's also planning to get rid of the National Curriculum (opening the door for all sorts of pseudoscience and creationist bollocks to be taught in the name of science), and to replace the three big exam boards in England with a single one (the least bad idea of the lot, but Gove will not find it easy to destroy three big companies like Edexcel, AQA and OCR).


How many teachers are feeling today...
There have been some quite excellent posts expressing the overwhelming teacher opinion on this all, including the Grauniad, and the FT. The latter has the advantage of data, showing clearly who the most adversely affected will be.

And then there's this article from the Torygraph. According to Peter Mullen (do check out his Wikipedia page - he's one of the worst ambassadors for Christianity I can think of), we are useless, illiterate, ignorant, airport novel-reading, rock gig-attending, anti-elitist, "overpaid, unionised thugs".

How demotivating. For me and for my students. The students are in the middle of exams at the moment - many in the College are part-way through their GCSEs. They've just been told that their exams are meaningless. Paul and I saw a number of tweets this morning from students wondering if they should even bother to go in and sit the rest of their GCSEs. It was very sad to see.

I also saw tweets from other teachers, saying this had reinforced their decisions to leave teaching, or was likely to result in them leaving in the next few years. It will probably reduce the number of people applying to become teachers. Why would they, when a distinctly un-Christian priest who can't keep from breaking the odd Commandment is telling them they're shit?

I am not a shit, useless teacher (though on bad days full of BTEC I sometimes feel that way). I look after my kids, even the kids who are older than me. I teach them to be enthusiastic about biology, to develop their inquisitive skills, to be able to apply their deep subject knowledge to new and interesting situations. I give them a well-tuned bullshit detector and the ability to do Harvard referencing in their sleep. I cuss, I speak sarcastically, I tell dirty jokes. Hell, I've baked them all flapjacks for every single A-level exam, because I know that for some of them it's the only meal they're going to get all day.


Flapjacks, cooked to the recipe I posted yesterday.
So, as pissed off as I am, and as hurt by the words, I know that I, and the vast majority of teachers, do not fit in with Mullen's attack. I do not recognise the people he is criticising. I just wish that this sort of attack didn't demotivate and sadden.

But if Mullen wants to put his money where his mouth is, I'd be more than happy to go head-to-head with him sitting a load of GCSE exams. I'll take on Gove too. I'd like to see these arseholes demonstrate their supposed superiority. And if they decline, well, fuck them.

Things I Learned From My Students #11: Procrastination

What better time for a blog post than when I should be writing a statement of application for an internal vacancy? My A2 students have their Unit 4 exam this coming Friday, so I should think there are 15 alpabetised sock drawers in west London, as an indicator of the amount of procrastination taking place. Anyway, here are some pearls of wisdom to pass on to you.

1. Apparently it's entirely normal to e-mail your biology lecturer Led Zeppelin lyrics at 3am on a Saturday morning.
   
2. Yet apparently it's not an achievable task to e-mail your biology lecturer the outstanding coursework at 3am on a Saturday morning.
   
3. There's no point committing a long name like Cedrus libani to memory when you can just call it Big Crazy Tree Mudafuuuu.
   
4. It's impossible to memorise three Latin names for plants, but perfectly reasonable to memorise the first and last names of the entire Polish football team.
   
5. No matter how awful a student's home life is, they are always thankful that their name is not Melvin Calvin.
   
6. Barnacles deserve maximum respect.
   
7. Hangovers really aren't conducive to starting the first part of the A2 biology syllabus, and may result in the bunking off of the afternoon's physics lesson.
   
8. If you're a teenage boy, every round object resembles breasts, and every long object resembles a penis.
   
9. When doing an experiment to measure the volume (and therefore density) of an irregular object, some joker always asks if they can measure the volume of their penis.
   
10. These jokers don't like it if you hand them a 10ml measuring cylinder.
    
11. There is no such thing as bad weather; only inappropriate clothing. And boy, is there inappropriate clothing for fieldwork...
    
12. Kitten heels are not great footwear for a trip round a plant nursery.
    
13. Until such time as I can train my lab pelargoniums to do a dance routine to "Somebody That I Used To Know", my students will never be truly interested in plants.
    
14. The level of disgust expressed at being defaecated on by a giant millipede should never be underestimated.
    
15. Millipedes have "too many legs".
    
16. The word "bodman" apparently means "condom".
    
17. It's perfectly acceptable to refer to your female teacher as "Bro" or "Bruv".
    
18. I may need to wear lower-cut tops if my students are confused about my gender.
    
19. Flapjacks really are very well received pre-exam sustenance.
    
20. The Marmoset Song exists. Thank you. I mean it. Really.

Lab Animals

I've had plants in my biology lab for a couple of years now - the bog-standard variegated Pelargonium, a couple of parrot plants, some cycads too fragile for my garden and a Sarracenia that uses more distilled water than all the week's practicals put together.

But it's clear that all labs need some animal life (in addition to the students), whether it's hamsters, fish or something a bit more exotic. Dave had suggested Mexican blind cave fish, which were a really interesting species. I'd been interested in cichlids, so I could point at them and shout "SYMPATRIC SPECIATION! LOOK!!!" at incredulous A2 students. But tropical fish would have been very high-maintenance - too much for a lab that would be shut down entirely for ten days at Christmas, even if I could have come in to feed and clean the fish during the holidays.

Then, one dismal Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, I went to the Isleworth Spring Fair, to support Paul, who was working on a stall. We had a bit of a wander round on one of his breaks, and saw a tent with a bit of activity going on. As soon as I walked in I saw there were lots of animals there to be handled! I chatted to the owner of the animals - he works for the education department at the Natural History Museum normally, but evidently has a bit of a side project bringing his pets to events for people to learn about. He had a python, corn snake, milk snake, veiled chameleon, bearded dragon and loads of invertebrates.

Including a giant millipede.

Turns out these guys are really low-maintenance and fascinating creatures. It's a bit like being walked on by a toothbrush. They are herbivorous, and detritivores at that, so the freshness of the food is not really an issue. They have a commensal relationship with cleaner mites, and their anatomy is really interesting.


They arrived by courier on Wednesday evening and I brought them straight into the lab. The first one I put in the tank was absolutely enormous, bold as brass and very curious. It investigated the tank thoroughly, then positively inhaled a slice of leek. The second one was grumpy, curled itself up in a ball and sulked for hours. I'm astounded that it didn't cover me in cyanide, it was so pissed off with me. They are both pooing like it's going out of fashion too.

For reasons that will only be clear to my A2 students, the first one has been named Bodman (left in both pictures), and the second one Moisted.


Two of my students have held them so far. One of the BTEC girls asked to hold it and then got scared when its legs started to move. And I made my prospective vet student hold one and told him he'd better get used to them as he might have some as patients.

With my AS students in the middle of exams, and my A2s about to start, and my BTECs starting to wind down and finish their assignments, it's nice to have something still alive in the lab to nurture, sustain and care for. It might make the end of term seem a little less wretched than it usually does.

Happy Solstice

Jabba Claws is not renowned for his time-keeping, but he would nevertheless like to take the opportunity to wish you all a Happy Solstice, along with any other festivals that involve eating lots and leaving out waxworms for gecko visitors.


Remember, he watches you intently when you're sleeping, and he runs and hides in his cave when you're awake. And if you've been extra good this year, then he might leave you a festive Yule log in Poo Corner on Christmas morning.

Things I Learned From My Students #10: Somebody's Watching Me

I haven't done one of these for a while - nearly a year in fact. The two weeks since half-term have been absolutely mad, but that at least means some more ammunition for this.


So here's what I've learned from the little sods recently:

1. The words "turgid" and "flaccid" are hilarious.
   
2. I can still just about pass for someone in their late 20s.
   
3. Everything can be expressed as "bare", "sick", "peak", "long" or a combination of any of the previous.
   
4. It is a matter of some concern that a woman with my qualifications should be a teacher in an FE college.
   
5. We have a child's skull in our anatomy collection.
   
6. I can use this fact to extract homework from the younger students.
   
7. Students may think they want to be surgeons, but they recoil in horror at a horse dissection and the autopsy scene in "Contagion".
   
8. Apparently a 31-year-old, married, female biology teacher needs to be told the location of the G-spot.
   
9. If your physiology class contains mostly boys, then at some point each week someone will ask about masturbation.
   
10. The question biology teachers are asked most frequently is "What does this rash mean?".
    
11. Supposedly mature students returning to study still think it's appropriate to refer to "poo" when writing about the digestive system.
    
12. If one student misses the day of the presentation, they can have an extension. If half the class misses the day of the presentation, half the class fails.
    
13. It's surprisingly difficult explaining to students how a Placebo Band works.
    
14. No one teaches these kids how to draw graphs at KS3 or KS4. As a result there are 18-year-olds drawing graphs in biro without a ruler on 20% of the page.
    
15. Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

A Word From Our Sponsor

The resident gecko on Stages Of Succession would like to wish you a very happy Samhain, and feels that an appropriate way to celebrate such an occasion is to give him lots of waxworms.


In fact, in the traditions of the festival, if you treat him with waxworms, he won't crap all over your hand.

Wordless Wednesday: Still Recognisable After 160Ma