I nearly died of embarrassment this week. Face planting on stage in front of hundreds of people must be one of the lowest points of my career to date and definitely put me at the focus of public attention for all the wrong reasons.
Some of my eco-minded pupils were up for yet another award. When their team, ‘The Green Groundhogs’, was announced I shooed them on stage to collect the (very environmentally friendly) wooden trophy.
The organisers, bless their bamboo socks, called for me to join them up on stage for photos. In a bit of a fluster, I decided not to go up the sensible and safe ramp but to jump up onto the stage from the front. I tripped then, in some sort of tortuous slow-motion slapstick farce, fell flat. The audience gasped and then looked at me with pity, just grateful it wasn’t them. Not only caught on camera but on video too. One day, in a decade or so, I might live it down, or then again, maybe not. It was less mind over body and more like arse over tit.
Bottom of the bucket
Back at school, the drama club is putting on a contemporary version of Midsummer Night’s Dream for the end of year production. From the rehearsals it seems to be quite a spectacle. The drama teacher, Mrs J, has gathered a talented cast of young wannabee Dame Judy Dench’s and Sir Kenneth Branagh’s to strut their Shakespearean-stuff on stage. Miss B, the dance teacher, is adding in some additional entertainment for the interval, although I’m interested to find out how Dutch clog dancing fits in with the overall theme. As a school we embrace diversity in all we do.
The props team asked for guidance on how to make the costumes and sets more sustainable. The Eco Committee suggested empty-crisp-packet-covered costumes, trees made of upcycled milk cartons and garlands of yoghurt pots to act as bunting for the bucolic scenes. Mrs J seemed unimpressed by these ideas, but she did allow a cracked old plastic bucket to be used for Bottom’s donkey head, although Pupil B was rather put out that his costume was less than elegant especially as the rest of the cast started shouting ‘he wears a bucket on his head’ – sometimes it amazes me how old songs never die.
Another small nod to sustainability is the electronic programme for the proud parents and carers which will save on school paper and printer ink. We might have a mountain to climb to become a Net Zero school, but small steps still count… shame that in the same week the exasperated printer in the staffroom was churning out 134 copies of a 68 page revision History booklet for the Y10s to take home over the summer which will no doubt be eaten by the dog or left on the bus when the autumn term starts.
Lights, camera, action
This week in my science lessons we were talking about chemical reactions and in particular those of calcium oxide or lime. In the early 1800’s, theatre stages were lit by heating a cylinder of the mineral called lime, the result was an intensely bright white light. The word limelight came to have its figurative meaning of “at the centre of attention” in 1877. Lime is made from the heating of limestone or calcium carbonate and is about 60-70% of cement. Cement, the component of concrete that acts as a binder to glue sand and stones together, is responsible for the bulk of concrete’s carbon emissions. It is estimated that 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from creating cement.
Maybe the new government should put cement and concrete under the spotlight when action on growth and house building seem to be hitting the news. Low impact tiny houses could be the answer, so I got my Year 9s to design an eco-home in a shoe box for homework. The submitted models ranged from minimally empty yet adored with a limp string of fairy lights to a solar panel roofed, greywater-collecting, sheep-fleece insulated absolute box of delights. I’m not sure all my pupils will have tangible green skills for the future, but I hope a few of them might have more of a clue than some of their peers from other schools. I’m doing my best to prepare them for an uncertain future on our changing planet and there doesn’t seem to be any helpful teacher-guides available that really take centre stage (maybe I could write one if I wasn’t so blooming busy!).
Highlife and Lowlifes
Following my fall from grace on stage, Hubster is also gathering some accolades this week. He has been at some regional Net Zero event all week to talk about carbon and I then dragged him into school to act as a judge in a Dragon’s Den. He took the opportunity to grill the Y7s on the circular economy and degrowth ideals – considering the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘sustainability’ aren’t even in the KS3 curriculum I was rather proud of their answers. Encouraging businesses to talk to educators alongside educators to teach about business is really important in planning system change and our just transition. Maybe schools could have some B Corps grading – although at this stage of the school year ‘corpse’ could be a more apt description for some teachers than Corps. The corridors by the end of the working week feel more Walking Dead than Glee.
In teacher training they don’t really explain that you can experience extremes of emotions within a working day, sometimes within just an hour-long lesson. You can feel elated to exhausted, furious to flabbergasted and grumpy to grateful. Going from top of the world to the bottom of the shit pile in mere moments or vice versa. One thing for certain, it’s never dull but building up the reputation of teachers after years of undermining in the press is now becoming critically important to address the retention and recruitment crisis. We need less of “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” and more of “Children are born with wings, be the teacher that helps them to metaphorically fly but actually encourages them to take sustainable transport”.
Note to self: Remember to get end of term, sustainable gifts for the dedicated TAs, quality cleaners and Miss B, the office administrator, who is super-speedy in processing my receipts for consumables. I was hoping to make my own, but my homemade jam never made the effort to set firm and my attempt at creating homemade crafts are too cringe-worthy to display in public let alone hand out as treats. Mrs P still hasn’t forgiven me for the sticky beeswax wraps that stuck to her copy of ‘The Secret Life of the School Librarian’.
