Holidays - Clear as MUD!!

Sunday 10th May 2009
Well, to quote the great Ronnie Barker in his brilliant character, Arkright, in “Open All Hours”, “It's been a funny sort of day!”.


Actually there was nothing REMOTELY FUNNY (in the funny ha-ha sense of the word) at ALL! One of those days that you know you should just brush off as it really doesn't matter. But, on the other hand, it is a day that won't go away from my mind easily.


Hmm ..... perhaps I over-dramatise rather. Perhaps I'll just get on with what happened ....
In fact I must start off from yesterday afternoon. There was to be, as we were informed, a kind of graduation ceremony for, I suppose, out-going and successful students of the medical college here. The Saudi flags were out lining the ways up to the college and some kind of bigwig general was due to come to do the presentations and hand shaking and other stuff that happens at such things. All very nice.


Now then, because it was such a day, there were to be no lessons. But here's the thing, and here's the question that was not answered. Was this day off to include our military classes or not? Well, it was not clear since they had another one of these a week or so ago also with flags everywhere and this same general chappie with, I suppose, his medals and sabre-sword and all the trimmings. And on THAT occasion there was NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of there being any kind of day off for ANYONE. Not as far as I know, and for THAT day off was not rumoured to extend to OUR military students.


So why should the occasion today have been any different? Well, the rumour was put around that there were no lessons on this day. For whom did this apply? Obviously it included teachers who taught regular medical students since they would be at this ceremony one would imagine.
Well the Head of Department didn't know. Our military students didn't mention it, nor did anyone in charge down at the place we teach those students.


WHY, therefore, should we assume that the day off SHOULD include our soldier boys??


Towards the end of the day the Head of Department did whizz round and did happen to mention that it WAS a day off for ALL. But you see – information shared around here is never cut and dried and should never be taken as read. I decided, together with my teaching colleague who I share these classes with, that the sensible thing to do would be to go along as normal in the morning. And, quite simply, if there were or were NOT students there waiting for us, then this would be all the proof that was needed. Those students would surely have been informed if THEY were going to have a day off.


So, this morning came, and over we went. Indeed, yes, there our students were sitting and waiting like they always do. So that seemed the end of any argument. A few other medical students in their green doctors-to-be uniforms turned up too. And there were the usual number of cleaning staff and those higher ranking men in berets were there too. Also, there were a number of other men in uniform hanging around. But they probably came with the presentation party, or some associated 'entourage'.


In we went, did the lessons, home for lunch. It actually wasn't a great day of teaching, but more later.


Now, I went back to the office rather later than normal. It was nearing 1pm when I got there which is rather stretching the lunchbreak a little too far. Normally nobody says anything when I go in. THIS TIME, when I got in to the staffroom, the Head of Department said my name as soon as he saw me walk through the door. Instantly I thought it's be trouble for arriving back so late. THAT might have been a justified thing to have a go at me for. But no – it was not that simple.


Why had I gone to my classes this morning, he demanded to know. This took me back, and I explained that the students were there ready for class so the lesson was obviously on as normal. “NO!”, he yelled in his overbearing voice, “You were supposed NOT to go and teach there today. Your classes were cancelled!!”. So WHY were the students THERE, I asked. “Doesnt matter!”, he said, “By doing that, you have given them a FREEBIE lesson and this will set a precedent later and will just cause trouble for all the OTHER TEACHERS another time!”. “But they were THERE!!”, I said again. “And what would have happened if we HADN'T turned up? They would have been there for nothing and would, rightly, have complained. And then ALL SORTS of trouble would have come out of it!!”. “But no, this was NOT right still because those students SHOULD HAVE been informed and it is not our fault that nobody DID inform them! This is an army matter that should have been dealt with by the military people! The fact that THEY did not inform those students is NOT OUR PROBLEM!”


I went on to point out AGAIN that it would have looked MUCH WORSE if we,as teachers, had NOT TURNED UP. Well, you know how it works around here. Had we not turned up then the students would have demanded this lesson be made up another time. Bad feeling would be created when we teachers protested it was not our fault that they did not know. Things would have been escalated. And, most likely, this day that would have been lost would SURELY been added on to extend this blasted even FURTHER into Ramadan.


The course is already rumoured to be going into Ramadan and to be ending on Wednesday 26th August. When the registrar guy came in, those three weeks ago, to finally give the class registers to the Head Of Department, I CLEARLY heard him say that the course WOULD continue one week into Ramadan. This issue I took up with the HoD, and the discussion that was had I wrote about a few blogs ago.


But guess what – The HoD denied that this was ever said. I reminded him of that conversation that HE HAD HAD with the registrar guy when he came in that time. Denial again. “And this course WILL NOT go into Ramadan! It CAN'T DO!!”.


Huh!! “It CAN'T DO!!”. What rubbish! Only the day before had discussion taken place with the HoD and some other teachers about the fact that there is NO WAY we can predict when we can book our flights out for the summer. Why? Because you can never know what is coming up.
So you see – the course WILL and WON'T continue into the Ramadan period!! Completely logical. Just remember where I am!!


WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!!


Yelling at US TEACHERS for doing our jobs! Saying we need to be “united” in this to stand against ..... whatever it is we're opposing. Putting the blame on ME AND MY COLLEAGUE because we showed a responsibility towards our students!!


Maybe he does not like this military class and the increasing influence the military HAS on what goes on in the college. But does he want to INCREASE the difficulties just to be “united” as he put it.


I have no worries that I did the wrong thing. The consequences of NOT GOING in this morning when the students WERE there would have been FAR WORSE I'm SURE!


If someone wants to yell at me, then let it be for a legitimate reason. NOT for some situation that I did not cause nor make worse!!


OK, enough of THAT. Well, it was a bad day in class too. Yesterday had been a really GOOD day with a responsive, nice bunch. TODAY there was a large element of them that were VERY distracted for some reason. Perhaps it was how I started off the day. I suppose it was a rather bits-and-pieces kind of day, but I got to make things last out somehow. And I had some old photocopies that needed using up or binning. HOWEVER, despite this, they would NOT keep quiet today, and this continued and got worse as the morning went on.


Now, I'm normally a pretty tolerant kind of teacher. Perhaps I am too lenient at times. A little bit of background chatter is OK. And I don't object too much when there are used bottles of water left lying around at the end of class. That's what the cleaning staff are for! Today, as time went on and the background chatter got more and more, I felt I'd had enough.


There was also an incident at the start of one lesson – maybe Lesson 2 or 3. One of the students had lost one of the dark lenses from his sunglasses. Now, I don't know how it got there, but for some reason one other student had it on his person somewhere and when he stood up to look for it, the lens fell on the floor (from somewhere) and broke. Yes, it was a glass lens, and not a lightweight one either.


So here we were. Broken glass from this lens was on the floor. Who should clean it up? Now, at first I asked the guy it had dropped from to pick up the pieces. He objected with loud Arabic protests. OK, so they should BOTH pick up the pieces. Chatter chatter, blabber blabber BLABBER! Much annoyance all round. I was not going to let this go – broken glass on a classroom floor and a room full of medical students-to-be. STILL I insisted they BOTH clear it up. In the end they did. I did not know or care WHY this lens had broken or WHY the guy had it on him. Maybe someone else played a joke. Anyway, the guy whose sunglasses these were then put the one-eye sunglasses in the bin. NOT very happy! And nor was I!! Silly to argue who should clean this up!! Like KIDS!!


This had annoyed me, but I continued. However, when the 'sunglasses man' wouldn't stop talking away, I decided I was NOT going to keep trying to talk over him OR ANYONE ELSE! They were ALL talking at once – probably about this incident. SO enough was enough – I went and sat down until they had SHUT UP! Had to do this later on too in the next lesson.


In the last lesson I had had ENOUGH of it all and got more severe. Now, again, if they are a little late back after breaktime then it's OK. But right NOW it was NOT OK, and after waiting for them for way too long. I went out and told them to GET IN HERE in one minute's time or they'd ALL be marked as absent!!


Most of them DID move and come in. But when the minute was up, they were not all in. Three were missing, and it was the usual two idiots plus 'sunglasses man'. All were marked absent.
Of course they attempted to wander in later. “You're ABSENT!”, I told them when they came in. “Ohh teacher! Can you forget it?”, one asked (the supervisor/monitor idiot). “NO!!”, I said, “Look at the time, you are late and so you are absent!”. “But I was only washing my face!”, he said. It was eight minutes into the lesson at this point. THIS is the guy who is supposed to be in charge of the admin side of the class and is a few years older than the others. The other guy (the one who had broken his leg or ankle playing football in Week 1) then came in trying to do his “Creep Creep” thing. Absent!


So he and his supervisor “buddy” went out again!! FINE!! Better off without BOTH of you!
But this brings to mind two more things. The “leg man” had asked me yesterday if he could go to the hospital because they were going to take off his plaster cast today. Sounded good, so I let him. Bit what did I see today morning? He STILL had the plaster cast on him. “A new one!”, he said. Yeah right – and did THAT take the WHOLE MORNING?? Talking of freebies earlier – he had given HIMSELF a freebie yesterday I reckon.


Also, at the start of the lesson the supervisor/monitor guy needed to share the coursebook of one other student as he didn't have his own. So he moved places, and was sitting behind the “leg man”. A little time later I saw him leaning forward and he appeared to be whispering something into “Leg man” 's ear. He had that sinster smile on his face as he was doing it too. Looked really weird!!


Well, they do seem to get on well together. They sometimes share a car in the mornings too. And maybe they like to share other things too ..... ;) ;) Who knows!


So a bad teaching day full of non-listening and a stupid accident and me having enough and “reading the riot act”. I will now clamp down more firmly from now on with the register and with punctuality. If they take the mickey and don't show the proper respect, then THIS “Teacher David” will get nasty.


I hope it won't come to that as they've been quite alright to teach so far ....


And what will happen in August? Well, it seems that I WILL AND WON'T have a holiday from Wednesday 19th. Clear? As MUD!!