What a drag!

More about the title later... Koorero mai has a waiata section, which I usually I give scant regard to because apart from loud karaoke songs, I don't like singing much. But recently, while walking home, I have found myself singing them. Maybe they DO have heuristic value.

Anyway, today was another interesting day to be a student-teacher. And part of this is where the title comes in. Suddenly, many of the boys have found the joy is swinging from the arms of the male student teacher in their classroom. I will rein this behaviour in tomorrow. It was fun today though.

One interesting issue with one of the boys, who seemed overtly affectionate to not just me, but about half the boys in the class. He regularly gives me hugs. More shockingly, while sitting on the mat, a boy stood in front of him facing the other way, the boy in question then proceded to lift up the bottom of the other boy's sweatshirt to have a better look at the standing boy's backside. What is more, at times he almost puts his lips close enough to his best mate to almost appear to be kissing him. I chatted with my associate teacher and she just laughed about it a little and then mentioned that it was when his Dad left his mother that these things started to happen. .

Today has also been a landmark as it is the start of REAL work! Tomorrow I will be under the objective eye of my Uni lecturer for at least 20 minutes of teaching (in a lesson where I will be doing an activity that flopped for me on Friday last week). This will be followed by being observed by my associate while I take my first lesson of maths on this practicum with the new format for teaching maths. I will maintain this level of work on Friday. Then prepare for what will be the escalation of work for the next week. I would like to assume control of the class either Wednesday or Thursday next week. That means that I will have to get all these easy things down pat, before adding the harder bits (to be added in the next 4-5 school days) and then putting it all together for 5 consecutive school days (I had to check that word in the dictionary, I wonder why its spelling is not more similar to the root word of consequence).

One important fact that I have neglected to mention in recent blogs is my recent capital investment in my teaching career: A whistle. I have been blowing my own whistle at PE for the last few days.

On the health front, I think my body has warded off a cold before it became symptomatic. My right foot is officially not to be messed with. I am going to treat it like fragile porcelain. It felt alright for almost a week, then last Friday shattered all illusions of a recovery with a terrible walk along Mt Eden Rd. It felt mostly OK this week until yesterday when it was feeling restrictive, and then today my foot slipped off the side of the footpath reigniting pain from the sprain in March (recently the pain was on the other side of my ankle... not the sprain side).