I Am A Whinging Student (Hirst, 2012)

As part of my PGCE teacher training, I'm not just teaching... I'm also studying. For the most part, I find I'm enjoying being a student again. It's certainly better than the 9-5 drudge of office work that swallowed the last 20 years of my life. I like going to seminars. I enjoy class discussions and activities (though I can do without some of the "this is rubbish, why are we doing this, how is it relevant?" carping from my fellow students). I like getting feedback from my tutors. I just love the university atmosphere - it's a lot more relaxed than I remember. Then again, the campus in question is separate to the main uni and made up mostly of happily dull adult learners like me. Joy! I'm even enjoying getting involved with extra-curricular activities such as writing interviews for the university's marketing department and becoming class representative to give course feedback at the twice-yearly Student Panels. Nobody else wanted to do it, but I found it fascinating. Certainly more so than writing radio ads.

The only thing I don't like about being a student again is writing essays. It's not that actual essays themselves I have a problem with, it's the way the focus has shifted from the importance of content to the secondary matter (in my eyes, anyway) of referencing. When I did my original degree in the early 90s, you got an essay question, read a few books around the subject, wrote your findings up in your own words, threw in a few quotes, compiled a bibliography... and that was that. Nowadays every sentence, every idea, every bloody word has to be referenced to where you took it from, who else might have had that thought first or used those words in approximately the same order. Otherwise you're up on charges of plagiarism, your work gets referred, and you're made to stand before the Jedi Council to explain your actions before being excommunicated or burnt at the stake. And you know what's to blame for all this...?

The bloody internet, of course.

Way back in the day (yes, I'm a Soprano), when I wrote an essay, I went to the library, took out a few books (the same few books that everyone else was using) and got on with it. Nowadays I have instant access to thousands of books - not to mention all the journal articles and other students' essays that google will point you towards. But wait, there are also programmes which analyse your finished work and pick out key words and phrases to ascertain exactly where you stole every last thought... if you haven't bloody referenced it. Even if you have your own individual opinion on a subject, you better not voice it unless you can find someone else who's said it first. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to write for a specific section but I have to spend hours searching for an appropriate reference to either quote directly or paraphrase so that I can't be falsely accused of plagiarism. You wonder if stamping down on plagiarism might also be putting a stop to individual expression. We never had to worry about this before the bloody internet took over everything.

And don't even start me on which style of referencing I'm supposed to use. Oxford? No, Harvard. Ah, but which branch of Harvard...? Personally, I think I'll opt for the old Stan Lee footnote style. 'Nuff said, effendi!

My Ronnie Corbett Story (minus any funny bits)

So I went to the bank...

I went to the bank to pay in the cheque the insurance company had finally sent me in compensation for my written-off car. Getting that money has been a long and drawn-out process involving many phone calls of the "what's going on?" variety. I do hope I get the chance to score this company on their customer service at some point down the line because I'll happily rip them a new one. They were constantly telling me "you'll get a call tomorrow" but no call was ever forthcoming. After chasing them for a week to find out when the car was going to be valued ("mañana") I finally got someone to tell me, last Thursday, that the valuation would be in by the "end of the day".

"So you'll call me either this afternoon or tomorrow morning to tell me how much you'll be offering me?"

"No. We'll be calling you next Tuesday."

"TUESDAY? Why TUESDAY!?"

"Because that's when it's been diarised by the computer."

"OK, what if I call you back in the morning?"

"Oh, if you call us, we'll be able to tell you then. But if you don't call us, expect a call on Tuesday."

Unsurprisingly, then, I was ready for a fight when I actually got the quote. Yet it turned out to be more than I'd expected. They actually offered me the old car's market value (minus my excess), which, coincidentally, was exactly what I'd paid for my new car. I snapped their hands off because I was sick of dealing with them. Which was probably their plan all along.

Anyway, I went to the bank with my cheque. The bank is just across the road from the university where I have my teacher training lessons. Not the college where I do my placement... which is proving an eye-opening experience, I can tell you. If you ever want to feel old... talk to a class of young adults. Last week, the subject of Princess Diana's funeral came up. "What do you remember about that?" I asked them. "We don't," they replied. It was only at this point that I did a rough calculation and worked out... most of them weren't even born.

But I told the producer I wouldn't digress so much in telling this story, so let's get back to the bank where I took my insurance cheque. There's one woman in front of me in the queue and as she approaches the counter to make a payment of her own, she's pounced upon by an overzealous bank employee who wants to talk to her about her account.

"If you could just spare me a few moments, I think I can get you on a much better account."

"Well, I can't really... I've only ten minutes left on the parking meter."

"It won't take any longer than that."

She squirmed, made more excuses, but the vulture wouldn't let her alone. Finally she relented and agreed to follow him back to his desk for the hard sell. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least while he was tied up with her, I could make my payment and escape before he had chance to get his claws into me. And so I did...

I arrived at the university about ten minutes early for my lesson, so I joined a group of my fellow trainees in the coffee shop. I sat down for a chat and Americano... and that's when my phone started ringing. "I better turn that off before the lesson," I thought, but even though I didn't recognise the caller's number, I took the chance of answering it.

"Mr. Hirst? This is Bob Vulture from the bank? You were here a few minutes ago to pay in a cheque?"

"Erm... yes... is there a problem?"

"Oh, no problem with your cheque, Mr. Hirst. That's gone in fine. No, it's just that I noticed the current account you were using is quite an old one..."

(I didn't even pay the cheque into my current account - I paid it into my savings account. He had no reason to even look at my current account.)

"I wondered, if you were still nearby, if you wouldn't mind popping back in to see if I can't help you onto a better account for..."

I won't bore you with the rest, but yes, you guessed it, the "better account" was going to end up costing me more money... and yes, he rather lost interest in "helping me" once he discovered I was currently unemployed.

Here's an appropriate song in lieu of a punchline...

My Top Twenty Teacher Songs

One of the things I've been doing over at The Mixtape Lives On for the past few weeks is playing songs about teachers. In preparation for my new job, it seemed wise to find out what my favourite singers and songwriters thought about their teachers. Most of them concluded they were a bunch of lecherous pervs, bullying ghouls or sexually frustrated stalkers. Still, what do pop stars know about anything? They don't live in the real world...

Here's my full Top 20, click the links to listen to and read more about each song...


20. Paul Simon - The Teacher

19. The Talks - Teachers

18. Super Furry Animals - The Teacher

17. Leonard Cohen - The Teacher

16. Big Country - The Teacher

15. Pet Shop Boys - Hey, Headmaster!

14. Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Teach Your Children Well

12. Van Halen - Hot For Teacher

11. Belle & Sebastian - Expectations

10. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

9. Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

8. Morrissey - The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

7. Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

6. The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me

5. Madness - Baggy Trousers

4. The Trashcan Sinatras - To Sir, With Love

3. Pulp - PTA

2. The Smiths - The Headmaster Ritual

1. Black Box Recorder - The School Song



Discover a new song every day at The Mixtape Lives On...

The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

So here we go with the next step of my master plan: teacher training.

What, you say? Rol, you say? Are you insane, you say? Putting you in a classroom with a mob of cheeky young oiks... that's a recipe for disaster!

Fortunately, I'm not training to teach young people. That job lost its appeal since they abolished corporal punishment. If I could have been Bullet Baxter in Grange Hill, I might have been interested... though knowing me I'd probably have been more like Scruffy McDuffy.

Sleep easy tonight, I'm not training to teach kids, I won't be terrorising your offspring anytime soon. Unless they decide to stick around for some post-compulsory, 16+ education... after which point, I can't promise you anything.

Sadly, I can't write about my teaching experiences here - or even my teacher training experiences. Confidentiality and all that. Maybe I'll set up an anonymous blog and write about it there. Let me know if you'd like the link.

Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools... so I reckon I'm a shoe-in for a job there sometime in the future.