Keeping order in the classroom
Published: Tue, 11/07/17
On Sunday afternoon Venetia and I went to see if you can walk around Hornsea Mere. You can’t, at least not on a footpath around the banks. You can however get onto the peninsula at the East end of the mere and visit the sailing club. Lots of wild ducks and geese to see and a nice cafe. I guess there are worse ways to spend a wet Sunday afternoon in early November.
On the way back we diverted through Tickton and took the road along the Hull river to the Grovehill road bridge. As we drove through Tickton we passed the village junior school and I remembered that I did my first teaching practice there more than 25 years ago. I had a class of 10 and 11 year olds and I seem to recall that it was quite fun. (The more serious practice the following term at a secondary school was much more challenging.) One recollection from my brief time at Tickton was that the school had some arrangement with a local museum. Exhibits would be loaned to the school for a couple of weeks for educational purposes. At the time I was there a couple of items turned up, one of which was a flintlock blunderbus, which must have dated back to the late 18th or early 19th century. The children were quite intrigued by this weapon and I promised that if they were good etc I would devote a class to studying it. I have always
been interested in guns so I was probably the right person to teach such a lesson. The children kept their side of the deal and the following morning the pupils of Tickton primary school had a lesson on muzzle loading fire arms.
Because I was on teaching practice I was also liable to be inspected at any time by my tutor, but I would not know when he was coming. As it turned out the lesson had just started, the class were all hanging on my every word and I was standing at the front holding a blunderbus when my tutor slipped in at the back. He said afterwards that he was happy with the class but I never found out if my unusual approach to classroom management and maintaining discipline merited a specific note in his report.
Why share this? Because I can and because as I work on my book (I am up to more than 18,000 words and intend to be at 60,000 by the end of the month) all kinds of memories keep surfacing. Many are things I can include in the book, others like the one I have just shared with you probably don’t have a place in a book on Stav as a martial art but it was amusing at the time.
What will be interesting is the material we are going to cover at the camp I am organising in June next year to be held in Norfolk. I am calling it the HEMA Diversity Camp because four very different teachers are are going to be teaching a diverse range of martial skills, including some stuff that is rarely, if ever, taught in this country. The only consistency in the event will be the quality of the teaching and the fun you will have if you come. First version of the webpage here http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/hdc.html
regards
Graham
PS Of course you don’t have to wait that long to train with me, next Saturday training session in Beverley on the 9th of November. We will do some staff, axe and cudgel basics in the morning and then go into some advance cudgel and tein training in the afternoon. Full details at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html