All posts by Beth

I'm a Canadian crochet-obsessed mum living in the UK who used to make a living teaching English to teenagers. Current distractions: babies, baking and baby sign language!
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Are targets a good thing?

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Right now, I’m taking a break from seeing all the students in my tutor group. Today is Mentoring Day, and it’s a chance to have a look at how each individual student has done on their school report, and to set some targets that will be worked on for the next term or so, until the next Mentoring Day where they will be monitored, assessed and revised.

I have to say that I’m quite enjoying it. It gives me a chance to talk to each student in my tutor group (for the non-Brits among our readers, I have a group of students that I am responsible for pastorally; they register with me twice a day, and I’m the first port of call if they are having problems at school or at home, and the person the parents call first if they have a concern) and see how they are doing, what their attitude toward school is, and to help them to set targets, or goals, for the coming year. This is quite important in Year 10, as this is the first year of their two-year courses leading up to GCSE, the equivalent of High School graduation in North America. If they’re off track now, they’ll have a hard time getting caught up in year 11 before exams…

But I do have a question – are the targets that we’re setting a good thing?

My life at the moment seems to be ruled by targets. As a teacher, I have to set myself a professional target at the beginning of the year that I am going to work towards for next year. For example, this year I’m continuing to work on a department policy for implementing ICT (Information and Communications Technology – or, in other words, computers…) across our department. I also have targets set for me by the national government – to raise achievement of boys in English, for example – and the Local Educational Authority (kind of like a N. Am. school district…) has set targets for the grades that they want the students in my school at achieve. And we’re always looking to hit or improve on the targets for last year.

And it’s not just education. The National Health Service (NHS) has targets set each year for reducing waiting times for appointments, or increasing the number of patients seen each week. Football teams have targets for how well they’re going to do each year. Companies have targets for how well they are going to do each year. On the face of it, targets are motivating, and if you make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Resourced, Time-related) you can see how well you’ve done.

But how young is too young to have targets? I’m reading a book by Alexander McCall Smith at the moment called 44 Scotland Street. One of the characters has a five-year-old son who has just passed his grade 6 tenor saxaphone exam, and is learning Italian. He, certainly, has many targets set for him by his mother. But when does he have time to be a kid? And while some of my students are extremely motivated and organised, some of them aren’t interested in school and find other things much more rewarding. Is it valid to make targets for those things instead of school? Or are targets our way of saying in the back-of-your-head grandparent’s voice that you have to do something worthwhile with your life, and this is how you have to do it?? Is it just a way of pressing our need for conformity on the younger generation?

There are people who find targets limiting and de-motivating. I’m a professional person, who is good at my job, and who, I think, cares about the students in my classes. Yet I feel guilty and slightly ashamed to admit that one of my major targets for the future has nothing to do with school – it’s to have and raise a family. When I look at some of my friends my targets make me feel inadequate, compared with targets to be a headteacher or to be running a department in 3 years time… But it’s just not something that interests me. I am looking into becoming a lay minister, but sometimes in my target-driven workplace having targets that aren’t related to school aren’t valued as much as they should be.

I feel as if I’ve argued myself in circles a bit, here. On one hand it’s good to have targets, but then they can also seem overpowering and regimental at times. And should people be dictated as to what your targets should be about? But targets do seem to work well for getting students to focus on certain things in school, especially if things aren’t going well and they are getting it in the neck from several teachers all at once…

I guess the jury’s still out on this one.

Beth's Reading Log, Books

The Jade Peony

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Jade Peony

Chinese and Japanese culture has fascinated me for quite a while – I think ever since my brother first became interesed in the samurai’s intricate code of conduct – and when I can combine it with my love of reading, I’m a very happy person indeed. For example, I devoured Cloud of Sparrows as well as Across the Nightengale Floor and Grass for His Pillow not only for their incredible storylines, but also for their insight into medieval Japanese culture. I’m also a fan of Chinese martial arts films – I think Hero is one of the most stunning films I have ever seen – but I’m always excited to find Eastern culture mixed with Canadian insights – as is found in Wayson Choy’s book, The Jade Peony.

First, I have to say that there are some parts of Canadian history that, frankly, I’m ashamed of. We have built up a world-wide reputation for being fair and peacemakers (and for apologising endlessly, but I’m digressing – sorry! 🙂 ) but parts of our history show just how intolerant we can be. The Chinese have a long history in Canada – they practically built the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains and across British Columbia to the Pacific. And they weren’t valued, either – they were made to pay a $50 head tax when they came into the country, and only men were allowed at first, as they were needed to work. Wives, children, relatives – they weren’t ‘necessary’ – they might encourage the ‘Chinks’ to stay – and were not allowed into the country until much later. Even into the 1940s and ’50s a Chinese person couldn’t immigrate to Canada unless they were sponsored by a relative. And on the railroad, the Chinese were given the most dangerous jobs – placing nitro glycerin for blasting through rock, etc. They say that one Chinese man died for every mile of track laid across British Columbia. When you look at how big Canada is – that’s a lot of wasted lives.

Canada’s track record didn’t improve in the 20th Century, either. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour during the Second World War, Canada rounded up the rather large Japanese immigrant population (and even first- and second-generation Japanese Canadians) and put them into internment camps so they couldn’t pass information onto the ‘enemy’. Most of these people lived in British Columbia, which, remember, is just across the Pacific from Japan (cue heavily ironic tone), and they were moved inland and their homes and property sold. Their story is told in Snow Falling on Cedars – something that still is sitting on my ‘to be read’ shelf! Although this book is set in the US, the situation wasn’t much different for the Canadian Japanese. My own family experienced some of this discrimination from another cultural point of view – German immigrants weren’t especially popular either during the war, but at least they weren’t forcibly removed from their land and rounded up like cattle.

But, back to the book. The Jade Peony is the story of three younger children growing up in a Chinese Canadian household in Vancouver in the 1940s. Their father is a journalist and activist for Chinese rights, and the situation of the Chinese in the war against Japan. Their lives are dominated by Poh-Poh, or Grandmother, a formidable woman who believes strongly in the ways of Old China, where children no longer played from the age of six, but worked hard as servants, in the fields, or on their studies. She adheres to a strict code of hierarchy in their house. Father’s First Wife died in China before they came to Canada, but the mother of his two youngest children is always known as Stepmother at Poh-Poh’s insistence, even to her own children. This was to keep things simple. Poh-Poh said that girls were worthless, especially girls like Jook-Liang, whose fingers weren’t fast enough for tying silk-ribbon flowers. She coddled Sek-Lung, the youngest, because he was a boy and because he was a sickly child, and she showed a tough love toward Jung-Sum, Second Brother, who was adopted into the family after his father killed his mother and then committed suicide. These three children tell the story of growing up in a place where you didn’t belong, of a place where your enemy, the Japanese, lived down the street, where you had to reconcile the Old Ways and language (with its many, confusing dialects) with new, western ways of living in Canada.

What fascinated me about The Jade Peony was the attitude of the different cultural groups within Canada toward each other. I have always seen growing up in Canada as a positive experience, that the experience of growing up with different cultural groups – everyone in Canada, with the exception of the First Nations people, are or are descended from immigrants – helped to form my ideas about tolerance and living with one another peacefully. There are always people in any society who are intolerant of others; in Britain they are usually members of the BNP; in Canada they are colloquially known as ‘rednecks’. What was surprising to me was that members of one minority community could have so such hatred and ill-feeling toward members of another minority community. And yet, it makes sense – the Japanese had invaded China and were committing, by all accounts, horrendous atrocities against the Chinese, so why wouldn’t the Chinese community in Canada feel hostile towards the Japanese community? Despite their own persecution from the white population at large, the majority of the Chinese community felt that the Japanese deserved everything that was coming to them. And yet, the Canadian ideals of fairness and tolerance come out again in Choy’s writing through his portrayal of Lin Meiying, a beautiful young Chinese girl who falls in love in a Japanese boy. Through her tragic story we see the consequences of hatred and hostility between cultural groups. And perhaps this is Choy’s message throughout, as Meiying’s tale is the last in the book, to be told through the eyes of seven-year-old Sek-Lung, who himself is torn between the grand war-stories he makes up with his friends about fighting the Japanese and admiring the incredible baseball skills of Meiying’s Japanese lover, Kazuo.

I had a similar experience reading this book as I did the last Canadian novel I read, Monkey Beach – that of falling into a familiar world and not wanting to come out again – but such a different, and colourful one. But it has again left me with a sense of awe about the Chinese culture, almost as in a fairy tale where ghosts come to life and everything is dressed in bright colours and embroidery. And to have that Canadian tone of tolerance and acceptance thrown in gives me a sense of homecoming, but is important for everyone to hear.

This book won the Trillum Book Award

Beth's Reading Log, Books

His name is Fforde – Jasper Fforde

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Remember how I waxed lyrical over Gregory Maguire’s rewriting of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Cinderella’ and other well known fairy tales? I’ve found another author who does the same for nursery rhymes. And fairy tales. And any other literary reference he can cram into a sentence.

I ordered Jasper Fforde’s newest book, ‘The Big Over Easy’ because of its blurb – who wouldn’t want to read about the murder of Humpty Dumpty, I thought? Especially if the DI is named Jack Spratt, with a DS named Mary Mary? Sounds like fun. Little did Richard know that he would be subjected to a contant barrage of impromtu readings and ‘I can’t believe he did it AGAIN‘s on the plane to Canada this summer.

Fforde has created a world in which popular culture is literary – ever want to go see a full-audience-participation production of Richard III, a la Rocky Horror Picture Show? (‘When is the winter of our discontent?’ bellows the audience. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’ answers the actor…) See more of what it’s like in ‘The Eyre Affair’. Ever wonder how many neuroses a large egg might have living in today’s society? Find out in ‘The Big Over Easy’. And I’m sure there will be many more interesting questions and answers when I’ve read the whole of Fforde’s output to date. Because I’m that hooked.

It’s not just that his sense of humour saturates his books – his website, and advertisements in the back of his novels are amazingly funny as well. Ever wonder how toast got to be such a popular breakfast food? Maybe it’s because of the work of the sterling people at the ‘Toast Marketing Board’. And wouldn’t it be neat to be able to own a pet that has been extinct for hundreds, or even millions of years? Leave it to Pete and Dave at ‘Pete and Dave’s Dodo Emporium’ – all dodos guaranteed non-feral!

All I can say is that I’ve always wanted to meet Mr. Rochester, and Thursday Next, the heroine of ‘The Eyre Affair’ gets to to this, and change the course of one of the best-loved books of all time. What avid reader wouldn’t want to be able to do that? Please, meet Jasper Fforde’s creations in person – they are well worth your time.

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next) The Big Over Easy

General

The BBQ Queen lives again…

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OK. I think I have the right to feel a bit smug. I’m pretty good at a dab of DIY here and there, but machines have pretty much eluded my grasp. Flat-pack shelves; let me at ’em. Changing the oil on a vehicle; although Dad did his darndest to teach me, it still fills me with horror.

So, I think I’ve got the right to feel smug when I say that there is now a fully-functioning BBQ sitting in the back garden. Yep, lil’ ol’ me has just completed the assembly, including hooking up the gas bottle, of a real live gas BBQ. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to see how it cooks, as I was fainting with hunger on the way home and opted for a ready-made meal this evening instead of home-cooked. With Richard in London, I feel I can indulge a little, but tomorrow night it’s barbequed chops all round! (That’s me and the cat, that is. There are some disadvantages of being home by yourself…)

This has also got me thinking about the nature of summer. Having grown up with the BBQ as a de rigeur cooking utensil (42 degrees Centigrade is a little too hot to be cooking indoors…) I hadn’t realised how much I missed having a good BBQ to share my summers with. And cooking on disposable BBQs just isn’t the same… And with all the hot weather lately (stop chuckling, you!!) I feel that summer has arrived. Me, sunburn and BBQ’d food always did seem to go together…

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of our BBQ as well. Not only does it have the requisite grill, it also has a cast-iron griddle, so I could do bacon and eggs and pancakes (North American ones, I mean…) on the BBQ if I so wished! I think I’m going to like my new toy… 😉

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It’s been 5 years??

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Union Jack 5

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5 years.
It’s a nice round number.
It seems like a long time – after all, it’s 31, 536, 000 seconds. 1, 825 days. 60 months. But it’s also a significant number. According to my passport, today I’ve been living in the UK for exactly 5 years.

It’s a strange feeling, to find that at the same time it seems like I’ve been here no time at all, and yet like I’ve been here forever. But when I think about it, since I’ve been in the UK there have been 2 general elections (both of which I voted in – the perks of being a member of the Commonwealth!!), the world’s largest terrorist strike, at least 2 major wars, and Madonna got married to Guy Ritchie. And they haven’t been divorced yet. Gwyneth had a child named after a fruit, and two of my friends whom I met while at university in Canada have had babies as well. Oh – and I got married; but that was almost 4 years ago now… (love you sweetie!! 😉 )

It’s strange the things that make it seem like like no time at all – I’m not sure I’ll EVER get used to the antiquated banking system or the fact that everyone likes Canadians, but can never really tell you anything about Canada other than “it’s part of America, isn’t it??”. But then there’s the things that make it seem like I’ve been here forever, which are almost too numerous to mention. I have, in fact, been blessed with an incredible support group in my church, who have welcomed me from the first Sunday I showed up. I’m sure Richard’s tales about his Canadian girlfriend gave some people doubts about who was arriving in July (especially the part about meeting on the Internet…) but I have never felt rejected or even one slightly cool shoulder, never mind a cold one. And everyone that I work with has become so much more than a colleague – I’ve made some real friends, whom I hope I never lose touch with.

So, here’s to another 5 years. What will life be like then? Hopefully, we’ll be living in that mansion we bought with the lottery money we won, and have that cottage in Canada that we nip to for a week or so every so often… Will there be kids? Will there be a cat? Hope so – don’t know.

But if the next 5 are anything like the last 5, I won’t want to change a thing.