The Thread about Nothing....

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'😉

Dear pisspots,

was this a real thing?

love, classic1[ATTACH=full]4689[/ATTACH]

roshea said:

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'😉

I'm happy enough with their instrumentals. 🙂 I've been lucky to have had successful bandmates back in the day, and an introduction to Messers3,Dirty and I was delighted to realise that Jim White was the kindred spirit. The gentleman.
Similar with Cold Chisel, Don Walker is the guy.

After posting the Neil Young stuff, I did a bit of a deep drill into Crosby, Stills, Nash and occasionally Young; and once again realised I feel more affinity with the smarter, decent people than I'd previously expected. Consumption needn't be my defining character, nor affiliation, and the people behind the wild frontman are more likely the compelling ones, even if just for their respect for said frontman, and the energy gained from enjoying the wildman whilst keeping the endeavour viable. Ten or twenty years ago I was more immature, and assumed poorly.

As an aside, I've taken over a class of TVETs, which is Year 12 students who've chosen a Trade as one of their subjects. It's been a delight to meet them at this stage of their lives, 4 hours per week in an unusual campus for them, you don't get all the tools of our workshop at many high schools, which they like; but crucially I've gotten to meet them before my RTO has ruined them. They're malleable, occasionally disrespectful, but bright, energetic, enthusiastic, and also still responsive to criticism. And encouragement.
The world is their oyster. God bless them as a cure to my blight.

As an aside they have a TVET curator, who recently opened my eyes to the possibility of changing faculties. There are many music/production classes I may be able to gain Teaching qualifications in, affordably. That's an angle I need to explore. Job satisfaction FTW.

TVET curator came in this week and a student asked what her name was, and she went into a diatribe, and neither the students nor I understood, until she finally explained that as a red haired woman named Karen, she is also misunderstood. I imagine I eventually understood that better than the TVET lads did. It took a while though.
Moaning. It's endemic.

Sunday afternoon music.

One for Jono.