Fire is a purifier.
I used fire as a metaphor today.
It came just after my Lawrence of Arabia analogy. Allow me to explain, and yes, it is well over a year since I last blogged but two things happened over the last two days that has compelled me to kick this off again.
Where I work, they have laid prostrate before the god of technology and thrown wide their arms to receive the iBlessing. 'Bring your own device' policy has meant you can bring any device. ANY. DEVICE. Except that one, and that one, wait....yep not that one either. Hell, just....let's just use Mac okay? So when you have a class the student with throw open the wee satan clams and clatter away on their scrabble sets. And what are they doing? Playing games. What sort of games do you play on a $1500 machine? 16-bit stuff that looks like what we were playing in the 80s.
Anyway, it's a damn pain. ESPECIALLY if you have to use the damn laptops because the kids are addicted. The minute they have to think their neurons go - I NEED FLASHY CATS WITH RAINBOWS - and off they go. Now to actual do anything of a disciplinary nature, you need to catch the kid dead-to-rights. It's no good explaining to parents that you THOUGHT Annie or Andre looked like they were enjoying themselves in class, so you drew the obvious conclusion that they were playing games.Thanks to the innovation of that dead god Steve and his anxious slaves, kids can just wave their hand and boom. Problem gone. There is NO WAY YOU CAN CROSS THE ROOM FAST ENOUGH TO CATCH THEM so your best bet is to hurl a chair.
But today I got lucky. Today I got to give my Lawrence of Arabia speech. Unfortunately the girl I was addressing stormed angrily out of the room before I could get half way through, so as far as she's concerned Lawrence risked his life to save some Arab guy. Actually if people started applying just that principle things might be a little more peachy, globally speaking.
So what happened? I bloody won is what happened. Ironically it was the magic touch-pad three finger swipe that saved the day, for me, that is. Not the girl. She got Lawrenced of Arabiaed.
Me: (sitting at front of room in chair) What are you doing?
Girl: My work?!
Me: (looking at girl next to her) Is (insert girl's name here) playing a game?
Girl slowly shakes her head but the fear in her eyes is saying, 'Yes Limb...yes she most certainly is'.
Me: (moving towards the girl who shall soon feature in my Lawrence of Arabia analogy)
Me: Show me.
Girl: (grinning triumphantly - turns the laptop around - and it's what she should be working on)
Me: (not saying a word I reach into the heavens and I snatch Steve Jobs Heavenly Three Finger Swipe and I ruin that girl's day in a manner she won't understand for 4 minutes yet).
A game. A flashy game that actually looks mildly interesting.
Girl: some comment about something about the game something.
I return to my desk.
Silence
The jury wants a verdict. I sigh.
Me: Well, you guys know the rules (I have at this point no damn clue about what the rules are)
Group of boys in the gallery: Sir, it's a send out.
Me: Well, I'd better write this up.
I write a message to the Deputy Principal and hit send.
Girl: (who had been smiling, suddenly loses her composure and is outraged) THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!! WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE THAT WERE PLAYING GAMES?!?!?!?!
Me: You know (put the girl's name here) ? It's not fair. Not fair at all because you're right. I bet heaps of students in here were playing games. But I caught you. Don't take this personally, but you have to leave now... in fact have you ever seen LAWRENCE OF ARABIA?
Girl: (in a pitched fury is packing up her stuff)
Me: Has any one here seen Lawrence of Arabia?
One kid puts up his hand but I actually couldn't care less because I'm now going to deliver my Lawrence of Arabia analogy.
Me: See there's this scene where Lawrence of Arabia has to cross the desert in order to attack and take a fort from the rear because it's impossible to take, as it's heavily fortified by the Turkish because it faces the sea.
While Lawrence of Arabia and his faithful followers are crossing the desert they lose a man in a dust storm. They only realise this when they get to the other side of the desert. They all decide the man is a lost cause because, well, they'll all cook to death and they bloody miraculously made it in the first instance. But not Lawrence of Arabia, because he's Lawrence of Arabia. And do you know what he does?
(at this point the door to the classroom slams and we're all distracted because the girl is now erratically walking backward and forward and I'm hoping to God she does not walk back into the classroom because it will completely ruin my Lawrence of Arabia analogy. Thankfully she just left.)
Resuming... Lawrence of Arabia goes back and he gets that guy and he rescues that guy and everyone is so happy and he is friends with the guy.
Later in the film Lawrence of Arabian is trying to bring all the warring factions of the Arab tribes together because he's Lawrence of Arabia. But in an awkward and somewhat predictable moment, there's a murder. So Lawrence is called upon to adjudicate. Now everything has been going so swimmingly well, (in spite of it all being a desert) that everyone thinks that maybe, just maybe they can pull together. But there's a murder between two warring tribes and everything's about to go to pot. So Lawrence of Arabia announces that they must bring the murderer to him.
AND THEN THE BIG REVEAL.... DUM DUM DAAAAA
A man is roughly brought before Lawrence of Arabia and the hood comes off and IT'S THE GUY!!!! IT'S THE GUY LAWRENCE OF ARABIA SAVED FROM THE DESERT!!!!
and you know what he did kids?
He let him off.
(weirdly the class kind of slumps like it's a bit lame but then I yell, laughing suddenly and to be honest I was a bit alarmed that I burst out laughing)
NO HE DIDN'T!! HE SHOT HIM IN THE FACE.
A girl interrupted me.
Interrupting girl: But sir, it's NOT FAIR. You didn't tell the other....
I obviously cut her off.
(And then I really yelled. It wasn't an angry yell. It was now time to Samuel L. Jackson it up.)
DON'T SIT THERE LIKE I JUST MURDERED STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE OR WINNIE THE POOH. YOU PEOPLE ARE PLAYING WITH FIRE. THE TINY MAN IS NOT TO BE CROSSED BECAUSE YOU WILL GET BURNT. TODAY (insert girl's name here) GOT A LITTLE SINGED. BUT IF I LET HER OFF, WHAT IS THE MESSAGE YOU WILL BRING TO CLASS TOMORROW???
