My Life in Song - Never Forget

I was made aware that last Saturday was College Day. Ah, College Day, how I miss thee! I miss being in Durham in general. My time there was filled with SO many happy memories, I loved it, would not have changed it for anything. Hild Bede (my college at Durham) has the unofficial (not in Latin) moto of 'Never Forget' and at the end of pretty much every event they played this song. It is now strongly related to my time in Durham now.

I will never forget.

My Life in Song - Low

This is a song that I most definitely associate with University. I'm pretty sure it was played EVERY time we went out. I still find it hard not to go "low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low" when I hear it, but it just wouldn't be the same with out Miriam, so I refrain...plus it would look odd in the middle of a shop. :) This song makes me smile, I do miss my University days.

I'm hoping in June we get to dance to this.

The many faces of exams

I'll do anything not to have to work! I have a plan, should be easy...just need to start doing it. But in the mean time, photos of me pulling exam related faces. The above is how I imagine a lot of other people feel...sometimes you just walk into a room and can feel the stress coming from people, I prefer the relaxed approach...possibly why I don't do as well as others...but anyhoo...below are some of my facial expressions towards exams. Every now and then I do pull a "URGH!" face, and then I go distract myself with more TV or photo taking. Hehe...
...should go do something now!

Basketball in the Sunshine

Last Wednesday our little basketball crew met up to play some basketball (I obviously didn't partake because...well I'm lazy like that). So instead, I took photos of the basketballiness! All in the lovely sunshine that only occasionally delights us up in the north, but has been taking a liking to our little corner of the world in the recent weeks if not months! :) It was a lovely afternoon out, just after I had handed in my dreaded dissertation - and now I share the photos as I "study" (I believe I have mentioned before, but I hate studying, I can't do it, re-reading stuff I've been told, relearning everything...seems so boring, I haven't been away from it long enough to have regained interest in it, and starting with maths is decreasing my interest in revision even more! I have forgotten calculus altogether, and developed a new fear of all things mathematical that makes me insides tighten up...ick! So I am trying to find ANYTHING other than revision to keep me occupied...).
15 days, and then my uni work is all over...I can then begin to moan and complain about how hard working life (or finding work) is... :P

DONE!

IT'S IN!!!!!!

Dissertation Update

It's taking over my life... Good thing I'm only working on it for a short period of time :P

4500 words! :O :D

Means at least another 3000 for it to be within the guideline word limit...with a whole chapter to go (the longest chapter I think), more to add to the intro and a conclusion...I think I can make it! hehe. :)

Time for a little break I think.

Getting there...

I have 3000words I feel are set, and have just written another 750...so I'm like exactly half way done to the minimum word limit! And I still have to finish this chapter, write the chapter on social constructions and add so much more to my intro that I feel like I should maybe turn it into and intro and another chapter...we'll see. But Eeeeee. I am getting there! :D

Maths within Coral

I finished my summative! YAY! Now like 4 more? And a dissertation? Plus the presentation on my Maths project this friday...yay! I started research for the Maths project this afternoon. My initial idea was the Maths of Art...or something along those lines...so I was googling about and thought of spirographs, totally awesome stuff! There seems to be quite a bit of maths behind them as well, and I think it would be a fun way to teacher old kids maths...but anyway, I was googling pictures to make my presentation pretty (like you do) and clicked on this maths looking one, as I thought it may be useful for explaining the maths...and oh my! It led me to an awesome blog. And so I started browsing the blog and came across an awesome video from TED (well two, but I'll share just this one for now).

I suppose it may not be TOTALLY interesting to people who absolutely hate maths, but if I enjoyed it then it can't be that bad! Hope you enjoyed! I have so much I want to talk and write about for Maths now its all arrrrrhhhheeeee! :)

Education...

I think studying education is really interesting, and I do find the numerous debates you can have about the best ways to do things very engaging. BUT, man does it get depressing.

I'm not sure it gets to people as much as it gets to me, but the more we seem to learn the more and more corrupt, political and totally opposite to what I thought it was, education becomes. I used to see it as fun, fascinating, magical; learn for the sake of learning; learn what you found interesting. I wanted to believe that people were being taught for the sake of teaching people about all those wonderful things out there in the world. I think I was very naive.

I've recently handed in an essay on the effects of marketisation on education, and just had a lecture on the effects of globalisation. And it just gets to me. I enjoyed tests and exams because I had plenty of time to draw and daydream, and I found the material interesting...but I had started to find it annoying that I couldn't learn something without someone then testing if by chance what I learnt from the course would answer one of a few questions just the way they want it to...there is more to learning than that, but the education system doesn't really focus on that. And I know, testing and exams help see the progress students are making, helps you to see how much they understand, helps to judge if a school or university is doing it's job...but how much do they REALLY test all that stuff?

There were a couple of interesting quotes on the slides in my lecture today which I wanted to share, and then my rant is over.

"The obsession with standards risks alienating creative teacher and stultifying classroom practice" (Phillips & Harper-Jones, 2003: 130)

"We are creating hordes of smart conformists. They know what they have to do to get ahead, but they have little understanding of why they do what they are doing." (Brown, 2006: 393)

"A 'variety of classroom practices aimed at improving test results' have 'distorted the education of some children'" (The Children, Schools and Families Committee, 2008: 3)

"We have embraced dullness, and so close are we to it, we do not even see what has happened" (Seldon, in Davies, 2009: 9).

I'm kind of not sure about the whole education thing at the moment, and feel more and more as if I haven't gotten out of it what I wanted...but then I don't really know what it was I wanted anymore...

Rant over.

15 degrees

Today was a gorgeous 15 degrees outside...it's the middle of winter...but I am not complaining. It looked lovely, and it's so nice not freezing whilst waiting for a bus outside!

I didn't get to enjoy the warmth much as I had decided today would be work day! Yes, work. Hehe. Technically I should have done an essay already, but the due date has been pushed back...and so the urgency to get that one done has gone. Hehe...I am still focussing on my essay that actually counts towards my degree, as well it counts and it's interesting. I think, think, I am getting somewhere...my plan is much clearer in my mind...I think. We'll see, more work tomorrow.

Tonight though, lovely dinner with friend from High School and then a beer tower or two! Not seen some of the people turning up tonight for 2 years, so it should be nice! :D

Long days...

I was hoping to be able to blog more, but have had quite a hectic week or so with school visits and observations, PGCE interviews, basketball matches and cold. I've been so tired.

I have decided that I should carry my camera around with me more. I miss taking photos, maybe I should have tried to keep up with my 365 project. On my walks to the class observations I was doing this week (LONG walks...50mins...was getting up at 7, which was normal in high school, but I am so not used to it now and it's not so fun when your not sleeping well!), but anyways, I saw lots of pretty things on these walks...and really wanted to take photos, but no camera. The cathedral was REALLY pretty, the side I saw had the huge glass work window and new bricks and the morning sun was shining on it, and the sky was blue. So pretty, it must be really nice inside with the sun shining through the window.

Was also REALLY gorgeous on the Tuesday. We had quite a misty day, which started with quite a bit of frost. In the morning though the sun was shining, so with the mist rising from the ground and the sun shining through everything looked so pretty. The school is also situated near a golf course so there was a lot of open fields and prettily placed trees for rays of sun to shine through. Made me think of Keats Ode to Autumn, was so lovely!

Should try and make more time for this. I enjoy it. Take more photos. Update blog more. Sounds so easy! :P

PS: My feet are dead and my legs hurt. Basketball caused massive aching in my legs, which meant I tried to wear flat smart shoes for the school visits...which lead to blisters, which bled because the walk was so long so the rubbing went on for ages...so now I can't wear shoes without making walking hurt. My life!

Hawks!

We had a match last night. We were a little nervous and contemplating not playing since we only had 5 players, all relatively short (remind me why we play basketball again?) up against a large team, height and number, who won their first match by 25points. So basically we had no subs, and they had loads.

We decided to play though, it was so the right decision! Our zone (defence) was AMAZING, and we were keeping up with their team. We scored the first basket, we stayed calm, we had fun. They got increasingly frustrated that our tiny little team was doing this. It was cool. The resorted to a full court press at half time, so basically tried to stop us from getting away from their basket when we got possession of the ball, but that made very little difference. They did win, but by 2 baskets...not much to brag about considering the circumstances. We're very proud of our little team. :D GO HAWKS!
In other news...I have loads of work, and am coping with the stress of it by not doing any work...sometimes the way my brain works confuses me. Hehe. I'll get on top of it eventually. :D

Hello Durham

I had my interview yesterday! Eeeeee. I didn't sleep well the night before, partly due to nerves and partly due to this stupid cold I managed to pick up that day...seriously, my luck! My cold wasn't too bad during the morning though. We got told about the course and what it would include, and then separated into our groups for the "group interview". They basically asked us what we thought made a successful lesson. The other two in my group sounded like they'd really prepared for their interviews coming out with all sorts like preparing for the class, structure, dividing the class based on ability...I started to feel a little useless with my "make it fun" and "get them to learn through play so that they may not even realise they are learning". We then shared our answers with everyone else and moved on to the reading and writing bit. We read a section of the Rose Report on phonics and had to say how we would teach phonics in our class effectively. Whilst doing this they took us out for our individual interviews one at a time.

I felt like my interview went alright...there were points that I think worked for me, but also points that worked against me. They had a set of questions they asked, such as: What did you get out of doing a degree? Do you speak other languages? What did you learn from the placements you did? What kind of teacher do you want to/think you'll be? I hadn't put much thought into those things, so felt like I was repeating myself a lot. I did know what kind of teacher I wanted to be though, and I think she quite liked my answer: a mix of Ms. Honey from Mathilda and Ron Clark: motivation, caring, enthusiasm, creativity and fun. She picked up that those themes ran through most of my answers, and asked if there was an event I had witnessed or been part of that made me feel so strongly about it. I cried...I cry way to much in the Education Department. I think I have only not cried when meeting someone in there...maybe 3 times...thats in the last 2 years. Oh dear! It also seemed to be an issue that I hadn't done any work in a British school, so hadn't had experience with the National Curriculum.

BUT, they have offered me a conditional place, SO none of those things matter! :D Yay!! I will try go into some schools though, just to get a feel before the course starts. :)

So yeah, I should be in Durham again next year! :D Yays!!!

PS: The photo is of the outfit I wore...I felt rather underdressed compared to some others there! But I liked my outfit. :)

In the post.

Look what I have! Eeee. Very excited, oh the prettiness that it contains!

In other news, I visited a Special Needs school this morning as part of a module I am doing this year. It was very interesting. The school was for 'BESD' (Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties) students...although the head teacher doesn't like this term because she thinks it puts too much emphasis on the 'behavioural' part which is really only an effect of the emotional and social difficulties; I would agree with her on this point. Because of the nature of the 'disability' the students seemed pretty normal when we had a look in on the classes, however we did see once child having a fit over something and there was obviously some difficulties for some students having a group of strangers come into the classroom. I think it was a nice experience to have though, and will definitely help with the course. :)

I also got my courses all sorted out! There was a definite miscommunication, but it's been sorted so I should be able to access info for ALL my modules soon! YAY!!

Interview tomorrow, eeeee! The closer is gets the better I feel about it. Just be myself. :)

Missing HP...

Unfortunately I was VERY tired on Friday so took a nap...due to being VERY tired this nap lasted 2.5hours and meant I slept through the whole of the Harry Potter module.

I tried reading the lecture notes to see what I have missed, and have learnt that missing lectures is a BAD idea...the slides make no sense without having heard/hearing Mr. R's comments on them, he really does add a whole lot of meaning to his lectures IN the lecture. Lesson learnt, hopefully the thoughts for the Common Room will help me understand a little better. :)

On another note, I HAVE MY NEW LAPTOP! It is so pretty and the battery lasts FORVER! It's amazing, and makes working online seem so much more fun...although I think that may be the novelty of the laptop, hopefully it isn't though! Need to sort a few more things out, like getting Word and connecting to my printer, and then TADA! Working time! :P

HP time

Crest done by Miriam and myself for our Colleges Yule Ball themed Ball.

I have realised that through blogging about this module I am probably going to retain a lot more of the knowledge. I’ve spent some time thinking about whether I should explain all the thoughts that are put forward within the lectures or just the ideas we investigated. I decided that I don’t want to give the lecture to others, so instead will mention some of the broader ideas and any questions to think about.

Today we explored the concept of Houses: looking at the the pros and cons of having school houses, the sorting and the reputations. We were reminded, as I think we will be every week, to avoid the Button Man (I must not have been playing attention the last two years...because I don’t recall this ever being mentioned before) and the Bible Code...in other words try and avoid making up connections that aren’t there.

So, what thought arose from this lecture?

Is the Sorting hat a philosopher? An oracle? A seer?Does the Sorting Hat make mistakes?What do the House colours, animals, common rooms, elements, etc. say about the Houses? Is the idea of four different houses for different traits that farfetched?

Can we compare the Houses of Hogwarts to the Durham Colleges? Maybe, we have all been sorted into different Colleges, Universities, and courses. Do being in any of these groupings make us any better than others?

Are Slytherin bad? As one of the students ‘sorted’ into Slytherin I had to write a ‘parchment’ about the traits of Slytherin, and spent most of it defending Slytherin from it’s bad reputation. It’s traits include things such as ambition and greatness. Some major characters have taken these too far or used them for the wrong cause, but they can be good...and at the end of the books where did their loyalties lie? With Voldemort or with Hogwarts?

We also discussed whether you are born into a house or grow into a house, that common question of nature or nurture. And were left to think about how this idea of Houses and all that comes along with them could be played out in schools...

We have only had two proper lectures so far, but I must say this is probably one of the most interesting and engaging modules I am doing, and I think there really has been a lot of work put into thinking beyond the books. :)

Harry Potter and the Age of Illusion

There has been quite a bit of press around this new module. It has mainly been positive, although some think it a waste of time and just seem quite bitter. I thought since there was such an interest in the module (I have had quite a few friends ask me about it) I would blog my experience of the module here...being one of the MANY students taking part. It will be my experience and what I feel about it, so may not match others opinions, but I will try and avoid lying about what went on as some sources have. (The BBC announced the first module had taken place 4 hours before it had, it also mentioned broomsticks...but since they had witnessed something other than the lecture taking place it is no wonder they saw objects which were not present...)

So...the first lecture. We have been told that had they been able to the filming of the Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies would have taken place in the Great Hall of the castle in Durham, unfortunately this meant it being out of use for longer than Durham could allow. However, the Great Hall of Durham Castle provided a great place for our first lecture. Many students (more than I have ever witnessed for an Education module) turned up to the Great Hall...first having to show identity to quite a few Prefects dressed in robes. We had been informed we should wear robes/cloaks and a fair amount of students did, one students had a wizards hat, a Gryffindor scarf and a Hogwarts folder as well (needless to say he was VERY happy to be sorted into Gryffindor later). We all sat down at the looong dinner tables within the hall (Castle students are so lucky to be able to eat in there every day...it's REALLY nice), and sat a little bemused at this extravagant lecture. We were then introduced to the course and the sorting began. Students names were called one by one to come forward and be sorted by the power of the bag of marbles. (Some students are convinced it was really Mr. Richardson deciding where they went...we will never know). There was a lot of clapping and many happy faces...except those perhaps put into Slytherin. There was no booing, but students definitely did not seem to pleased. I myself, however, had hoped to be put into Slytherin so was very pleased to have been sorted there, not least because green looks really good on me!

At the end of the sorting Mr. Richardson's son was sorted too. It was his birthday, and by the fact that he was wearing a cloak and hugging a Hedwig doll (and the fact that in the last two years we have been told numerous times by Mr. Richardson) it was obvious he was a huge fan, and of course was put into Gryffindor.

The sorting was a lot of fun, but also served as a point for thought. How often are we just randomly sorted? Can the houses represent universities? Durham Colleges? What does being a member of a house do to our identity? How do we feel about the sorting? There has obviously been a lot of thought put into this module, and I can see it will be a lot of fun as well as thought provoking. :)

Our first proper lecture discussed whether the module was fit for study...and who should decide. Who do you think should decide what we study? Do you think the module is fit for study?

We'll find out...I better be off now to write about the strengths of my house. :)

I PASSED!

Oh yeah! In your face stupid Maths Department! Wheeeeeeeee!

SECOND!

It's so awesome!!! :D We are now officially second, they FINALLY updated the table. :) it's so nice to see. :D Click on the picture to see better. :)

It's been a while.

Exams are officially over! I don't know how I did yet, I don't think we find out until the 23rd, but the actually writing is over! YAY!!! I went out for lunch with some Education people to celebrate. Was really nice and fun. I do like the Education crowd. :) We also had a basketball match in the evening which I am pretty sure NO-ONE wanted to play, hehe. But we won! So yaaaay! :D

I've been quite lazy since exams ended. Will made Miriam and I lunch on Saturday, then we walked to the Botanical Gardens (it was closed...poo), so we got a drink at the New Inn then went home to a picnic. Sunday was Hild Bedes beer fest, so I suppose I may have been busy rather than lazy! Hehe.

I drew something yesterday in my whole sitting around doing nothingness. Tis a cool Giraffe! :D With glasses, oh yeah, really cool! :D
It's been quite horrid weather since Sunday, grey clouds and rain. Yuck yuck. I liked it when it was sunny and warm, it makes me eat healthy. Fruit and veg seem so much more appealing when it's warm out. Who loves melon? Me me me!!
Ooo! And it was James' birthday on Wednesday, and I felt bad I didn't give him a special blog post, but I did have an exam that morning! My official excuse. Here's the picture I sent him on his birthday! :D It does mention rainbows and fairy dust, I know...I'm too cool! :P
Going to Burger King for lunch today, then making milkshakes and cookies with Miriam. :D I love having time off! I do have to write something about Proof by Induction for Friday to get onto my only compulsory Maths module...make sense to you? Because it makes no sense to me! But oh well. Hopefully I'll be back more this week!

Toodles!