The Thread about Nothing....

EoinC2 said:

Woot Van Aert shows that cyclocross fitness ain’t wasted - Good finish on MSR.

And I’m still patting myself in the back for picking the winner.

classic1 said:

That reminds me, Ryan and I rescued a galah when I was living at my parents about 9 years ago. It was young, reckon it had been hit by a car. The dumbarses like to sit on the road in Morwell to warm up. Anyway, we go home, get a box, chase the [censored] around for ten minutes in the vacant block, finally catch it, then I have to make about 6 calls to find someone who’ll take it. Finally I get on to some bloke at Jeeralang.

Drive out there (it’s 20km away), his place is on some side track off the climb they used in the Churchill stage of the Herald Sun Tour a couple of years ago, the one that turned onto the gravel then the hairy descent. It’s pretty country out there, Latrobe Valley is quite pretty off the hwy and away from the coal mines. Anyway, this bloke has a massive menagerie out there. The veranda around the house had every sort of parrot on it, magpies, blue tongue lizards, goannas, raptors, and best of all, a couple of wedge tail eagles. There were multiple big cages away from the house as well that we’re full of birds.

Anyway, the bloke turns up as he’d been up the yard feeding the birds. He looked like that feral wizard out of The Hobbit. Gave him the galah, he reckoned it would be ok, the [censored] off. Must have cost him a fortune to take care of all that wildlife.

We went through a bit of a period of rescuing animals around that time, to the point we called ourselves Animal Rescue Squad Emergency. [censored] for short.

I've loved a few pages of bird love, but I've gotta say, when you find that galah with your son, it's Your job together with your son, to feed and hopefully repair it. Together at your house. That's the magic that heals [censored]. You don't outsource that.
Of course you're not professionals and it might die. But that's also an important lesson in caring.

Personal disclosure.
A trait I've been a fan of, and proponent of, on the TAN in years past, and yet I've become brittle. Selfprotective.
Some of which may be a corollary of an adventure in government employment, and teaching per se, versus previous adventures in pure capitalism and selfemployment. It has changed my life. I'm sad to admit it's likely for the worse. Worserer I have become.
I endeavour to turn over an old leaf and attempt to tell my [censored] truth again, because it's becoming oh so clear that playing safe is ruinous; to myself, and even my students who as usual will bully a 21st century teacher to hell, if said teacher doesn't have some pluck to fall back on.
Man up, cnut.

ps I had a great day teaching today/tonight, it almost made up for the sadness of yesterday, when half of my previously favourite class went all Lord of the Flies and surprised me with cruelty. Hmm.
I guess the bottom line is to remind them that I have the conch.

bbp said:

Personal disclosure.
A trait I've been a fan of, and proponent of, on the TAN in years past, and yet I've become brittle. Selfprotective.
Some of which may be a corollary of an adventure in government employment, and teaching per se, versus previous adventures in pure capitalism and selfemployment. It has changed my life. I'm sad to admit it's likely for the worse. Worserer I have become.
I endeavour to turn over an old leaf and attempt to tell my [censored] truth again, because it's becoming oh so clear that playing safe is ruinous; to myself, and even my students who as usual will bully a 21st century teacher to hell, if said teacher doesn't have some pluck to fall back on.
Man up, cnut.

ps I had a great day teaching today/tonight, it almost made up for the sadness of yesterday, when half of my previously favourite class went all Lord of the Flies and surprised me with cruelty. Hmm.
I guess the bottom line is to remind them that I have the conch.

Keep the conch, Beepers, and blow it at will... In fact, if one of your erstwhile students is called Will, blow it specifically at him.
“Be true to thyself, otherwise [censored] will happen”, as the old Druidic saying goes. It’s all a journey, for you and for each of them. Although the train tracks may be sometimes parallel, they are separate tracks, and have different destinations (running short on analogies now).
If you are true to your own values, it really doesn’t matter whether they align with them or not. They will benefit, even if they aren’t smart enough to realise it at the time.
By the way, being true to yourself is good for your own wellbeing, apart from decreasing the amount of [censored] that you find yourself swimming in.

classic1 said:

And I’m still patting myself in the back for picking the winner.

Just need Mathieu van der Poel to shift focus to the road, as he has obliterated the cyclocross ranks over the last year...

bbp said:

I endeavour to turn over an old leaf and attempt to tell my [censored] truth again, because it's becoming oh so clear that playing safe is ruinous; to myself, and even my students who as usual will bully a 21st century teacher to hell, if said teacher doesn't have some pluck to fall back on.
Man up, cnut.

ps I had a great day teaching today/tonight, it almost made up for the sadness of yesterday, when half of my previously favourite class went all Lord of the Flies and surprised me with cruelty. Hmm.
I guess the bottom line is to remind them that I have the conch.

(Echoing Eoin)

I can't add much here, but my one great truth after 10 years of uni teaching is that students are people and they're going to span the whole spectrum of human behaviour, from saints to absolute cnuts. On top of this, there's the groupthink (sounds like you got a dose of that yesterday), where the thought leaders (for want of a better word, thought might be too generous) of the cohort tend towards the cnutish end of that spectrum.

And in the end, all you can really do is be your best self and hold up your truth as well as your end of the bargain. Being human and vulnerable (tell them when you stuff up or when things are complicated for you) resonates with lots of students, but there will always be some who just want to complain and kick you when you're down. A few bad comments in student feedback totally messes with my head, because I go above and beyond in trying to help - you can't help everyone, and the real cnuts won't ask for help, just complain.

PS alcohol helps. A lot. Getting the right dose for a given situation is the tricky part.

bbp said:

I've loved a few pages of bird love, but I've gotta say, when you find that galah with your son, it's Your job together with your son, to feed and hopefully repair it. Together at your house. That's the magic that heals [censored]. You don't outsource that.
Of course you're not professionals and it might die. But that's also an important lesson in caring.

No.

If I found a person injured the street I’d call the ambulance. If I find an animal I call the vet or the wildlife wizard bloke. That galah deserved better than me who knows [censored] all about galahs. I dunno how them [censored] eat seeds, they don’t have teeth.

EoinC2 said:

In my home office (= spare bedroom), the Zoom backdrop wall includes various photos that are meaningful to me, and a frame that contains the album of the week - that's the one I put in on Monday :-)

Hello! What advice do you have for a beginner? What are the good channels on YouTube are there on this topic

classic1 said:

No.

If I found a person injured the street I’d call the ambulance. If I find an animal I call the vet or the wildlife wizard bloke. That galah deserved better than me who knows [censored] all about galahs. I dunno how them [censored] eat seeds, they don’t have teeth.

Fair enough. I guess I've an unusual country childhood perspective, with father/dad/cnut a poultry farming specialist, but yeah. I dunno if your galah had broken bones, which is vet territory; but still, my favourite childhood memories were not about church, nor discipline, they were about finding fledgelings and feeding them and even taking them to school so as to be able to keep feeding them every hour. The whole class loved it, but that was a primary school with 20something students in the whole school. It'd likely require a risk assessment now. Btw bird fledgeling food was white bread mixed with cow's milk and glycerine. In a teat pipette. It wasn't rocket science. And having a fledgeling maggie become a part of the family, yet free, who would still come back in her adulthood and fly along next to you while you rode to school; and even brought her new wild boyfriend over to meet her old family... it's pretty special, and it likely heals ADHD and a vast variety of a modern child's social dysfunctions. Favourite memories for the rest of both of your lives.

roshea said:

(Echoing Eoin)

I can't add much here, but my one great truth after 10 years of uni teaching is that students are people and they're going to span the whole spectrum of human behaviour, from saints to absolute cnuts. On top of this, there's the groupthink (sounds like you got a dose of that yesterday), where the thought leaders (for want of a better word, thought might be too generous) of the cohort tend towards the cnutish end of that spectrum.

And in the end, all you can really do is be your best self and hold up your truth as well as your end of the bargain. Being human and vulnerable (tell them when you stuff up or when things are complicated for you) resonates with lots of students, but there will always be some who just want to complain and kick you when you're down. A few bad comments in student feedback totally messes with my head, because I go above and beyond in trying to help - you can't help everyone, and the real cnuts won't ask for help, just complain.

PS alcohol helps. A lot. Getting the right dose for a given situation is the tricky part.

Thanks Ross. And Eoin too.
Not sure I remembered you are a Uni teacher? Well done. What faculty?
[censored] yeah about the booze. Cheers.

I think the major difference between my situation and yours is the that my RTO (which I've been at for a few years now) has since developed an insane new Equella assessment method for which every apprentice level Cert3 student must now achieve 100% in every assessment, versus the previous 60% for a pass. WTF? Who expects 100% anywhere? And the [censored] muppets instantly recognise that as stupendously unreasonable, and then stop bothering to try, even the 1st time for each of now 30 odd assessments per semester. But they get 2 goes at everything too, which ahem, means waiting for me to tell them the answers. It's made a mockery of the learning process, and destroyed teacher's job satisfaction while doubling our unpaid marking workload. It's deplorable.
At least the Cert3s can only work for someone else, but it's ruined their respect for the process of learning at this RTO; which was already ruined by high schools which somehow passed them at Year 10 level and pushed them into Trades when they don't even have Year 7 maths. WTF?
But Cert3 students now expect to go straight into Cert4 Plumbing night classes, with the same learned disrespect for the process; which qualification does lead to them getting a Trade license, and the ability to start a business, unleashed on the public with YOU as a potential customer, and many of them have never learnt to learn a [censored] thing.
And for such opinions I am not popular as a teacher even amongst paperwork obsessed teaching Team members. And I struggle to find the value. The motivation. As opposed to the despair, which comes easily, and seems appropriate.

Thank [censored] I get to play God at Cert 4 level still. 60% for exams still, and Design and Size assignments assessed Competent or Not only at my discretion; but I'm passing far less Cert 4 students now, 1st time, 2nd time and unnecesariy even 3rd for the decent ones; and maybe 50% drop out unnecessarily now that the govt has compressed it to 75% of the teaching hours allowed, for the same level of evidence expected, since I started 3 yrs ago.
Ludicrous.
I thoroughly disrespect the system.

On the upside I see a lot of possibly decent [censored] get put in the RTO's skips, and asked my Line Manager if was allowed to lighten the load. Scored a lovely old school NAD amp/receiver with the traditional toroidal transformer. Tore it down, it'd simply had a couple of the input buttons pressed too hard too often; with 2 pressed in at once it didn't work, but a little bit of thinking and some Dremel action on the back of the buttons, it's gold. It's way better than my Rotel, and the Technics or the Pioneer Class A.

bbp said:

Thanks Ross. And Eoin too.
Not sure I remembered you are a Uni teacher? Well done. What faculty?
[censored] yeah about the booze. Cheers.

I teach biology stuff, which I love apart from the excessive admin load. The intellectual freedom is a big plus! New subjects in development at the moment and it's basically up to me to teach and assess how I like. Committees still have to sign off on things, but I'm senior enough and good enough (FIGJAM!) to (mostly) tell them why this is how it's going to happen.

I certainily understand how much more troublesome competency based assessment would be, particularly with the type of kids you'd mostly be dealing with ...

Love me a bit of Neil! And, as I've probably mentioned, a bit of the old Dirty Three. Hence,

(you might want to

if you're just here for singin'😉