Hotel S***house

Verse 1:

Went through years of hell

To arrive in this hostel

To describe this place as ***

Would Be a compliment to it

The vending machines are broken as far as I can tell

Across the scummy rooms that smell

Verse 2:

This place is full of scum

It was turned down by a bum

There is so much to discover

That’s if you ever recover

To give it four stars would be dumb

Yet it’s possible for some

Chorus:

This is hotel s***house (hotel s***house)

Hello and welcome to hotel s***house

We’re always here at hotel s***house

Can’t get away from hotel s***house

*evil laugh*

 

Verse 3:

 

Dinner is on the floor

Meals are never a bore

Plastic seems quite nice

Meals repeated twice

RubberĀ Schnitzel and corn

Hell has been re-born

 

Verse 4:

Privacy is a lie

The smell makes me cry

Showers are always cold

Everything is growing mould

It brings me tears to my eyes

When people see my thighs

 

Chorus

 

Bridge

The gutter looks better than the beds in here

The bus pulls up and we scream in fear

The school bell sounds and I tear off my ears

Nobody knows what it’s like in here

Guitar Solo

Chorus

 

This song was written when I was in Melbourne about the awful accommodation that the school gave to us… It was a place called the “Melbourne Discovery Centre” Ā It’s a youth hostel and if you go to Melbourne, unless you wan’t to be scarred for life, I don’t recommend you stay there…

This song does have a part for musical instruments but seeing as I cannot be bothered recording it yet, you won’t here it for a while… Please enjoy the lyrics šŸ™‚

The Student’s Guide to Being a Good Teacher

This post was written awhile ago, but not posted. . . my apologies, but that’s why some things may seem a bit weird.

 

Good day!

Well, uh . . . no, actually it’s a Thursday, so let’s pretend I never said ‘Good day’. The reason I say this is because my Thursdays happen to have the worst selection of lessons possible. Almost as if one mongrel of a man wearing a suit on the top of some education department skyscraper thought, “Oooh, these look like the worst possible selection of lessons possible,” and then he wrote them all down for my Thursday agenda.

No the real reason it kind of sucks that it’s a Thursday is that tomorrow is a student free day. Not that student free days aren’t good, I’m all for them, I’d just appreciate it if they didn’t happen to fall on my good days all the time. No offense to my History teacher, but I don’t like ending the week with a double period of your expertise.

Anyways! Back to the propper grit of this post, just as the title suggests, this is going to be a ‘little’ guide to being a good teacher. What do I mean by “The Student’s Guide to Being A Good Teacher”? Well I’m going to be talking about the kinds of things that students tend to respect in a teacher, just by observation, seeing the classes in which students play up and muck around, and then seeing the classes that they sit down do the work and act their age. (But then again, after a health lesson yesterday, I may disagree with my own hypothesis)

If you’re a student and you’re reading this, then well, there’s a few things you could be thinking right now. If you’re one of those lovely bogan twits that we are all so ‘privelledged’ to be accompanied by . . . then I’m sorry, but you must be incredibly ill, because you wouldn’t be on this website reading blog posts, you’d be out in the street, swearing, causing a public nuisance and generally being a pain for your own simplistic entertainment. But if you’re one of the few students that are actually capable of maintaining a thought process, well, welcome.

(Sorry about that rather bizarre paragraph, it’s the result of a bogan today that was picking on a friend of mine with on of the few words that he can remember.)

Let’s get started then . . .

So what do students like about teachers?
What are the things that make students “shhhh” and listen?

– Age
The first thing that appears to have the biggest impact on a student’s attentiveness is the age of the teacher, the younger the teacher, the better ‘connected’ the class feels. (Although, as I’ve made quite clear in an earlier post, I don’t really like the students to be ‘on-par’ with the teacher) Whether it’s to do with the mental maturity of the teacher and the students being simliar, or whether it’s the way they look, or the the way they act, it’s an interesting factor.
But then again, having said this, having a teacher that’s really strict, old or young, seems to keep everyone in par.

– Appearance
As sad as this is to hear, unfortunately many people do in fact judge by appearance, no matter how many times you say the “book by it’s cover” metaphor people will still continue to discriminate by aesthetics, this is especially particularly common in most school kids, and it plays another major role in a students opinion and behavior.

If a teacher walks in in crisp cut clothes, grey, dark or “drab” as they say, there’ll be a first opinion obviously, perhaps that they’re strict and wont take no for an answer. Their stride into the classroom may also contribute to the accusation. Things like physical appearance, clothing, hairstyle, shoes . . . these things, strangely, contribute to how the students react to the teacher.
But! It appears that the judgement of appearance can be counteracted by the personality, I’ve sat in classes where the relief teacher was laughed at upon entry, but once they started talking the class shut up, listened and respected them.

– Attitude (towards work)

Students really like the teachers that don’t make you do any work. This is so obvious that it’s a no-brainerĀ . . . this is why in most cases, students will enjoy the presence of a relief teacher. Relief teachers usually have little work to give out, and they don’t useĀ disciplineĀ when the class starts misbehaving. (Some DO useĀ discipline, but it doesn’t necessarily have the effect that it should)

 

These are some key points about what students tend to respect when it comes to teachers, if I were to explain what a teacher would have to do for respect, in a few numbered points, it would be:

  1. Be social with your students, if your students know more about you they’ll see you as a person, rather than ‘a teacher’ . . . for some reason it appears that teachers tend to be alienated against. Before we continue, on the behalf of all intellectual kids out there, I can’t say thatĀ teachers are always seen as another species, this is merely an event that can happen quite a lot with the average students.
  2. Talk about things your students are interested in, this is a rather annoying one. But If you share similar interests with your students, you can get along a lot better. I’m not saying go learn about AFL, nail polish, latest fashion, how to smoke, motorbiking, fishing, computer games and whatever else it is your students do, that would be ridiculous. Find something to talk about that’s generally interesting to everyone, in most situations talking about funny moments in your life, funny things that have happened to your friends or what you think the future will hold, will normally interest the majority. Technology is also one that can interest quite a few teenagers, as mobile devices are a large part of their lives.”
Now of course, I’m us students aren’t telepathic masterminds, so I can’t really talk ENTIRELY with the opinions of my “brethren.” I have merely tried to write from observation, a little bit about what I think this whole teacher respect thing is about.
It’s interesting which teachers have a really good relationship with their students, and which ones don’t.
Anyways,
Thanks for reading!
Ben,