The weather turned quite dramatically this last weekend – coincidentally Sonalee’s birthday. We have, without warning, gone from Summer to Winter without any pause for an Autumn. Seriously, one day I was out in shorts and t-shirt of an evening and the next I am in jeans and thermal jacket. It is quite bizarre for us but apparently quite normal according to my local colleagues.
My local colleagues. My new local colleagues. The emphasis is on the first adjective yet again. This is my 3rd new school in four years. The ‘excitement’ of starting a new school with new colleagues did fade quickly somewhat, I have to admit. I feel that this is a shame, as if it should be something that should be savoured more. Alas, I can only say that I there are residual feelings of love for those that I worked with in Lisbon and a few that I left behind in Rabat and a feeling that we didn’t spend long enough together.
There also exists a yearning for the beaches and the ocean that are so much a part of Lisbon. I am really trying not to but I miss the sea. I miss it loads. I miss walking Luna to the beach every evening and her annoying everyone that dared to run around on her stretch of sand. The mountains that abound here are very spectacular but I suspect it will take a while to fully appreciate their majesty and awesomeness. I think Luna feels the same way.
Colmenar Viejo (translated means something like ancient orchard) is a mix of the old town that harbours some really pikey and somewhat chaotic areas and the outskirts which is directly out of a poem called The City Planners by Margaret Atwood. Some of the new buildings around here reek of a dystopian nightmare writ large. Having taught this poem last year with a blasé attitude, I now realise that, actually, she was really onto something.
It’s scary just how conformist people here want to be. Row upon row of the same design and no deviation from the utopian dream. Luckily, our rented home is a kind of mix of the old Colmenar without any plan and the new that defines its measurements exactly. The cat enjoys it. He has the lower floor all to himself. And he has now, at last, started to use the Catio (it’s a thing. I built it. It cost us, he ignored it for ages) that allows him to get onto the outer wall and thus to the adjoining street.
He still moans and complains on an hourly basis about everything. He’s a cat. It’s what he does. The little bastard.
Love him.
Sonalee’s birthday has reminded us both that we are not getting any younger. It was our first birthday in Madrid, which required a curry. I say a curry, it was a fantastic curry. We had partaken of a bloody good curry with Mark and Shanthini in Cascais a month or so before but this one was even better. It was exquisite. It was the curry of curries. It was just so good that I decided to wax lyrically about it in my next blog. It was that good.
It helped that Sonalee wore a new dress for the first time and looked absolutely and totally gorgeous in it. Ravishing. Divine. Beautiful. All them. She looked that good.
And here we touch (no pun intended) upon what is definitely a cultural difference with the UK and something that shares a similarity with Portugal. Speaking in a wild generality, people here are far more tolerant of others wearing whatever the Hell they want than we have experienced in Sri Lanka. The same applied in Lisbon. The same did not apply in Rabat. They are also a lot more demonstrative with lots of hugging, kissing and fondling.
It’s nice. It’s nice to be in a place that allows others to be themselves without fear. It is nice to see people being who they are supposed to be and not conforming to an ideal that shuts them out. In the past year on the Iberian Peninsula we have seen some outrageously dressed people of all ages who, quite literally, do not give a flying one what people think of them. It seems to be more an attitude that if there is a problem then it is with you and not the person who has dressed how they want.
I could, should I wish to do so, test this theory by wearing some of the most outrageous clothing from my past; the shiny suit of the 80’s. Yes, we all thought it looked so cool at the time. Now, however…
I digress.
It is nice to be back in Spain. The Spanish share many traits with their Portuguese cousins, not the least of which is their incredible wine. They also love to talk. Good God in Heaven do they like to talk! I mean, do they ever like to talk! They could – and will – talk all day really loudly about everything and nothing and they would still find that it is not enough time. It appears as a cultural phenomenon at a young age.
I teach primary school Science as part of my various duties. I am now getting used to saying good morning to them and then waiting ten minutes as they discuss everything about the morning; the school day ahead; the bus journey into school; what I am wearing that day; what things they saw on the way to the classroom; their science book; their form teacher; literally everything and anything.
And they lie! They do it so easily! I kind of got used to it in Portugal but these Spanish kids are even better at it. It is a thing to be proud of for them. They can be chewing gum really obviously right in front of you and still deny, with a completely hurt face, that they are not chewing gum and that you are cruel and wrong to accuse them of such an act considering the love and respect that they have for you as their teacher.
The little bastards!
I was going to go into a bit of pondering about the morality of teaching the children of the rich and the privileged here in Spain. We see the thousands of kids in the mornings here in Colmenar who do not have access to the supposed best English teachers that the world has to offer. They’re waiting for the bus but, and this is important, just as the vast majority of our students are also doing.
It was different in Lisbon. Most of the kids were the offspring of incredibly wealthy parents who, quite frankly, were happy to have their brats driven to school to be looked after by minions. Here we have about fifteen buses that ferry the kids and and fro. Some of them have journeys of an hour each way.
This seems slightly less privileged. Sure, there are plenty of brats who really could learn a lot from a bloody good slap. But most are of the middle class persuasion whose parents work insanely long hours just to ensure their kids get a better chance than leaving it to the whims of the state schools.
Does that make what Sonalee and I do the equivalent of lifting young people out of their poverty trap and into a greater future? Of course it doesn’t. That would be ridiculous. I can’t speak for Sonalee on this matter but I rather think the 15 years I gave to the state education system in the UK that lead me to be emotionally and physically broken means I deserve a crack at not being totally screwed up and entitled to celebrate being a teacher of kids who might, just might, make a difference in the world in the future if they ever get into powerful positions.
We are where we are. Where we are is an exam factory. You can dress it up in fancy language and speak in hyperbolic terms about developing the inner child and other such rubbish but it all boils down to getting the best results that are possible for your students so that they can go to the university that that they need to get to in order to get the job that they need to get.
Our school, just like the vast majority of schools, is an exam factory. It is a reflected shard of the current British system – an exam factory. It was the same in Portugal and in Rabat and most certainly in Sri Lanka.
This is what education has been reduced to. The same applies to universities around the world. The results matter. It is all that matters. Nothing else matters.
I can accept that. It is what it is. I can’t change the world even though I wish that I could.
But! There is one thing I can do. I can make a good football team. It has nothing to do with exams. It has nothing to do with pass and fail tables. It is all to do with winning a simple trophy and a cheap medal. I have been given charge of another football team this year. I am in charge of the KS3 girls’ team and we start our training next week.
This is what it is all about. Sod the exams. I can ‘manage’ the test scores, the grades and the reports to make ourselves look good. That’s easy. We all do that. I can teach to the test. I can talk the talk to parents and persuade them that the money they’re spending will mean something as their child moves towards university and beyond. What I cannot do is pretend to be a good football coach.
Being a coach is the most honest thing I can do. When I pick a team of players I know we cannot kid ourselves; we will be up against other teams who want to bury us and beat us. If you have not done your job as a coach then you will be found out very quickly. My last three schools have yielded bloody good teams who have won things. Next week I will start with my latest incarnation of football memories and I am itching to start.
This is what it is all about. Is all the years of getting a degree; all of the Continuing Professional Development: the Post Graduate Certificate; the move from primary to Secondary; the transition from English to Science to English and back to Science and Maths really being ignored in favour of how you did in a football tournament?
Yes! It is totally what it is all about. Screw the rest of it; it’s bollocks. My teaching memories are bound with how my football teams have done. Shallow? Yes. Facile? Totally. Meaningless? Nah.
Just like a Rock In Rio concert in Lisbon, the memories that I have from one intense weekend remain whilst the ‘important’ things that we do in our day to day life fade away. This is what football gives me.
Next Wednesday I have 33 girls trying out for the big footy tournament in March next year. I really cannot wait.
Ayubowan
Hasta luego, Inshalla
Ciao
Paul
PPS but please don’t twist my melon man