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Come to 6D, we've got cookies.
Dec. 17th, 2019 11:20 amSick again.
I've always been prone to getting a sore throat in winter, or at any rate I've been since the winter of 1998 (TM) when I caught some kind of throat infection on a school skiing trip to Spindleruv Mlyn in the Czech Republic and was coughing and suffering from occasional bouts of voicelessness for three months. I may have had the problem before that, but that's the first time I actively remember. After that, it happened pretty much every winter (and also in summer if I happen to be in a country that aggressively air-conditions its rooms).
I am adding this seemingly random piece of background information because the first thing my mom said when I was sick was "Maybe you're using your voice wrong" and it's like YES, maybe I am, but it wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't already had a sore throat before that. "But you haven't had the problem before you started teaching!" Actually, I've been having it for at least 20 years, but go off I guess...
Anyway. I've always been prone to getting a sore throat, and when it's already slightly sore and you still have to talk to classes full of 25+ kids in various stages of "It's been too long since the last holidays" and "is it Christmas already", the voice just gives at some point.
At home now. Still went to school in the morning (after already being nearly too hoarse to talk yesterday) because I had promised my 6th graders that we'd bake cookies in the last English lesson before the holidays. We've been having a rough couple of weeks, and the baking was pretty much an olive branch. (I did have to exclude two particularly rowdy students, though. I expect there will be a great deal of resentment, but I can't have kids who constantly provoke and push others, ignore directions, throw things around, and then lie blatantly about it, in a kitchen full of hot ovens.) The kids had bought the ingredients and all, so it would have been awkward to postpone that until after the holidays.
It went reasonably well, too. I think most of them enjoyed themselves, even those (or especially those?) who had apparently never followed a recipe before. A few months ago, the class had complained that all the other 6th grades had home economy classes and went to the kitchen regularly (actually, two out of four had home economy this term, and the other two - including mine - will have it next term... but tell that to twelve-year-olds who feel that they're being treated unfairly!), which was why I'd had the idea of baking cookies with them in the first place. Because we didn't have much time - 90 minutes - and I didn't know what skill level to expect, I gave them the recipes in German so no time was lost translating things. Even so, we managed to finish baking just before recess, and only one group had actually cleaned their workspace, too.
One group left all their cleaning-up to one guy, and completely forgot to leave some cookies for him. Fortunately, another group had produced so much dough that they still had two baking trays in the oven when most of the others had stormed out for recess, so he could still get his fill. There was some ~drama~ because of (ultimately - of course) a misunderstanding. A completely stupid story! One girl had cleaned but not dried a bowl before use. The others in her group then proceded to use that bowl to make dough. Then one boy complained of a stomach ache. Then another boy started to feel queasy, too. Of course, these things are contagious in a hypochondriac way, so soon enough, the whole group was complaining of feeling sick, and rather than realising that maybe the boys who'd complained first shouldn't have snarfled quite so much unbaked cookie dough (with raw egg and baking powder in it!), they decided that it MUST have been because the girl had left some washing-up liquid in the bowl. The rumour spread rapidly and in the end the girl broke down in tears because "everybody" believed that she had "poisoned" her group. (By that time, incidentally, I had managed to convince the boys that a) the liquid used in manual dish-washing is so mild that you would have to ingest a lot more to get sick, b) if they were so frightened of washing-up liquid, they should maybe have dried the bowl before use, and c) perhaps one should have minded what I said re:eating raw cookie dough. Then the boy who'd started the rumour wanted to apologise to the girl, but by then she refused to speak with him...)
Aside from that, though, most of them worked together pretty well and organised themselves with minimal instruction (aside from the recipes). And the cookies turned out palatable, too (except for one batch, which the group forgot to save from the oven in time). So I hope that on the whole, it's been a good experience for them. (I secretly want to be a Cool Teacher who does Fun Stuff with them, but unfortunately I'm often doomed to be an Annoying Teacher who forces them to learn Awful Grammar. I always loved grammar! I don't know how to make Parts of Speech exciting for people who aren't already excited by them! And we aren't taught, either, because they're supposed to have learned the basics in German class, and we're expected to be able to just build on that. Doesn't work so well, though...)
Three more days to the holidays. (The students always seem surprised when teachers announce that they're looking forward to the holidays, as if we weren't as human as they are!)
I've always been prone to getting a sore throat in winter, or at any rate I've been since the winter of 1998 (TM) when I caught some kind of throat infection on a school skiing trip to Spindleruv Mlyn in the Czech Republic and was coughing and suffering from occasional bouts of voicelessness for three months. I may have had the problem before that, but that's the first time I actively remember. After that, it happened pretty much every winter (and also in summer if I happen to be in a country that aggressively air-conditions its rooms).
I am adding this seemingly random piece of background information because the first thing my mom said when I was sick was "Maybe you're using your voice wrong" and it's like YES, maybe I am, but it wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't already had a sore throat before that. "But you haven't had the problem before you started teaching!" Actually, I've been having it for at least 20 years, but go off I guess...
Anyway. I've always been prone to getting a sore throat, and when it's already slightly sore and you still have to talk to classes full of 25+ kids in various stages of "It's been too long since the last holidays" and "is it Christmas already", the voice just gives at some point.
At home now. Still went to school in the morning (after already being nearly too hoarse to talk yesterday) because I had promised my 6th graders that we'd bake cookies in the last English lesson before the holidays. We've been having a rough couple of weeks, and the baking was pretty much an olive branch. (I did have to exclude two particularly rowdy students, though. I expect there will be a great deal of resentment, but I can't have kids who constantly provoke and push others, ignore directions, throw things around, and then lie blatantly about it, in a kitchen full of hot ovens.) The kids had bought the ingredients and all, so it would have been awkward to postpone that until after the holidays.
It went reasonably well, too. I think most of them enjoyed themselves, even those (or especially those?) who had apparently never followed a recipe before. A few months ago, the class had complained that all the other 6th grades had home economy classes and went to the kitchen regularly (actually, two out of four had home economy this term, and the other two - including mine - will have it next term... but tell that to twelve-year-olds who feel that they're being treated unfairly!), which was why I'd had the idea of baking cookies with them in the first place. Because we didn't have much time - 90 minutes - and I didn't know what skill level to expect, I gave them the recipes in German so no time was lost translating things. Even so, we managed to finish baking just before recess, and only one group had actually cleaned their workspace, too.
One group left all their cleaning-up to one guy, and completely forgot to leave some cookies for him. Fortunately, another group had produced so much dough that they still had two baking trays in the oven when most of the others had stormed out for recess, so he could still get his fill. There was some ~drama~ because of (ultimately - of course) a misunderstanding. A completely stupid story! One girl had cleaned but not dried a bowl before use. The others in her group then proceded to use that bowl to make dough. Then one boy complained of a stomach ache. Then another boy started to feel queasy, too. Of course, these things are contagious in a hypochondriac way, so soon enough, the whole group was complaining of feeling sick, and rather than realising that maybe the boys who'd complained first shouldn't have snarfled quite so much unbaked cookie dough (with raw egg and baking powder in it!), they decided that it MUST have been because the girl had left some washing-up liquid in the bowl. The rumour spread rapidly and in the end the girl broke down in tears because "everybody" believed that she had "poisoned" her group. (By that time, incidentally, I had managed to convince the boys that a) the liquid used in manual dish-washing is so mild that you would have to ingest a lot more to get sick, b) if they were so frightened of washing-up liquid, they should maybe have dried the bowl before use, and c) perhaps one should have minded what I said re:eating raw cookie dough. Then the boy who'd started the rumour wanted to apologise to the girl, but by then she refused to speak with him...)
Aside from that, though, most of them worked together pretty well and organised themselves with minimal instruction (aside from the recipes). And the cookies turned out palatable, too (except for one batch, which the group forgot to save from the oven in time). So I hope that on the whole, it's been a good experience for them. (I secretly want to be a Cool Teacher who does Fun Stuff with them, but unfortunately I'm often doomed to be an Annoying Teacher who forces them to learn Awful Grammar. I always loved grammar! I don't know how to make Parts of Speech exciting for people who aren't already excited by them! And we aren't taught, either, because they're supposed to have learned the basics in German class, and we're expected to be able to just build on that. Doesn't work so well, though...)
Three more days to the holidays. (The students always seem surprised when teachers announce that they're looking forward to the holidays, as if we weren't as human as they are!)
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