Once upon a time, many moons ago, I, too, was an A-Level English student.
One day, my class was waiting for our teacher to arrive and some time had passed, but we carried on chatting.
Eventually, we started to wonder how we could check whether our teacher was coming and we were planning to leave if we weren't told otherwise.
Just then, the Head of English - Mr Nutbrown - appeared amongst us. He was not pleased.
And he said to use something that has stayed with me ever since. In a world-weary voice, he intoned the following: "You are A-Level students. You are studying something you enjoy, something you hope to succeed at. You should be using every opportunity to enhance your learning and develop your skills. You all have your work that you can get on with; you don't need a teacher." And, lo, he was correct.
We all felt duly ashamed, despite not really having done anything wrong. We just hadn't done anything right and we knew it was going to take a lot of 'doing things right' to do well at A-Level. We split into groups, making sure everyone had someone to get support from and then we carried on with what we were supposed to be doing.
After that, we were always working whenever our teacher (who was not always as prompt as me) arrived and I think that was the day I really started to take responsibility for my own learning.
I've not been very well at all this weekend and there is a good chance I might not be fit to come in tomorrow (I am writing this on Sunday).
Don't be angry and resentful if you have to come in and your teacher is not there. Get together with others from the class and make it the kind of learning experience you can't get at home anyway. Get a book out of the library that will help you with your coursework or a key topic. Make it worth being in college and make sure you use the time well and don't slack off.
I will always set work, usually on my blog, and it will always be worthwhile work.
I hope that this post will help those of you who hadn't learned the life lesson I learned that day, even if my virtual presence is not as imposing as that of Mr Nutbrown.
If I am not in tomorrow (I will decide if I am well enough in the morning), E-Block are doing the computer room lesson on the other post and A-Block (we were in the computer room on Friday) should please work on your analysis of the Zachy transcript, doing some quantified analysis and applying Halliday and Dore and your research theorist to your discussion (at notes stage at the moment unless you want to start on the PEE that you will be doing soon as per the instruction sheet you have been using). Don't forget to keep doing your wider reading on my blog and learning terminology. I'm really looking forward to seeing the investigation ideas going up on your blog as we have to decide on a topic this week or next week at the latest.
Ask others and then email me if you are not sure of anything and I will try and get back to you.
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