Scenes from the Classroom #33

I am having a blinder of a start to the term. Lessons are going well, SLT seem pleased with me (indicating my results were at least acceptable...I thought they were, but it's hard to tell in a new context), I have taken over the running of the ski trip, I love my new tutor group, all my classes seem reasonable (cautious), and I have managed two work-free weekends in a row, in line with my new year's resolution.

Then there's the little icing here and there. Today I handed out the textbooks to my year 10 class. They're the ones I wrote. I don't tell them this because it's a bit awkward to just announce it, isn't it? Then this...

M: Um, Miss...
Me: ...yes?
M: Well, er...it's just there's...well, there's a name on the front of this textbook...
Me: ....
M: Well, it's the same as your name.
Me: Yes.
M: Did you write this book?
Me: Yes, I wrote this book.
Whole class: WHAT?! Really? Where? Where does it say that? Did you really? Did you write the whole thing? How long did it take? How did you get to do that?
L: What do you have to read to write a book? (Best historian question: she will go far)
Me: I read lots of things. So many things. You know that book I gave you readings from the other day? That was one of the things.
L: Wow!
L2: I'm so proud to have this book!

These moments are very nice. I spend a lot of time in my non-school jobs with people who have written loads of textbooks and are far more accomplished, so sometimes I forget that it was actually quite an achievement.

The other class were nice about it, but not quite so effusive (today's class are complete geeks who genuinely laugh at my awful jokes) and T, of last week's SftC, said, "Why would anyone want to do that?" and then, when I said I'd given copies to my parents, "If someone gave me a textbook, yknow, I wouldn't read it."

It's good to remain humble.