Well it was a quiet weekend at home, well Noot, Ja and Ben all went out to the village to see their mum. I arrived home on Friday to find Miss Noot had rearranged the house, again. A few times a year Noot decides the house needs to have everything shifted around, and also a good spring clean.
I went over to N-Joy, the local expat bar for a few quiet beers on Saturday evening and also watch the second half of the qualifying final between my team Collingwood and Western Bulldogs in the Australian Rules Football (AFL).
I have always barracked for Collingwood (Magpies) and my father barracks for The Bulldogs. He used to be a Saint Kilda supporter but changed teams a good 8 or 10 years ago I would say after being a lifelong Saint Kilda supporter. Anyway, to dad, I am sorry we flogged you but it was always on the cards.
The few quiet beers turned into a few more than planned and home a little later than I wanted but these things happen. Then on Sunday I had to teach for 3 hours, I am filling in for a lady who left our school going on to much better things for sure. I only have 3 more weeks to go thankfully and then this extra teaching is over and my weekends will be all mine again.
I was going through some folders of pictures, so many I haven’t processed yet, there would be hundreds that need to be deleted and hundreds of others to have some editing done to them and then uploaded to my Flickr account.
It is good to look at some of the old folders as the good memories come back. This is Noot with a little girl called Brogan, who is my mate’s granddaughter at the airport before they flew back to England.
My amazing little girl, Nong Ja my Thai niece in the swimming pool while we were on holiday. She loved swimming everyday. First thing in the morning she wanted to jump into the pool even before breakfast.
I feel a little guilty now looking at the pictures as we haven’t been to a pool locally. The closest she has to a pool is her bath every night. I really have to make more time for her as she loves the water and it is so important no matter where you live that you teach your kids to swim from the youngest of ages.
Another really funny thing on holiday was Ja dancing, when we put the music channel on in the hotel and Ja would cut loose it was often hysterical, especially when she tried to mimic break-dancers.
I am really looking forward to holidays in October, I really need them to refresh the mind, body and soul you could say. It will either be a week at the beach or just in the countryside away from civilisation. I need to get away from school completely.
At school some insanity seems to be building with most of the hierarchy of the school, coming up with ideas that can only be described as totally nonsensical. I can truthfully say I have never worked in a place so mismanaged. Not just this year but my entire time here. I studied management as my major and I am not being rude but some of the people making decisions need to be retired and others who are not qualified or just have no idea on how to manage a department removed, and some fresh young blood, with new ideas that match today’s times given a chance.
These are my views from my eyes, I usually keep well out of anything and just do my job, that being teach the kids best I can and all the office politics go by the wayside. Many things asked of me I ignore if they are not in my broad job description, I am employed to teach the children and not the mountainous pile of crap that continues to grow as time goes by.
I have already made my decision, after October holidays I am not giving the school one more unpaid minute of my time. I will not arrive at the school between 6 - 6.30am anymore. I will arrive just before the 7.45am sign in time. I will leave right on 4pm and not do a single extra thing not related to my job.
The school seem to be trying to just take and take, more and more each week. So many teachers are fed up with it and there are whispers that many will not return next year as they are just so disenchanted or disheartened by it all.
I mean the school cannot seem to grasp of fathom the large teacher turnover. If you were in any field of work where your business was turning over staff at such a rate, you need to start asking many questions to why these people are leaving. Some genuinely leave for legitimate reasons, others because they cannot stop banging their heads against the wall.
A perfect example; I was managing a surf club and I continually had staff requesting to swap shifts when one duty manager was working. I noticed this and I eventually asked some of them why they swapped when this person was the duty manager.
If one person had this problem, it could be a personal thing but when you have 5 or more staff requesting for shift changes bells ring. The problem was addressed and things returned to normal. But action needed to be taken.
Another was complaints from members about one staff member who was continually unhappy, and this could actually be seen in bar taking in the members bars. It seemed if this person was working this bar members brought less drinks from this bar, they either went to the other bar or left earlier than normal.
The staff member was spoken to, the complaints were raised and we tried to find out if there were external problems causing this problem at work or the person was just unhappy with their job. We then had this person trained so that they could work in the poker machine lounge, giving out cash and making the payouts. This job required a lot less personal contact, as in conversations with people. Just a smile and a hello, congratulations and that was about it.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is this. I would be asking many questions as to why the high staff turnover, and then I would be trying to address these problems and keep staff for longer periods of time. Teaching to me is a job where you want students to have familiarity with teachers. Not each year having students return to school and a bunch of new faces, who have different teaching styles, accents, rules, and on the list goes.
But again that is me and the higher beings seem to accept the fact that this happens and is just normal. So they can continue to live on Mars or whatever planet they are on or from and I will dedicate my time and effort to the kids.
Brunty
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