Teaching is Hard

 ....but rewarding!

Finished my first week in a school. An eye opening one might call it. Teaching is not an easy job, in fact it is probably the least easy job I have ever done. Trying to maintain the right level of challenge, keep the pupils engaged, not lose the slower pupils, not bore the faster pupils, maintain discipline, teach the material in a way they can relate to it, ask questions which tell you how much they actually really understand the topic.... Pretty full on and I imagine easily challenge enough for a few years before it becomes in any way routine or boring.

And the experience? How does it weigh up? The usefulness of my time spent in school? Well, put it this way, I feel like a parched plant enduring a monsoon. With the way my interest in the university side of this course is currently going I think I will have taken more away from a week at school than the rest of the year at university.

I have certainly been privileged to start in a school where essentially 98% of the pupils are motivated and quick to pick up concepts. Bad behaviour and lack of comprehension are so rarely a problem, it feels like working inside some sort of simulation of the ideal school! Compared to the dire predictions of pupil inability and bad attitude handed down at university, the whole experience feels positively surreal. After teaching only 2 lessons I feel as though the first building blocks of good practice are almost settling together.

Had a superb weekend near Dingwall getting some lines done on crags I have admired in the pouring rain before. Glenmarksie Crag turned out to be rather lichenous and seeping somewhat, worth a climb if it was thoroughly cleaned but probably a little overrated. The remaining crags nearby looked pretty grim, too few people in the north of Scotland to keep routes clean. Creag Ghlas on the other hand was superb, a two hour walk in is rewarded with immaculate granite multi-pitch slabs. Regrettably a single route was all we could squeeze in before the rain arrived but this venue is well worth a visit if you fancy a better protected and a bit shorter version of the Etive slabs.

Astonishingly I managed some semblance of a climbing regime through the week, winding up with a quite a destructive bouldering competition at Transition Extreme this evening. I am now physically broken and mentally comatose, so will be taking the sensible option of yet another session tomorrow.... how appalling.

Quick post

Had an amazing episode of selfafirmation yesterday when I basically cruised up an E4. A exception, an undergraded route or a sign of increased performance? Perhaps this weekend will tell. Off to Glenmarksie crag for the first time and perhaps a day on the Moray firth coast, oops, my lift is here o/

End of Silence

What a dramatic title for what is about to be a fairly mundane post. I have not felt particularly psyched to give a blow by blow description of anything I have done in the last while because none of it has been particularly spectacular but I suppose now is as good a time as any to get a load of updates in.

Life has moved on and up... well, geographically that may be true but perhaps sideways would be a more accurate holistic description while downwards would certainly be an apt financial description! I have finished go kart riding for the council in Edinburgh, moved to Aberdeen and commenced my PGDE teaching qualification. So far I think things are going fairly well (though the department is doing their best to expose my weaknesses by providing a forum for discussion of education styles, content, etc. I've never yet managed to use a forum without trolling but I guess now is the time to change that). The course requires 2 days a week of lectures when not on placement but we have been sternly informed that it will be an exhausting year with an epic workload... go figure, I guess.

So far the course seems a bit chaotic and I've started well by rubbing my supervisor/director of studies/lady in charge up the wrong way and possibly irking my classmates with a less than professional attitude. While I'm on the subject of professional attitude in fact, I am confused by the paradoxical attitude of simultaneously encouraging us to, on the one hand, be dynamic and think outside the box and, on the other hand, trying to factory press us into the societal "teacher" mold. First placement in a school is only a week from now and I will be spending my time in a very high achieving and well-to-do school, I'm quite worried about whether I will have the etiquette to blend in.

Transition Extreme is the indoor wall at Aberdeen and is quite a good facility. The routes are certainly interesting and most are quite well set but the numbers and letters written after each bear no resemblance whatsoever to the actual difficulty of the routes. As a consequence or arriving in Aberdeen with zero partners immediately available to climb I found myself contemplating the campus board. After 2 sessions of fairly strenuous contemplation I had managed a 1 2 3 and had a blister and a flapper to show for it. I've now been to the wall a number of times, accrued some partners and had a few outside sessions. The only firsts I can really report are my first Brit tech 6b lead which really doesn't could as I simply reached past the move and my first font 7a boulder problem, which does count wahey! Though as it is a 20 metre long traverse it is rather out left field for the bouldering definition.

Finally, I am off to Spain! This is assuredly for purely professional reasons, I would have severe trouble concentrating on my texts during reading week if I was not reading at the base of a sunny Spanish sport spot.