Today was not such a good day. It started out with me behind the computer this morning, frantically devising a lesson for some primary school kids who’ll visit the secondary school I work at. They’ll get the feel of a “big school” and of course the different subjects that are taught there. Among these subjects is English. Naturally, this afternoon is not only organized to benefit the children, but also to promote our school and to enthuse the children for it. I think I ended up with a diversified programme in which I use multimedia and games, and all skills (listening, reading, writing and conversational) will be practiced. On top of that the topic of the lesson (asking for and giving directions) is also very practical and applicable in real life situations. I deserve a medal.
I deserve this.
Then I had to go to Amsterdam for my master’s in education. The first class of the day was Academic Writing. For this lesson we had to prepare an outline for an essay. I’d worked pretty hard on it and was hoping to discuss it in class with my peers. Unfortunately, we started brainstorming about “Compare and contrast Dutch society in 2011 and 1911.” Then we briefly talked about the APA reference system that we are required to use in our essays. I corrected the teacher’s use of this system in two of his examples. I left class without having my outline looked at.
After our supper break, we were required to attend a plenary session of thirty minutes on the “Research Module”. The way to go about this research caused some kind of allergic reaction, because it appeared pretty similar to what I’ve already worked on at my place of employment. When the thirty minutes were over – and one guy in the auditorium had asked where the teacher thought he’d get the time to do this type of research with all the cuts and other tasks on his plate – I made my way to another classroom with my fellow-students of English. Once there I was suddenly confronted with a guy named Dick, who apparently is a 7th (or something) year and only needs to do the research module in order for him to get his diploma. We had to discuss the assessment of writing in a small group and of course he was in mine. The teacher had put some statements and questions on the board that we were supposed to discuss, but neither of my partners talked about any of that instead opting to talk about why Dick didn’t teach writing at the Police Academy. This discussion really got me in a foul mood.
Last but not least we had to listen to our teacher for literature 101, who just goes on and on and gives about fifty examples of one detail. The majority of the students in this class have no idea what they’ll have to do in order to pass this course and he doesn’t make it any clearer for us either, resulting in a frustrated uprising of a large number of us. Tonight I decided to buy a book on literary theory, since I can’t figure out how I am going to write an essay before November 3? I just can’t seem to get my archetypes and character types straight.
On top of this bad day, came a boat load of homework I’ll have to do before Thursday next week. I’m hoping my mood will have been improved by then.
