There are any number of similarities between being a teacher and being a parent. Both involve an awful lot of behaviour management, dealing with repetitious questions and the constant nagging sense that you're not quite doing it well enough. The biggest similarity is that, just when you think you've got a handle on what it …
Philosophers spend much of their time (I assume based on little to no research) sat in Parisian cafes, smoking filterless cigarettes, drinking small cups of intensely black coffee and considering the nature of humanity. A process of inductive reasoning must take place. A noticing of an idiosyncrasy that turns out to be more common than …
One of the unlooked for joys of working with teenagers is watching them believe, with the utmost certainty, that they know better than you. It's not really their fault. Being so young they have no real frames of reference for the consequences of their actions and so their attempts to embrace the agency of adulthood …
Having been a teacher for too long, I have seen many awful student performances. Many where either nerves or a gross overestimation of ability has led to those protracted silences that forces everyone in the audience to smile fixedly for the duration. You can see people desperately fighting the urge to look at their phone …
Being a parent is - largely - an exercise in becoming everything you hate. I hate people who try to desperately live their unfulfilled dreams through their children. You know the type. They're the ones at their kid's sports match, screaming obscenities at a huddled bunch of five-year olds for some minor technical infringement. The …
There are few sounds as disturbing, on a fundamentally primal level, as a cat throwing up next to the bed at 2.30 in the morning. The whole process, from wet-gagging-start to fetid-stench-end seems to touch a nerve of such deep abhorrence that it would, I suggest, be akin to having to shake hands with Piers …
Continue reading "Parenting a toddler? You better be a polymath."
I've always had what I felt was a sensible mistrust of people who can order the world into 'correct' and 'incorrect'. To me, that is the way of the extremist: "difference is bad, my way is good, kill those who oppose". As such, I am wary of mathematicians - or as I like to call …
London, 1940. The wail of air-raid sirens signals another attack by the Luftwaffe. The screaming noise is punctuated by the dull percussive thud of bombs. Just on the edge of hearing the angry bee-swarm-hum of propeller engines provide a droning bass note; ceaselessly framing the other sounds in hateful monotone. Nights are spent lying in …
One of the absolute joys of living in Thailand is how much the Thai people adore kids, especially blonde-haired farang toddlers. Apart from the innate sense of paternal pride at watching your youngster being doted on by numerous people it has a number of benefits. Firstly, for a brief moment in time the boy is preoccupied with …
My son is a social bean. He gets it from his mother. Not me at all. I'm not social. I hate people. Even you. Anyway, as his voice and gestures become more developed he has improved his ability to make people aware of him. Unsuspecting members of the public will be yelled at, given a …
tastehitch 