Beau Peep Notice Board
Beau Peep Notice Board => Just a Fort => Topic started by: Mince on April 16, 2008, 02:36:56 PM
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Roger, how long, on average, does it take you to think up each strip?
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Longer than it takes you, I'll wager. :-\
(Danger, Will Robinson...)
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Mince, I've written six Beau Peep strips (a week's material) in two hours. I've also written six Beau Peep strips in four and a half days. Does that help?
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Four and a half days at eight hours a day is about 36 hours, which is 6 hours per strip, about one word every ten minutes. Are you a slow writer or do you spend most of that time imagining things that don't work?
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Mince, I hate analysing the stuff I do. There are times when I just can't think of anything, there are times when I can't concentrate to START thinking of anything, there are times when I feeel crap, there are times when a bereavement has knocked me sideways and there are times when I just don't feel like working. And there are times when the ideas flow and it's the best job in the world. In short, I'm just like everybody else in every walk in life.
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Sorry, but I am not and never will be a humorous strip writer, and I just wanted some insight into what it's like. Thanks for the responses.
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Do you want to know what it's like to be a tutor?
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Yes, I really would.
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Yes, I really would.
[bugger!]
Ask away!
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Okay - does being a toss-pot affect your abilities as a teacher?
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My guess is it probably helps.
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Yes, I really would.
[bugger!]
Ask away!
I'll get back to this later.
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Okay - does being a toss-pot affect your abilities as a teacher?
See Tarquin's answer.
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Okay - does being a toss-pot affect your abilities as a teacher?
I would have thought it was obligatory.
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Yes, I really would.
[bugger!]
Ask away!
I'll get back to this later.
Okay, what's it like being a tutor? Do you have students you hate and how do you cope with that? Do you have students that make it all worthwhile? How much do you let the flow go? How much is pre-planned? Do you find it rewarding (I don't mean financially)? Do you love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? What's been your best experience? Your worst?
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Okay, what's it like being a tutor?
Fun, mostly. But it ruins the evenings.
Do you have students you hate and how do you cope with that?
I can't think of any, to be honest. Students only annoy me when they don't do their work. Obviously some irritate me slightly, or bore me slightly, but often I find it gets better once they know me more or as they get older.
Do you have students that make it all worthwhile?
Again, all of them do so simply by learning what I teach. I notice that after a few weeks, they can do things they could not do before. It's all quite fun. Obviously a few students I get to know better than others. For example, at the moment, one group of three lads are always having a some kind of fight just before I arrive or after I leave, either with plastic crossbows or pellet guns. Some are more lively in lesson than others. (One girl tries to write on my hand when I make fun of her in class or on the messageboard.) But mostly the lesson is about learning, so I guess it's finding ways of teaching subjects that I enjoy. Subjects that took me a while to teach several years ago I can now teach in ten minutes. And I have written a computer program that automatically creates worksheets with maths questions, so that makes things more easy.
How much do you let the flow go? How much is pre-planned?
Having done this for more than ten years now, I have worksheets and past papers ready, so mostly I can simply pick up a lesson plan and make a lesson out of it. If necessary, I can ad-lib a lesson on the spot, but I very rarely need to do that.
Do you find it rewarding (I don't mean financially)?
I enjoy being my own boss. I enjoy learning how to teach. I enjoy the creative side of it. I also enjoy being able to make some lessons great fun as well as educational. I very much enjoy telling parents that their kid is at least a year ahead and might as well stop tuition for a while.
What's been your best experience?
I have taken several sets of students to see Les Miserables, and taken others bowling. I also organised a horror film night and even had a four-day roleplaying game with four of them.
Your worst?
This one is easy. When I first started tutoring, I taught students one-to-one at their home. One girl was twelve when she started with me, and eventually went on to get an A* in English and English Literature four years later. Her nickname was "Go get your mum.", because she kept saying things in lesson that led to me saying that to her. In one lesson, her mother asked me to help her with a poem she was writing for school based on a newspaper extract of her choice. The mother left me alone with the girl and the poem, which I read. "What's this poem based on?" I asked, puzzled. She pulled out the newspaper extract from her folder, which was about a man who had taken a fourteen-year-old girl home in his car and touched her leg. She seemed quite unfazed by the subject. "Go get your mum." In another lesson, the girl told me that the man in the film "The hand that rocks the cradle" should have got revenge on the evil woman by raping her. I told her that revenge was wrong, and even justice could not condone raping a woman. (Obviously I stupidly assumed she knew what rape was since she was using the word.) After a few more odd comments from her that "raping" would "teach her a lesson", I twigged and asked her to explain what rape was. She said it was "grabbing a woman by the front of the dress, ripping it slightly, and then throwing her to the ground". Obviously she had watched too many Indian movies. I was worried that I had said something that her mother would not want her to know. "Go get your mum." There were other occasions as well. When she was fifteen, as part of a group of four girls, analysing the language in an advert about Triton showers, she not only picked out the alliteration in the three-line title "TIME TO / TURN ON / THE TRITON", but also "noticed" that there was a play on words in the phrase "TURN ON". The other girls were in hysterics, but I didn't know whether to laugh, move on, or ask her to explain further. I told her to be careful not to overanalyse, which was a mistake because she then started to pick out phrases and the "pleasurable tone" of the main text to support her point. The fact that the only pictures were of the shower system and a man covered in grease from fixing a car did not stop her.
I also once had a thirteen-year-old girl let me into her home on the first lesson without her mum there and ask me to follow her to what turned out to be her downstairs bedroom (where her study table and books were): I stopped at the door to her bedroom and asked where her mother was, and promptly left when she said she was alone in the house. I had a word with her mother about that.
This was one of the reasons I started teaching in small groups.
And recently, I had an eleven-year-old posting jokes about orgasms and gay midgets on my messageboard. (Ask Tarquin.)
Only three times have I made a student cry. I felt awful each time.
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Thanks, Mince. A fascinating and, occasionally, disturbing insight.
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Thanks, Mince. A fascinating and, occasionally, disturbing insight.
I have only taught a few students over eighteen, some of them ex-students who needed help with university maths, and with these students I don't need to deal with the parents. Indeed, on one occasion when a mother asked how her daughter was doing, I replied that the girl was now eighteen and that the mother would have to ask the daughter.
But when they are young, I always make sure that the parents are aware of everything. Strangely, private tutors are not required to be checked with the police to tutor, unless of course they work through a tutoring company. But I got myself an enhanced disclosure from the criminal records bureau and show this to the parents on request.
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Thanks, Mince. A fascinating and, occasionally, disturbing insight.
But I got myself an enhanced disclosure from the criminal records bureau and show this to the parents on request.
Is that better than being "tagged"?
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Oi! We'll have less.
Actually, the enhanced disclosure is embarrassingly devoid of any criminal record. (Thankfully it did not include the time my friend and I were caught by the police setting off fireworks on what became the BMX fields, and let off with a warning, which my dad only now knows about.) So I can't do the Rocky line of "Nothing worth bragging about."
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Peter! Send him to bed with no cake!
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Send him to bed with no cake!
Is this phrase familiar to you?
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Can I have a go at guessing a two-word phrase that might be familiar to you?
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No.
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From my schooldays I remember that there was, more often than not, an annoying, disruptive influence present that made lessons a pain. Tell your pupils I can empathise with them, Mince.
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And recently, I had an eleven-year-old posting jokes about orgasms and gay midgets on my messageboard. (Ask Tarquin.)
One of them was quite funny. Well, it would have been, if she'd been Julian Clary.
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And recently, I had an eleven-year-old posting jokes about orgasms and gay midgets on my messageboard. (Ask Tarquin.)
I ought to point out that (a) she was new to the board and posted the jokes because everyone else was Googling jokes and posting them; (b) the jokes were removed immediately and she was "told off"; (c) she did not understand the jokes.
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And recently, I had an eleven-year-old posting jokes about orgasms and gay midgets on my messageboard. (Ask Tarquin.)
I ought to point out that (a) she was new to the board and posted the jokes because everyone else was Googling jokes and posting them; (b) the jokes were removed immediately and she was "told off"; (c) she did not understand the jokes.
It's okay, Mince. We're not judging you...
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b) the jokes were removed immediately and she was "told off";
Yes, and who had the job of telling her off and asking her if she understood the jokes? Hmmmm...I wonder.
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I thought you were better qualified.
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I'm sure you already know what my answer to that statement is, Mince. ;)