GAIJIN STRATEGIES
CHAPTER ONE
“Fuck it. We’ll go to Yokohama”.
What could we do? We were in Shanghai and had to get out. It was nice enough, fascinating in a cultural exchange kind of way, but I’d exchanged all the culture I wanted to. Time was running out, money was getting tight and we had to get out.
“I thought you said there was a boat going to Hong Kong?” said Ben.
“I thought there was a boat going to Hong Kong”, I said.
“You checked?”
“No, I didn’t check, but I thought there was a boat. I was told there was a boat. What do you want? I was wrong. I thought there was a boat and there isn’t.”
“You thought there was a boat? How did you think there was a boat?”
“Someone told me. They must have cancelled it.”
“According to that bloke in the office there, they cancelled it three years ago.”
“They didn’t cancel it. They just moved it.”
“To Yokohama.”
“Yeah, to Yokohama. It used to go to Hong Kong. Now it goes to Yokohama. That’s where the boat goes now.”
“Oh well. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
“Yeah. Fuck it. Yokohama.”
And that was that. That’s how I ended up in Tokyo. I was going to go to Hong Kong, but the boat changed its mind. One thing I’ve learnt in this game is to keep an open mind. Go with the flow, you know what I mean? When I was younger I used to say that life was like an apple. You’ve got to eat it now. If you keep it, save it, it goes mouldy. And then it’s gone. I said that to someone once. Thought I was being, you know, philosophical. He said “I think life is more like an orange. You've got to peel it before you get to the good bit.” Twat.
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That boat trip was the start of it all. Me and Ben – drifting on the sea heading off to something or other. Me, I’ve gone off travelling because I’m writing a book. Well, starting to write a book. I’ve got a great idea and I just wanted to get away from it all because life was getting too organised and formulaic, but we can get on to all that later.
Anyway, I’ve got an idea for a story. Listen, I thought it was a great idea for a story. Still do. It’s based on a true story, but then again, aren’t they all? It doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. A man, a student, decides to pay his way through college by being a sperm donor. So he gives his sperm and gives his sperm. It’s all good. This bloke – we’ll call him Will – is studying to be a doctor. He’s tall and blond, strong and athletic. The sort of bloke who your mother would want you to marry. This guy offers his sperm and it goes to the top of the sperm charts. He’s the perfect physical speciment.
But he’s got a secret, a secret even he doesn’t know. He (and here we’ve got to work on this a bit) has got a madness, a psychopathic madness – a congenital psychopathic madness.
Anyway, many years – well, maybe 10 years – down the line, Susan is having trouble with her daughter Molly. Molly is very bright, but she’s got an evil streak, a mean side to her that’s a little bit disturbed. And Susan doesn’t know what to do. She can’t ask her partner because she doesn’t have a partner. She never has had. A few lost loves, the usual catalogue of losers and chancers, nearlys and almosts. When Susan was 31, she met the man of her life, the Big Love. But – and we don’t need to go into the detail here – he was a twat, a lying, cheating, no-good dirty low-down hound dog. He wrecked her life and she swore – she absolutely swore – never to fall for a man again. She’d have a baby.
Anyway, back to the main story. Susan tries all sorts of things and, in the end, she goes to a parent-child therapy class because – obviously, she thinks that it’s all her fault. While she’s there, she meets another woman, like her the mother of a 10 year old girl. They start talking.
Can you guess where this one’s going? OK, let’s spell it out a bit more.
This other woman, her story is remarkably similar to Susan. She’s a lesbian but, that apart, it’s the same. Lost love, disappointment, betrayal. Refuge sought in a baby. Her baby is basically a good kid, but has got an evil streak. The same evil streak as Molly.
Now you know what’s going to happen. They start talking, they realise they both got pregnant after going to sperm donor centre in Eastbourne. Now then – this is the next question: how many other babies were born between 1980 and 1985?
So OK. That’s the pitch. It’s like a cross between The Boys From Brazil and maybe The Midwitch Cuckoos.
How many are there? Does something happen to them to ‘kick-start’ the inner madness that propels them? Shall we turn them into an army?
So anyway, I was sitting on the deck of this boat, it’s the middle of the night, dark and empty, just me and the night and the sea, and I’m thinking about the story – when the calm is disturbed by this couple. A big English bloke and his Israeli girlfriend. They were going at it big time, tearing into each other.
But then they saw us and found what they were looking for: an audience. We started talking, just passing the time. When I say, we started talking what I mean is he started talking. I started listening. Most of the time I didn’t know whether to interrupt or applaud, like I was at a show or something.
Always, there are two ways of looking at things. I could say that we met this bloke from south London on the boat who was off his tits and he read us this poem he’d written as a response to Paradise Lost. I can’t remember exactly now. He was the Devil or he was Milton and… Or I can tell you the more interesting version.
I didn’t know it at the time, but he was The One. I only met him for a brief time and I doubt that he even knew my name, but Graham was that person, and who changed my life. Graham Gaskin – and you can look his name up because this is all true – was there just at the right time and the right place to completely throw my life off course.
We’ve all got one, the person who changes everything. I’m writing this book about all that at the moment called The Nazi & The Jew about a young middle class Jewish man who, through a series of strange, some might say unfortunate, circumstances, finds himself in jail. At first he’s told that it’s all going to be OK, that it’s a single cell and he’ll be out soon enough. He’s scared by at least he’s by himself and then…. Late at night the door opens and in walks in a prisoner officer. The screw explains that the prison’s over-crowded and that Aaron, the Jewish bloke, is going to have to share. In walks in Razor, all shaved head and tattoos, a Nazi who’s one of the top figures in Combat 18, the psycho military wing of the British fascists, gangland figure and general Nazi nutter and Aaron’s worst nightmare. The cell door bangs shut and there they are, alone together.
What happens to them, how they get on, that’s the story. It’s part Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, part humanist tale and it will be a huge hit, a big seller made into a feature with Tom Cruise, but that’s for later. The important thing here is the bit about meeting a person who changes your life. That strange conjunction of place and time and people.
Anyway, we’re standing on the deck of this boat going to Yokohama and it’s the middle of the night. A beautiful night. And there’s this bloke giving us this rant about Milton and Paradise Lost. He could have been 25 or 35. Big build, longish hair, nondescript clothes. Jeans, t-shirt, that kind of thing. He was good-looking, but rough. Like he’d been away too long. And God knows where he’d been away to. Wherever it was, it hadn’t been in the Style supplement and it hadn’t been featured on the ad breaks in How To Look Good Naked. I’d gone away looking for something different and this, this was something different.
“Tokyo, huh. Fuckin place Tokyo. A zoo. Full of hooligans and fuckin Japs. You got a story going on there or what?”
Meeting this bloke, I was part thrilled, part terrified. Part of me was thinking “How cool. I go away, looking for an adventure and in the first half hour I meet my very own Dean Moriarty, some wild spirited free thing with energy to burn and a soul on fire”. The other part of me – the middle class, middle aged bloke who drives a Volvo and knows his National Insurance number off by heart – is frankly terrified and wants this bloody idiot to just go away. He was at best boorish and at worst dangerous. No, he was definitely dangerous.
“No, no story. No story and no idea” I said. And explained. “I was supposed to be going to Hong Kong. I had a job on a newspaper there, the South Morning Post, I think it’s called, but then the boat to Hong Kong stopped two years ago and the only boat now went to Yokohama and…” Even as I said it, it sounded rubbish. God knows what it sounded like to him, but it was the story.
“And you?” Graham said to Ben.
“And me” said Ben. “I’m just along for the ride.” You don’t trust this, do you, I thought to myself. Probably not a bad call.
“Sounds to me” said Graham “you’re gonna some dosh. Tokyo’s no place to be skint”. Then came the good bit.
“You wanna make a bit of cash? Easy money.”
Me, I was already suspicious. Ben was more interested. “Go on” he said.
Graham smiled at Ronit and then at us. He made a big dramatic looking around gesture – like he needed to. It was the middle of the night and we were on the deck of a boat. It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus.
He opened his bag and pulled out a pair of shoes which were about three sizes too big – and smiled. The significance was lost on me. I just thought it was odd.
“You’re a shoe salesman?”
“Something like that” said Graham and reached down into his bag again. After doing the dramatic looking around bit again – there’s nothing like milking the moment and Graham, a performer at heart, knew how to do that – he produced an inner sole which was about an inch thick and covered in thick cling film. Me and Ben might have been at the start of the story and about as worldly as a new born seal cub, but I knew what Graham was holding. Dope. Compressed dope. Moroccan.
He put the inner sole inside the shoe. “All you’ve got to do is walk. You ain’t got a problem walking, have you?”
No one said anything. I didn’t say anything. Ben didn’t say anything. The Israeli girl – Ronit – she didn’t say anything either.
“Look” said Graham, “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve got three shoes and” – and he pointed down at his feet – “only two feet”.
No one said anything.
“I mean I’ve got three fucking soles. I can put two in my shoes, but I need someone else to go through with the other one. Just wear the shoes, walk through and I’ll give you a grand. Easy. Listen” he looked directly at me. “It’ll sort you out on Tokyo, get you started. Otherwise you’re gonna be in right shit, believe me”.
I remember looking at Graham and seeing all these Japanese war films in my head, sadistic guards beating people up – “Ve hav vays of making you tok!” OK, that’s a German war film, but you know what I mean. Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. Melly Chlistmas Mr Rawrence.
He’s going to walk through customs at Yokohama with these clowns shoes that are way too big and sell this lot in Tokyo. A lunatic.
I declined. Polite, of course, but firm. “Sorry, mate. I just haven’t got the nerve for that sort of thing”. Ben was tempted, I could see Ben was tempted. I could see all sorts of things. Like… Ben fancied Ronit and was showing off and I was thinking that on the list of bad ideas, flirting with Graham’s woman was off the scale.
Ben declined. Thank fuck for that.
“Look. OK, you ain’t done anything like this before but it’s OK. The Japs don’t do anything. All you’ve gotta be is polite and smile, that’s all. It’s what they do and it’s what they want us to do. You can call them anything, do anything but as long as you’re polite, it’s OK. You’ve got to remember, they think we’re some kind of dirty sub species anyway. They don’t expect anything proper.”
Nothing.
“Nah, no sweat” said Graham, “I’ll sort it”. Did he say that a bit too easily? There was an alarm going off in my head somewhere but I didn’t hear it. This bloke – who I’d already decided was trouble – had taken us into his confidence, shown us his inner sole – inner soul? Oh never mind – and made himself really vulnerable. And he’d let it go with “Nah, no sweat. I’ll sort it”. I wasn’t so much fresh off the boat. I was still on the boat.
I didn’t think any more of it at the time, though later on someone – Brad the Canadian, I think – told me that Graham’s usual trick was to hide the dope in some poor unsuspecting bastard’s back pack, let them take it through customs – and then steal the bag from them on the other side when they’d got through. Didn’t do anything like that with us. Don’t know why. Maybe he liked us. God knows.
We sat up the rest of the night, the four of us, smoking a bit while Graham told us stories about how he’d paid for the trip by blackmailing an MP he’d had a fling with. “I’m gonna write it all down and make it into a TV film. Those bastards won’t forget about me”. All I remember thinking was “Why are you telling us this?” Whatever. Back then I was so naïve about this lark I’d have believed anything. The last thing I suspected was that it was all true – but sometimes the last place you suspect is the first place you should look.
Customs was a joy. Graham insisted on walking through with us, talking to us and laughing all the way. The Japanese were pretty much like he said – they looked at us like we were slightly dirty, like they just hoped we’d go away. Curiously, it was kinda how I felt about Graham. But they humoured us and let us in.
We got through. I was terrified. He didn’t seem to give a toss. But we got through. Looking back, I don’t know why I was terrified – that business of dropping the dope in someone else’s backpack hadn’t occurred to me at all – that kind of thinking was completely off my radar. Maybe it was some kinda instinct thing. We got through.
Tokyo. We were in Tokyo. I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Tokyo. That was amazing. A month ago I was in London and now I was in Tokyo. Well, I was on a train going to Tokyo. Just me. And Ben. And Graham. And Ronit.
It was a strange journey, didn’t take long and to be honest I can’t remember much about it. I remember Graham rolling one his trouser legs up and revealing an inner sole gaffer taped to his leg. I remember that. I also remember him asking us where we were going to stay.
“I dunno” said Ben. “Some hotel in town. We’ll ask around, maybe go to tourist info or something, and find something for a few days and…”
“Like fuck you will. You’re coming with us. You ever heard of the Palace?”
“The palace?”
“The Maharajah Palace. That’s where we’re going.”
We’re going to Tokyo and we’re going to stay in The Maharajah Palace. You’ve gotta laugh. There’s a kind of inconsistency there that appealed. If I’d have thought of Tokyo and play some sort of word association game, I’d have come up with words like hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again. I’m not sure the words maharajah and palace would have come up in the top 100.
OK. Let’s turn it round the other way. If the words Maharajah Palace don’t make you think of hi-tech, shiny, electronic, space age, digital and maybe electronic again Tokyo, what did they make you think of? Opulence. Grandeur. Exotic baubles, rubies and emeralds and gold, great swathes of elaborately embroidered cloth, shimmering with their gaudiness. Probably not rusty corrugated metal and ramshackle wood. Probably not some pre-fab held up by its own indecision as to which bit should collapse first. If I’d have seen the place – regardless of where it was – I don’t think I’d have been helped. If I’d have seen the place I might have come up with Large Garden Shed. Or Decrepit Old Shack. Or Complete Fucking Dump. Maharajah Palace. It was probably funny once.
The Palace was a zoo. Well, not even a zoo. In a zoo, the animals have some kind of morality. In the Palace… that very concept was kinda dubious.
If you were the romantic type, you might say it was a rogue’s gallery. If you were a realist, you might want to move to somewhere a bit more hi-tech and shiny. Me, I thought it was charming.
It had the air of a hideaway, a place where people were… well, not exactly on the run. That’s a bit too pulp fiction, a bit too romantic, but it was definitely somewhere that felt outside the boundaries, somewhere the normal rules didn’t apply. There were probably other rules that applied.
A few years later, I was hanging out with a Norwegian girl there. I remember talking to her and a bloke called Mark, who the house doctor at the time. Elke was a sweetie, a poppet, but she was very clean living and fresh. It wasn’t so much that she was naïve, it was just that she hadn’t really considered the options before.
“How many people here take drugs?” she said to Mark.
Mark thought a bit. And then he looked at her. He didn’t really need to say anything but she knew.
“Everyone?”
Still he didn’t say anything.
“Everyone except me?”
Mark gave her some rabbit about how she was beautiful and pure and different and that’s what made her special, but she was lost in thought.
Like I say, she hadn’t really considered her options. It didn’t take her long to re-adjust, but that’s another story.
Poppy
Thursday 15 October 2009
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Jayne Warburton
WHERE HAVE I BEEN? WHERE AM I NOW?
Jayne Warburton was short and slim. She had thick brown hair cut short and slim. She was very bright and we used to talk about all sorts of things. Well, we did until I told her that I fancied the pants off her and after that we used to sit around in embarrassed silence. I remember one night when I decided to overcome my shyness and that the best way to do that was to neck a bag of speed. Not much changed. Jane sat around in embarrassed silence. I chewed the inside of my mouth off, climbed the walls and tapped my leg in furious but still embarrassed silence.
We still hung out together, but it was never the same. Eventually we drifted apart, me to Catherine, her to Liz. Liz was also short and slim with thick brown hair cut short and slim and my mate Mick fancied the pants off her. That also went well.
I’m not sure I can remember a lot more about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, the Afflecks Palace, that club, what was it called? Gas Panic? Or was that the one in Tokyo? Doesn’t really matter.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers. (Mick told me a few weeks ago that one of our lecturers was called Phil Mole. “Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever).
I could tell you about Catherine and Jayne and Liz and Mick and seeing Joy Division and New Order’s first gig and meeting Tony Wilson, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. I could tell you about my formal education – eight O levels, three A levels and a degree. I went to Polytechnic. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and completely lacking in any substance, but more than that I liked the way it wasn’t a university. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – but I genuinely liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special. I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does. In the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university, but by then I didn’t care.
A life spent in educational institutions until the age of 23 – but what did I learn there? In truth, when I look back I think I learned nothing. OK, that’s not true. I learned loads, but all of it was about life. I can’t remember a single academic thing. Not one essay I wrote, not one theory I spewed in and out.
That’s where I have been. Would I do anything different now? Of course, but that’s not the point. It’s all learning. Whether you like it or not, it’s all learning. From the moment you lift your head from the pillow to the moment you lay your head down you are learning. Everything you do in life is about learning. I’m not sure you can do anything without learning from it, whether consciously or unconsciously. Whether you take it on or not, that’s a different thing. And that’s what takes us to the where I am now. I’m Phil Mole.
When I started teaching at Brighton University, that experience in Manchester was invaluable. It was probably – no, definitely – more useful to me than it would have been if I’d have been able to remember what it was Weber said to Durkheim or whatever Derrida’s theories really meant. All that’s useful but what Manchester really told me was that – and this really quite upsetting – my mother was right. You get out what you put in. It’s about passion, about excitement, about enthusiasm – and that’s for both sides of the equation, the people who are teaching and the people who are learning. It’s up to the teacher to make his class swing. That I got nothing out of my class is just as much Phil Mole’s fault as mine. I was absent most of the time, but he should have made his class the hottest ticket in town.
Am I Phil Mole? Is my class the hottest ticket? Maybe. Probably not, but I think knowing it should be is the first step. Learning - education is important. Of course it is. Just like the shark moving forward, you never stop learning. And we all know what happened to the shark that stopped moving forward. Our job is to make that learning as exciting as meeting Jayne Warburton in the bar.
Jayne Warburton was short and slim. She had thick brown hair cut short and slim. She was very bright and we used to talk about all sorts of things. Well, we did until I told her that I fancied the pants off her and after that we used to sit around in embarrassed silence. I remember one night when I decided to overcome my shyness and that the best way to do that was to neck a bag of speed. Not much changed. Jane sat around in embarrassed silence. I chewed the inside of my mouth off, climbed the walls and tapped my leg in furious but still embarrassed silence.
We still hung out together, but it was never the same. Eventually we drifted apart, me to Catherine, her to Liz. Liz was also short and slim with thick brown hair cut short and slim and my mate Mick fancied the pants off her. That also went well.
I’m not sure I can remember a lot more about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, the Afflecks Palace, that club, what was it called? Gas Panic? Or was that the one in Tokyo? Doesn’t really matter.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers. (Mick told me a few weeks ago that one of our lecturers was called Phil Mole. “Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever).
I could tell you about Catherine and Jayne and Liz and Mick and seeing Joy Division and New Order’s first gig and meeting Tony Wilson, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. I could tell you about my formal education – eight O levels, three A levels and a degree. I went to Polytechnic. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and completely lacking in any substance, but more than that I liked the way it wasn’t a university. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – but I genuinely liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special. I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does. In the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university, but by then I didn’t care.
A life spent in educational institutions until the age of 23 – but what did I learn there? In truth, when I look back I think I learned nothing. OK, that’s not true. I learned loads, but all of it was about life. I can’t remember a single academic thing. Not one essay I wrote, not one theory I spewed in and out.
That’s where I have been. Would I do anything different now? Of course, but that’s not the point. It’s all learning. Whether you like it or not, it’s all learning. From the moment you lift your head from the pillow to the moment you lay your head down you are learning. Everything you do in life is about learning. I’m not sure you can do anything without learning from it, whether consciously or unconsciously. Whether you take it on or not, that’s a different thing. And that’s what takes us to the where I am now. I’m Phil Mole.
When I started teaching at Brighton University, that experience in Manchester was invaluable. It was probably – no, definitely – more useful to me than it would have been if I’d have been able to remember what it was Weber said to Durkheim or whatever Derrida’s theories really meant. All that’s useful but what Manchester really told me was that – and this really quite upsetting – my mother was right. You get out what you put in. It’s about passion, about excitement, about enthusiasm – and that’s for both sides of the equation, the people who are teaching and the people who are learning. It’s up to the teacher to make his class swing. That I got nothing out of my class is just as much Phil Mole’s fault as mine. I was absent most of the time, but he should have made his class the hottest ticket in town.
Am I Phil Mole? Is my class the hottest ticket? Maybe. Probably not, but I think knowing it should be is the first step. Learning - education is important. Of course it is. Just like the shark moving forward, you never stop learning. And we all know what happened to the shark that stopped moving forward. Our job is to make that learning as exciting as meeting Jayne Warburton in the bar.
A very long entry - but it seemed to fit
EVALUATE YOUR TEACHING
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans” – John Lennon.
It’s a curious thing. During the period between thinking about this piece and writing it, I saw a film that struck a chord. An unusually staged, wordy film, one of the characters was a teacher – an American political science professor (played by Robert Redford, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and brown cord jacket) – who was wrestling with both his role as a teacher and his own sense of purpose. It was all about the choices we make, the impact our decisions have on others, the line we draw in the sand.
Without regurgitating the script, the teacher had arranged to meet a talented but lazy student at 7.30am in his office to talk about why the student had drifted away. How he persuaded a lazy student to come in at 7.30am… is a different question. Anyway.
They sat and talked about life and what it’s for, about the role of the individual in society, about contribution and symbiosis. He didn’t so much haul him over the coals as talk to him about life and responsibility, accountability and maturity. Being a grown up in a society that wasn’t. They talked, they cried, they drank product-placement coffee, they agreed and disagreed and agreed again. Like I say, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and cord jacket.
The teacher was a mentor, a brother, a parent, a friend. He was the student’s inspiration, his conscience. It was, of course, a hugely idealised picture – it’s Hollywood, what do you want? - but it did set me thinking. What am I doing? Should I be like that?
Moving swiftly away from the idea of what my students might say if I suggested meeting at 7.30am - and moving even faster away from the idea of getting a cord jacket and blue denim shirt – what was there to learn? Maybe it was time to evaluate my teaching.
"Evaluation is not at heart about collecting evidence to justify oneself, nor about measuring the relative worth of courses and teachers. It is about coming to understand teaching in order to improve student learning."
(Ramsden 1992)
A year ago, the idea of writing a piece entitled “Evaluate Your Teaching” would have been ridiculous. A letter sent to the wrong address. I was a writer, a freelance writer. I’d done a bit of guest lecturing, but that was different. That’s performance. You go in, give a bit show, tell a few war stories and waltz off clutching a cheque. I was, to use a word that has suddenly entered my world, a practitioner. But that was then.
Now I’m a full time lecturer. Not only that, I’m also a student – and that truly is an irony - doing a course called something like How To Become A Proper Teacher and I’m writing an essay about what it’s like to be a teacher. How can I evaluate my teaching if I’m not a teacher? What do you mean I’m a teacher? When did that happen? How did that happen?
A Period Of Self-Reflection
And you may ask yourself “Well...How did I get here?”
I never really intended for this to happen. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself “Jed, it’s time to give something back. It’s time to become a teacher”. What happened was this: I woke up one morning and the phone rang. And then I became a teacher. A part-time teacher – a “point five” – for three months.
There was no training, no explanation, no nothing. Just “You start at 10am. They’re second years, you’ll be fine”. It was all true. We did start at 10am, they were second years and I was fine.
I always tell my students “It’s OK. Go ahead and think about career plans and structures and have a goal in mind, but the reality is that you’ll go where the wind blows you, that opportunities will come from the most unexpected sources’. And they all look at me.
Well, my wind blew me to Eastbourne. And – a year later - I’m a full-time permanent member of staff with a pension and a purple car sticker.
I can laugh to myself at all this and stroke my beard and play “I’m a professor” and all that, but to the students this is real. And if it’s real to them, then it’s real to me and it’s time to evaluate my teaching.
The first question is this: Am I a lecturer or a teacher? Give up. No idea. Is there a difference? No idea. Am I a lecturer? God no. The idea that I’m one of those people who stand in front of a lectern in a hall, talking with the aid of maybe Powerpoint presentations of, at least, an overhead projector… Not a chance. Do I teach? Well, I hope so, but I’m not sure that’s the biggest part of it.
I teach the students in the same way that I teach my kids: I tell them about life, about what I’ve learned about life.
A lot of the time I try to be a mixture between Robert Redford (with a few superficial but not, to me, insignificant differences) and a best mate. I was the first lecturer at my School to have a Facebook account, I’m the only lecturer to get invited to their parties. I’m the one who plays Scrabulous online with them.
What I Want
I went to college in Manchester. There were many reasons why I went there. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and lacking in any substance. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – and I liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special.
I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does when, in the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university. By then I didn’t care.
I’m not sure I can remember much about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Mick, Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, Gas Panic, the Afflecks Palace.
I was, very probably, the worst student in the world. I could get a place on the new ITV show Celebrity Worst Student In The World if there was such a show. Or I was a celebrity. I never went to class, never did what I was supposed to do.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers.
I’m still in touch with Mick, so I called him up. We spoke. I explained my situation and he told me about one of our lecturers called Phil Mole.
“Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever.
“Phil Mole. He…. Had a beard.”
In a sense, I want to be Phil Mole, but I want to be more than that. Phil was good enough to enthuse the second worst student in class. I want to be Phil Mole plus one.
Can I Do It?
It’s all very well wanting to be that Hollywood archetype, the inspiring teacher, but outside of The Dead Poets Society, can it happen?
As part of this course, we are supposed to do a “peer observation” where our teaching is observed and we observe someone else’s teaching. Naturally, we observed each other. The Wisconsin Peer Review website talks about peer review and how it can be done. However… as chance would have it one of the other ‘students’ on this course is not only a fellow Sport Journalism lecturer at Chelsea, but also an old mate.
“Jed’s personal touch was apparent from the outset, the rapport he has with the students admirable and palpable. He creates a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning and working.
At the start of the session he set the students a task – previewing a football match for a tabloid newspaper and supplying the headline and photo, via Quark Express. The idea of the preview actually came from a student, which demonstrated Jed’s willingness to respond to the class’s desires and hence make the work more suitable. This type of exercise brings them a taste of life in a busy newsroom. The fact that they had only 45 minutes to complete the task gave it an added element of verisimilitude.
Jed’s explanation of what was required was clear and precise. He used large screens at either end of the newsroom (which was packed) to demonstrate what was wanted, resisted overburdening the class with theory, asked if there were any questions, then left the students to their own devices. This in turn meant that he could go round to each student in turn to find out how they were getting on, clarify any issues and give pertinent tips. In turn, the students were not in the least disruptive, and simply got on with their work.
Overall, I felt that this was an ideal approach to the subject. It struck a balance between instruction, practical application, flexibility and professional relevance.”
That was, I felt, a fair appraisal. It was also what I would have wanted to hear. I’m sure that, for the most part, my lectures aren’t a chore. I’m sure that, of all their lectures, mine aren’t the ones they dread.
Hounsell (2003), Gibbs and Habeshaw (1988) and University of Kent (2004) outline a range of ideas for getting feedback from students. My feedback has come from rather more unorthodox routes, but I feel that they are just as valid – if not more so.
When my initial part time contract ended, I had to re-apply for the permanent position. I applied, got short-listed and had an interview. It was then that I found out that the students had signed a petition asking that I be given the job.
The M&E (Module and Evaluation) forms that the students fill in at the end of the year were positive, too. These forms – written anonymously, supposedly unseen by lecturers – are the nearest thing the students have to a right of reply. I skirted the rules and had a look and, generally, the students were very positive.
Further evidence that the students like my classes came last week. A senior lecturer appeared in my course leaders office, face like thunder. In his hand he had a piece of paper with a list of names of students who had repeatedly been missing his classes. “What’s happened to these students?” he demanded to know. “Have they left?”
I was a little embarrassed – and OK, a little smug – to explain that they were all in the newsroom writing a paper for me as we spoke.
But Is It Any Good?
So OK, great. We get on and they like me. It might even mean that maybe – just maybe – I might get to be their Phil Mole. But does that mean my lectures are any good? Does all that mean though that my lectures are the ones that are the most use? That’s a different question.
The communication part of the job is, for me, easy Chatting and getting on with people. The subject matter also makes it easy. I teach News Writing, Advanced Sports Journalism and Multi Media Journalism. These are the practical modules, the ones where students get to do the things that they signed up to do back when they were school kids. We watch football matches and write match reports – not hard work, whichever way you bend it
We talk, we chat, we play. To use the student word of the moment, we banter. We make fun of each other, we tease each other. I make fun of their shoes, they make fun of mine. I don’t know if what I do is any good.
I never formally trained to be a teacher. I never even gave it any thought. It was all
“Here are the keys to the car. Off you go”.
“Lovely, thanks. What are those pedals for?”
Whoooosshhhh. Crrrrrraaaaassssshhhhhh.
“Oh, I see. That’s what happens when you do that.”
I made it up as I went along. I had – I have – the advantage of teaching something that I’ve spent the best part of 20 years doing, so I know the subject. What I don’t know – or what I’m not sure about – is how to teach.
Going back to the Redford film, it showed the bright but lazy student in the first year when he was simply a bright student. We saw Redford giving a lecture about drug addicts and talking about clinics where junkies could be given methodone to help them with their addiction. This was held up as the action of a responsible, caring society. All the students nodded in agreement. All except the bright student who said “That’s ridiculous. You might as well have state-sponsored drunkard’s lanes on the highways!” Apart from the fact that it’s a fantastically stupid thing to say and if this was an example of the bright student’s brightness then God help the stupid students…
Anyway. It was what followed that struck me. There was a vigorous, discussion where students were engaged with each other and the subject. People were getting angry, throwing opinions around, caring, being erudite, informed, passionate.
Would anything like that happen in one of my classes? Hang about a minute – I’ll go and ask that pig flying past the window.
The Other Stuff
I heard someone – a quite senior lecturer – say the other day “This job would be easy if it wasn’t for the students”. It was possibly meant as a joke, but then again… possibly not. I feel completely the opposite. It’s the other stuff - the stuff that happens around the students – that weighs heavy.
Marking weighs me down .I’m not experienced enough to do it quickly – to drive through the shortcuts – and so it takes a ridiculously long time. So I don’t get enough done. And the more I don’t get enough done… the further behind I fall. The students see this and, while we get round it because we’re mates an have a laugh, it’s not as good as it should be. Again, it cuts both ways. I know at I put a lot more into my work than others, but because I haven’t been doing this very long and I’m still writing my lecture notes as I’m going along and… and… and… it takes me a long time.
The consequence is that I don’t give things enough time – because there isn’t enough time. I don’t give individuals enough time. I don’t give this course enough time.
While a lot of that is down to time management and recognising how long things take – something that only experience tells us - there’s a more fundamental truth going on, too. I’m a journalism lecturer and, a lot of the time, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’m marking. OK, there are a group of students who, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to write a shopping list. “Is that really how you spell carrot?” But mostly, it’s OK. What they do is OK.
I’ve always been of the opinion that writing is an expressive form and that the right to say “This is good but that’s bad” is a dubious right at best. Clearly, the way that I write is best but to question – or worse, mark down – Student A because he or she doesn’t write or phrase things like I might is plain daft.
There’s a clear chasm between “that’s good” and “that’s no good”, but outside that? It’s a tough call. So I make up the difference by trying to inspire them. For example, there has recently been a Radio 4 series about newspapers, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I taped the shows, talked to the students about them and made the tapes available. Understanding the context, the history, the famous names… it’s all part of the job but at the same time, it’s not something that anyone else does.
It also bothers me that I’ve never been taught to be a teacher. Before I started this job… we’re going back a few years. I know how to write a feature, but do I know why I do what I do? Mostly I just do it. One of the modules I teach – multi-media – I’m only marginally more enlightened than the students. And even that’s not always true.
What helps me is that I have a credibility in their eyes in that I’ve been where they want to go, I’ve done what they want to do, I’ve been a successful sports journalist.
Conclusion - Where Do We Go From Here?
When I came to prepare for this essay, I gathered a number of evaluative documents regarding my course, for example Module Reports, an External Examiner’s Report and an Academic Health Report for both my area (Sport and Leisure Cultures) and the Chelsea School.
Hounsell (2003) points to four forms of feedback – self-generated, from students, from colleagues and incidental, which refers to other factors such as attendance. I feel I’ve dealt with all these forms, albeit in a discursive way, and feel that my teaching is improving as a result.
It’s a curious thing, but the process of this PgCLTHE course has also helped enormously. I got to know other lecturers from other schools and others disciplines and it was a fantastic relief to find out that, by and large, we were all concerned about the same things. Same things, different names.
While I’m still a long way from the Robert Redford character in that film – the inspiring mentor, the wise elder statesman, the cross between a teacher and a parent and a mate and a lover – I feel that I’m getting there.
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans” – John Lennon.
It’s a curious thing. During the period between thinking about this piece and writing it, I saw a film that struck a chord. An unusually staged, wordy film, one of the characters was a teacher – an American political science professor (played by Robert Redford, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and brown cord jacket) – who was wrestling with both his role as a teacher and his own sense of purpose. It was all about the choices we make, the impact our decisions have on others, the line we draw in the sand.
Without regurgitating the script, the teacher had arranged to meet a talented but lazy student at 7.30am in his office to talk about why the student had drifted away. How he persuaded a lazy student to come in at 7.30am… is a different question. Anyway.
They sat and talked about life and what it’s for, about the role of the individual in society, about contribution and symbiosis. He didn’t so much haul him over the coals as talk to him about life and responsibility, accountability and maturity. Being a grown up in a society that wasn’t. They talked, they cried, they drank product-placement coffee, they agreed and disagreed and agreed again. Like I say, all warm liberalism, blue denim shirt and cord jacket.
The teacher was a mentor, a brother, a parent, a friend. He was the student’s inspiration, his conscience. It was, of course, a hugely idealised picture – it’s Hollywood, what do you want? - but it did set me thinking. What am I doing? Should I be like that?
Moving swiftly away from the idea of what my students might say if I suggested meeting at 7.30am - and moving even faster away from the idea of getting a cord jacket and blue denim shirt – what was there to learn? Maybe it was time to evaluate my teaching.
"Evaluation is not at heart about collecting evidence to justify oneself, nor about measuring the relative worth of courses and teachers. It is about coming to understand teaching in order to improve student learning."
(Ramsden 1992)
A year ago, the idea of writing a piece entitled “Evaluate Your Teaching” would have been ridiculous. A letter sent to the wrong address. I was a writer, a freelance writer. I’d done a bit of guest lecturing, but that was different. That’s performance. You go in, give a bit show, tell a few war stories and waltz off clutching a cheque. I was, to use a word that has suddenly entered my world, a practitioner. But that was then.
Now I’m a full time lecturer. Not only that, I’m also a student – and that truly is an irony - doing a course called something like How To Become A Proper Teacher and I’m writing an essay about what it’s like to be a teacher. How can I evaluate my teaching if I’m not a teacher? What do you mean I’m a teacher? When did that happen? How did that happen?
A Period Of Self-Reflection
And you may ask yourself “Well...How did I get here?”
I never really intended for this to happen. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself “Jed, it’s time to give something back. It’s time to become a teacher”. What happened was this: I woke up one morning and the phone rang. And then I became a teacher. A part-time teacher – a “point five” – for three months.
There was no training, no explanation, no nothing. Just “You start at 10am. They’re second years, you’ll be fine”. It was all true. We did start at 10am, they were second years and I was fine.
I always tell my students “It’s OK. Go ahead and think about career plans and structures and have a goal in mind, but the reality is that you’ll go where the wind blows you, that opportunities will come from the most unexpected sources’. And they all look at me.
Well, my wind blew me to Eastbourne. And – a year later - I’m a full-time permanent member of staff with a pension and a purple car sticker.
I can laugh to myself at all this and stroke my beard and play “I’m a professor” and all that, but to the students this is real. And if it’s real to them, then it’s real to me and it’s time to evaluate my teaching.
The first question is this: Am I a lecturer or a teacher? Give up. No idea. Is there a difference? No idea. Am I a lecturer? God no. The idea that I’m one of those people who stand in front of a lectern in a hall, talking with the aid of maybe Powerpoint presentations of, at least, an overhead projector… Not a chance. Do I teach? Well, I hope so, but I’m not sure that’s the biggest part of it.
I teach the students in the same way that I teach my kids: I tell them about life, about what I’ve learned about life.
A lot of the time I try to be a mixture between Robert Redford (with a few superficial but not, to me, insignificant differences) and a best mate. I was the first lecturer at my School to have a Facebook account, I’m the only lecturer to get invited to their parties. I’m the one who plays Scrabulous online with them.
What I Want
I went to college in Manchester. There were many reasons why I went there. I left Sixth Form College with my A levels and went up to Manchester and went to Manchester Polytechnic. I quite liked the word. Polytechnic. It sounded modern and meaningless, shiny and lacking in any substance. If it had any meaning it was in defining what it wasn’t rather than what it was: it wasn’t a university. That’s what a polytechnic was, not a university. In a sense it fitted in with my story at the time - the playful inverted snob – and I liked the way it meant that I wasn’t like those people, those people who talked about “going to university” as if it was something special.
I didn’t go to Manchester because of anything special. I went to Manchester because I wanted to see The Fall and Joy Division and I didn’t want to go to work. I went to Manchester because they offered me a place. I went to Manchester because I could. Life had its revenge later as it does when, in the early 1990s, Manchester Polytechnic became a university. By then I didn’t care.
I’m not sure I can remember much about college. Philip Morris, who had a motorbike and used to come round to our house all the time. Mick, Roy, the Welsh punk who, according to Friends Reunited now lives in Perth, Australia. Sarah, Paul Tomlin, Peter Monteith, Gas Panic, the Afflecks Palace.
I was, very probably, the worst student in the world. I could get a place on the new ITV show Celebrity Worst Student In The World if there was such a show. Or I was a celebrity. I never went to class, never did what I was supposed to do.
I studied – and I use that word with my tongue so far in my cheek it’s licking my ear – Politics and Sociology, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it now. I couldn’t tell you anything that I did, anything I wrote, anything I read. I couldn’t even tell you the names of my lecturers.
I’m still in touch with Mick, so I called him up. We spoke. I explained my situation and he told me about one of our lecturers called Phil Mole.
“Phil Mole! Are you really telling me you can’t remember him?” he said as the words Phil and Mole hit my ears for, I swear, the first time ever.
“Phil Mole. He…. Had a beard.”
In a sense, I want to be Phil Mole, but I want to be more than that. Phil was good enough to enthuse the second worst student in class. I want to be Phil Mole plus one.
Can I Do It?
It’s all very well wanting to be that Hollywood archetype, the inspiring teacher, but outside of The Dead Poets Society, can it happen?
As part of this course, we are supposed to do a “peer observation” where our teaching is observed and we observe someone else’s teaching. Naturally, we observed each other. The Wisconsin Peer Review website talks about peer review and how it can be done. However… as chance would have it one of the other ‘students’ on this course is not only a fellow Sport Journalism lecturer at Chelsea, but also an old mate.
“Jed’s personal touch was apparent from the outset, the rapport he has with the students admirable and palpable. He creates a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning and working.
At the start of the session he set the students a task – previewing a football match for a tabloid newspaper and supplying the headline and photo, via Quark Express. The idea of the preview actually came from a student, which demonstrated Jed’s willingness to respond to the class’s desires and hence make the work more suitable. This type of exercise brings them a taste of life in a busy newsroom. The fact that they had only 45 minutes to complete the task gave it an added element of verisimilitude.
Jed’s explanation of what was required was clear and precise. He used large screens at either end of the newsroom (which was packed) to demonstrate what was wanted, resisted overburdening the class with theory, asked if there were any questions, then left the students to their own devices. This in turn meant that he could go round to each student in turn to find out how they were getting on, clarify any issues and give pertinent tips. In turn, the students were not in the least disruptive, and simply got on with their work.
Overall, I felt that this was an ideal approach to the subject. It struck a balance between instruction, practical application, flexibility and professional relevance.”
That was, I felt, a fair appraisal. It was also what I would have wanted to hear. I’m sure that, for the most part, my lectures aren’t a chore. I’m sure that, of all their lectures, mine aren’t the ones they dread.
Hounsell (2003), Gibbs and Habeshaw (1988) and University of Kent (2004) outline a range of ideas for getting feedback from students. My feedback has come from rather more unorthodox routes, but I feel that they are just as valid – if not more so.
When my initial part time contract ended, I had to re-apply for the permanent position. I applied, got short-listed and had an interview. It was then that I found out that the students had signed a petition asking that I be given the job.
The M&E (Module and Evaluation) forms that the students fill in at the end of the year were positive, too. These forms – written anonymously, supposedly unseen by lecturers – are the nearest thing the students have to a right of reply. I skirted the rules and had a look and, generally, the students were very positive.
Further evidence that the students like my classes came last week. A senior lecturer appeared in my course leaders office, face like thunder. In his hand he had a piece of paper with a list of names of students who had repeatedly been missing his classes. “What’s happened to these students?” he demanded to know. “Have they left?”
I was a little embarrassed – and OK, a little smug – to explain that they were all in the newsroom writing a paper for me as we spoke.
But Is It Any Good?
So OK, great. We get on and they like me. It might even mean that maybe – just maybe – I might get to be their Phil Mole. But does that mean my lectures are any good? Does all that mean though that my lectures are the ones that are the most use? That’s a different question.
The communication part of the job is, for me, easy Chatting and getting on with people. The subject matter also makes it easy. I teach News Writing, Advanced Sports Journalism and Multi Media Journalism. These are the practical modules, the ones where students get to do the things that they signed up to do back when they were school kids. We watch football matches and write match reports – not hard work, whichever way you bend it
We talk, we chat, we play. To use the student word of the moment, we banter. We make fun of each other, we tease each other. I make fun of their shoes, they make fun of mine. I don’t know if what I do is any good.
I never formally trained to be a teacher. I never even gave it any thought. It was all
“Here are the keys to the car. Off you go”.
“Lovely, thanks. What are those pedals for?”
Whoooosshhhh. Crrrrrraaaaassssshhhhhh.
“Oh, I see. That’s what happens when you do that.”
I made it up as I went along. I had – I have – the advantage of teaching something that I’ve spent the best part of 20 years doing, so I know the subject. What I don’t know – or what I’m not sure about – is how to teach.
Going back to the Redford film, it showed the bright but lazy student in the first year when he was simply a bright student. We saw Redford giving a lecture about drug addicts and talking about clinics where junkies could be given methodone to help them with their addiction. This was held up as the action of a responsible, caring society. All the students nodded in agreement. All except the bright student who said “That’s ridiculous. You might as well have state-sponsored drunkard’s lanes on the highways!” Apart from the fact that it’s a fantastically stupid thing to say and if this was an example of the bright student’s brightness then God help the stupid students…
Anyway. It was what followed that struck me. There was a vigorous, discussion where students were engaged with each other and the subject. People were getting angry, throwing opinions around, caring, being erudite, informed, passionate.
Would anything like that happen in one of my classes? Hang about a minute – I’ll go and ask that pig flying past the window.
The Other Stuff
I heard someone – a quite senior lecturer – say the other day “This job would be easy if it wasn’t for the students”. It was possibly meant as a joke, but then again… possibly not. I feel completely the opposite. It’s the other stuff - the stuff that happens around the students – that weighs heavy.
Marking weighs me down .I’m not experienced enough to do it quickly – to drive through the shortcuts – and so it takes a ridiculously long time. So I don’t get enough done. And the more I don’t get enough done… the further behind I fall. The students see this and, while we get round it because we’re mates an have a laugh, it’s not as good as it should be. Again, it cuts both ways. I know at I put a lot more into my work than others, but because I haven’t been doing this very long and I’m still writing my lecture notes as I’m going along and… and… and… it takes me a long time.
The consequence is that I don’t give things enough time – because there isn’t enough time. I don’t give individuals enough time. I don’t give this course enough time.
While a lot of that is down to time management and recognising how long things take – something that only experience tells us - there’s a more fundamental truth going on, too. I’m a journalism lecturer and, a lot of the time, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know what I’m marking. OK, there are a group of students who, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to write a shopping list. “Is that really how you spell carrot?” But mostly, it’s OK. What they do is OK.
I’ve always been of the opinion that writing is an expressive form and that the right to say “This is good but that’s bad” is a dubious right at best. Clearly, the way that I write is best but to question – or worse, mark down – Student A because he or she doesn’t write or phrase things like I might is plain daft.
There’s a clear chasm between “that’s good” and “that’s no good”, but outside that? It’s a tough call. So I make up the difference by trying to inspire them. For example, there has recently been a Radio 4 series about newspapers, where they’ve been and where they’re going. I taped the shows, talked to the students about them and made the tapes available. Understanding the context, the history, the famous names… it’s all part of the job but at the same time, it’s not something that anyone else does.
It also bothers me that I’ve never been taught to be a teacher. Before I started this job… we’re going back a few years. I know how to write a feature, but do I know why I do what I do? Mostly I just do it. One of the modules I teach – multi-media – I’m only marginally more enlightened than the students. And even that’s not always true.
What helps me is that I have a credibility in their eyes in that I’ve been where they want to go, I’ve done what they want to do, I’ve been a successful sports journalist.
Conclusion - Where Do We Go From Here?
When I came to prepare for this essay, I gathered a number of evaluative documents regarding my course, for example Module Reports, an External Examiner’s Report and an Academic Health Report for both my area (Sport and Leisure Cultures) and the Chelsea School.
Hounsell (2003) points to four forms of feedback – self-generated, from students, from colleagues and incidental, which refers to other factors such as attendance. I feel I’ve dealt with all these forms, albeit in a discursive way, and feel that my teaching is improving as a result.
It’s a curious thing, but the process of this PgCLTHE course has also helped enormously. I got to know other lecturers from other schools and others disciplines and it was a fantastic relief to find out that, by and large, we were all concerned about the same things. Same things, different names.
While I’m still a long way from the Robert Redford character in that film – the inspiring mentor, the wise elder statesman, the cross between a teacher and a parent and a mate and a lover – I feel that I’m getting there.
Monday 5 October 2009
DAY ONE
Day One. The teaching starts. We've just had a weekend in Wales with The Bionic Woman, the rabble are about to lurch into view, and at home the cracks are getting bigger. Between now and Christmas, that'll be interesting. Might go and hang out with Cow and Bully next door.
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