Condemned with Faint Praise...

Today is a momentous day.  

Finally, after 4 years (longer if you count the all the times I planned to do it before we moved here), I have begun the massive clear out of our family photographs.  Not just the photographs I have amassed over the years, but the mountains of photos I inherited from my mum and my gran.

They were put in the games room when we moved here in 2012 and I was full of good intentions of clearing them out before the games room was demolished and the building work began.  Of course, being Queen of Procrastination that didn't happen and the boxes were then dumped in the dining room.

Now, given that the dining room is going to become our makeshift kitchen for six weeks in the not too distant future, I thought I better get started and when better than a a drench day like today, when no better plans were tempting me away.

So, with David away to Glasgow to pick up more paint testers for the kitchen cupboard doors, I shut myself in the dining room and got started.

I managed to get through two boxes.  Well one box really and I was quite ruthless.  Turn out it's easier that I thought to chuck out blurry photos of scenery from god knows where, taken on holiday in 1983.   It's much harder to chuck out photos of loved ones, even though they are out of focus and said loved one is a tiny dot in the distance.

I gave myself a good talking to though and managed to part with a fairly high proportion.  It's clear though that once the initial clear out has been done, I will have to go through them again and be even more ruthless, as two boxes have been cleared out, but the remainder still take up two boxes!  Not good enough.

One thing I did find that I wasn't expecting to was my old Primary school report cards.  They did make me laugh.  One thing struck me; how little paperwork teachers had to do in the 70s when assessing their pupil's learning.  

This little tick list form with a tiny space for remarks was sent out twice a year (November & June) and apart from Parent's night, was the only information parents' received to give them some indication of where on the genius scale their little precious lay.

I am pleased to say that in all my report cards I appear to be attentive, competent, communicating satisfactorily and interested.   In my P6 & P7  reports I manage to score higher and show special interest in reading and creative writing.  Go me!  :-))  But it was the comment section on this one that made me laugh - apparently my results are quite good - hahahahahaha.   

Oh if only Facebook had been around in 1975.  I bet my mother would have been tripping over herself to update her status to "proud mummy" with that little nugget of information!  :-)))

When I think of the amount of paperwork that teachers have to contend with these days and all the indicators they have to report children's progress against, I am left wondering if it's made all that much of a difference / improvement to children's learning and attainment.  Are today's children better educated at age 8 than I was?  

I would argue that they may be more socially aware, less innocent, more confident even, but better educated?  I don't think so.  

I remember the teacher that signed this report card with great affection (as I do all my Primary school teachers).  She was a tall, athletic looking, slightly intimidating woman.  Strong and at times quite loud, but fiercely intelligent and with a wicked sense of humour.  It was in her class I mastered long division, fractions and my times tables.  

Every morning after registration we recited our times tables in unison from the two times table up to the twelve times table.   Then we would have the quick fire round where she would prowl round the class room then quickly point at someone whilst barking 7 x 4, or 5 x 8 and you had answer straight back.  Any hesitation and you had to recite the entire table.  Suffice to say, I know my times tables!  :-))

But as well as the three R's, I remember her having the freedom to expand our knowledge from random situations when the opportunity arose.  Walks along the local nature trail, projects on our village's mining heritage, wildlife in the local burn to name a few.  

She even arrived in class one day with a quill pen and bottle of Quink ink (messy!) for me following a brief conversation I had with her where I expressed my incredulity that people used to write using bird feathers and how was that even possible?!   

Good teachers are very special people and worth their weight in gold.  I just wonder how many are now put off the profession or have their enthusiasm ground down with the amount of planning and paperwork now required to do exactly the same job.    A thankless task at times I suspect.

So, two boxes down.  Only umpteen still to go.  

PS Would it surprise you to know that a couple of my report cards mention that I am a bit of a chatterbox?    Thought not :-)))