Once upon a time, many moons ago but still within living memory, a little boy sat in a classroom corner.
Not so long, pupils who were considered disruptive, or simply stupid because they couldn’t answer the teacher’s questions, were sent to ‘the corner’. Facing the corner, away from the class, the pupil would have a ‘Dunce’s Cap’ with a letter ‘D’ on it, put on his head.
Alone in the corner, mocked by teachers and peers alike, every minute seemed like an hour. The little boy had a lot of time to think because he spent many hours of his educational life there
That little boy grew up to become a lecturer and private English tutor.
The experience of being isolated and ridiculed as a little boy has never left him. Left alone in the corner for many hours, all he had were his ‘thoughts from the corner’.
Today, he uses that expression (‘thoughts from the corner’) to post some of the many thoughts, stories and events that have happened to him throughout his life, on this blog.
Each post is a small, self-contained anecdote leading to a conclusion of where his thoughts have led him during the writing of the piece. Some will be amusing, some will be sad. Hopefully, all will be thoughtful.
Thoughts From The Corner
1. ‘I must not mess around with Liebster award.’
2. ‘I must not mess around with Liebster award.’
Having joined in the fun of the Liebster Award previously I thought I would ‘bend’ the rules slightly i.e private tutor does his own thing! Hope you are up for this one.
You won’t see any blogs names in this post, other than Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis And Me who presented me with this award. For that, I thank you. I always enjoy reading your blog and I hope others follow this recommendation by clicking on the link. My apologies to you for corrupting the standard passing on procedure of the award. 
So it goes like this. Below you will find 17 of my photographs. All were taken from 10 minutes walk to 60 minutes car ride from my home. I live in a beautiful area of England and I hope you enjoy looking at moments in time that I have captured. Each photograph is a link to a blog that I am passing the award on to. Each blog is one that I follow, read and enjoy. Why not click on several of the images you may be surprised what you find underneath.
Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire.
Parkhall Countryside Park, Staffordshire.
Tittesworth Reservoir from The Roaches, Staffordshire.
Erwood Hall, Goyt Valley, Peak District National Park, Derbyshire.
Rosehip in frost, Parkhall Countryside Park, Staffordshire.
Dawn – Parkhall Countryside Park, Staffordshire
Cheshire by Hanging Stone
Consall Wood, Staffordshire
Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire – Perseus and Medusa
Three Shires Head – Where Stafforshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire meet.
Dawn at Parkhall Countryside Park, Staffordshire.
Hanging Stone, Cheshire.
Post Box, Cheshire.
Goyt Valley, Cheshire
Parkhall Countryside Park, Staffordshire.
Monkey Forest, Trentham Gardens, Staffordshire.
Please accept this award from a fellow blogger that enjoys and admires your work. Do not feel pressured to pass on but feel free to do so to those blogs you enjoy and admire.
Here are the rules that I was sent but bent. Naughyt Private Tutor!
The Liebster award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. But what is a Liebster? The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.
Liebster Rules:
1. List 11 facts about yourself.
2. Answer the 11 questions given to you.
3. Create 11 new questions for the bloggers you nominate for the award.
4. Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or less followers to nominate.
5. Go to each bloggers page and let them know about the award.
6. Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog.
498. ‘I must not mess around with Liebster award.’
499. ‘I must not mess around with Liebster award.’
500. ‘I must not mess around with Liebster award.’
‘Finished sir. Can I go now?’
Awarding the people who live in the moment
The noble who write and capture the best in life
The bold who reminded us what really mattered
Savouring the experience of quality time
Grandma Cranky – affectionately known to her groupies as ‘Cranky’, has passed on the ‘Best Moment Award’ to this private English tutor.
I had been flirting with Cranky off and on for several weeks but never ever dreamed that she would flutter her eyelids in my direction.
By now, I know, you are well rehearsed in the ‘go check out this fantastic blog’ blurb, so how do I urge you to take a peep at www.crankycaregiver.wordpress.com
Not since the ‘English Tourist Board’ invented William Shakespeare for the American tourists has such a comedian/philosopher/psychiatrist/grandma strutted the world’s stage – enough said? Convinced? It’s your loss if you don’t prise open the window on Cranky’s weird and wonder existence. Enough said of my third favourite grandma, on with show.
- Create an acceptance speech either by video or a written speech post
- Pass the award on to 15 other bloggers
I will opt for the video acceptance.
My life has had many great moments. 2009 saw me at Port Lockroy in Antarctica. I was photographing the Gentoo penguins when a chick came to me, stood at my feet and looked me in the eye. Time seemed to stand still but it must have been several minutes that he allowed me to photograph him. A great, great moment in my life. This is him – Gerry the Gentoo:
My Great Moment acceptance video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpRISqmy2XE&list=UUCMWEbWXlsg9_zwwbodLZ7w&index=20
It is an 8 minute video of great moments in my life with a cast of millions – of penguins!
Now the bit you’ve all been waiting for – my blog nominations.
This award is for fun and an acknowledgement from me that your posts enrich my blogging experience. Do not feel obliged to pass on to others but please do if you so wish.
writeonthebeach - www.writeonthebeach.wordpress.com – Fantastic sense of humour and lovely turn of phrase.
She Said What? - http://www.stephrogers.com – You want a laugh? Check out this recent post of hers – http://stephrogers.com/2013/05/06/and-the-bad-parent-award-goes-to-drum-roll/
codecalla - http://www.codecalla.com – An educator and freelance editor/copy writer that posts very interesting observations
The Robotic Hermit - http://www.robotichermitblog.com – Anyone who posts about the wonders of a cup of tea deserves this award! See this post: http://robotichermitblog.com/2013/05/04/the-littlest-thing/
Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis And Me - http://www.willeke73.wordpress.com – A lady based in Ireland whose posts are always interesting and heart-felt.
Russell Ray Photos - http://www.russelrayphotos2.com – As a photographer he knows all about great moments – great images and observations
Pish’s Blog of Loveliness - http://www.blogofloveliness.wordpress.com – Honest and from the heart. A wonderful writer and observer of life
thereluctantranter - http://www.thereluctantranter.wordpress.com – What a ranter – they don’t come much better than this
Sauch gander - http://www.saucygander.wordpress.com – Many great food moments with fabulous photographs to illustrate – always willing to comment
Mitten’s Kittens Blog - http://www.mittenskittens.wordpress.com – This lady had faith in my blog by awarding me my first ever award and I thank her once again for that. Always, always interesting reading.
Book Peeps - http://www.bookpeeps.org – Doesn’t post as often as should, perhaps this ‘Great Moment’ award will help.
Ziggyshortcrust - http://www.ziggyshortcrust.wordpress.com – The post that made me cry – http://ziggyshortcrust.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/a-final-farewell-to-honey-the-skinnydog/
theinnerwildcat - http://www.theinnerwildkat.wordpress.com – Thoughtful and always interesting.
Today experiencedtutors celebrate one year blogging with WordPress.
‘Time for a quiet retrospective’ thinks this private English tutor. There are questions to be mulled upon, chewed over and spat out:
A. Why set up this blog – i.e. aims and ambitions for those into business speak.
B. Positive points on the last year’s journey.
C. Negative experiences on the rocky road.
D. Where now?
A. Why – Having set up our education web site (www.experiencedtutors.co.uk), perceived wisdom demanded that the site be found. After all, what’s the use of a shop window if the blinds are down The great and the good of the virtual world suggested social networking as the way forward. A blog would be required.
Also, if we step back a little, this private tutor is willing to admit that he has been wondering for several years about putting pen to paper and writing a novel. Regular blog writing would, perhaps, help to nurture those seeds of discipline required for such an undertaking.
A blog seemed to serve both of the above requirements: social networking and novel training.
After much thought, deliberation and naval contemplation concerning: a name, which blogging platform and what to write about, the first post was published on 8th May, 2012. This was it:
Thoughts From The Corner
Is EDUCATION another brick in the wall?
What a load of rubbish it was. The images were stolen clip art and the words were stolen from ‘Pink Floyd’. However, as it used to say on my money box when I was young: ‘Tall oaks from small acorns do grow’.
Twelve months on from the post I can say that:
i. The social networking has been a success. WordPress is extremely search engine friendly and often our posts are top of the unpaid sites on Google page 1. This then feeds into our web site, which also has good Google rankings.
ii. The novel commenced six months after the blog and is now at 54,000 words and growing weekly.
B. Positive – Artistic creativity, reading wonderful writing and establishing virtual friendships around the world are but three of the positives.
C. Negative – few and far between. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that it is a ‘Time Thief’. Oh yes, ‘Where did that last hour go?’ It was spent analysing the statistics on my dashboard. . . lol.
D. Where Now? - What do I see on the horizon from way up here in the crow’s nest of the Good Ship WordPress?
For the foreseeable future the posts will still appear weekly.
See you next week in year 2 of the ‘experiencedtutors’ blog.
Thoughts From The Corner
You Schedule it in – Schedule it out
In out in out
Shake it all about
You do the hokey cokey/pokey and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about
Altogether now, Schedule it in – schedule it out. . . ‘
Ah, the wonder of schedules. Those time-consuming, life-draining, stress-inducing ‘things’ we live by.
In June I will be marking G.C.S.E. English examination papers i.e. exams taken by 16 year olds about to leave school. Already the paperwork has started and meetings scheduled in. Meetings away from home require scheduling of hotels and peripherals such as ensuring the cats and dog are fed. Starving the pets isn’t a trait I would encourage in anyone. . . There is a strict schedule of how many papers have to be marked and by which date. So I have scheduled in X papers per day to hit the target.
Imagine if you will the Education Game as being one huge jigsaw puzzle with each piece equating to a schedule. In theory, all the pieces slot together and produce a beautiful picture. In practice, however, round pieces are are often squashed into square holes. Often, those in the centre are forced to join the straight edged ones on the frame. Additionally, straight edged ones are bludgeoned into the centre. Then, of course, because the education system is not new and has been tampered with many times, there are missing pieces – down behind the settee cushions, vacuumed from the floor, eaten by the dog, etc. An incomplete jigsaw is not a pretty sight and that, unfortunately, equates to the state of the education system in the U.K.
I will be one of thousands of exam markers this summer and that makes me a small piece in the big picture. All markers have their schedules to meet to produce an overall the whole scene. ‘ Ay there’s the rub’. Every year the exam marking system encounters problems. These range from candidates not being given the correct grade and papers re-marked to the grade boundaries being set too high or low and too many (or few) not achieving the top grades.
Somehow, society seems too complex. Too much is reliant on scheduling - the vista is too big. This private English teacher puts on his blinkers and does the hokey cokey/pokey regardless. All together now, one more time, ‘Schedule it in – schedule it out. . . ‘
To see the dance in action and have a good laugh click on the link below:
What a difference a new iron and ironing board make!
PLEASE. . . bear with me, there is a point to this and I’m sure this post will gather interest as it snowballs to its dramatic conclusion. Maybe not too dramatic because any private tutor that gets excited over the aforementioned houshold items obviously needs to get out more.
Picture the scene if you will, oh gentle readers, as the pile of neatly ironed ‘smalls’ sneaked up to its zenith. The ‘Drifters’ started to sing Sam Cooke’s ‘Wonderful World’ (younger readers please type ‘Drifters’ into ‘Wikipedia’) and my mind drifted, inevitably, to academia. Before you send your comment, I know the song is really about love:
But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me, too
What a wonderful world this could be.
But my mind was more tuned in to the lyrics:
Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about, a science book
Don’t know much about the French I took.
That just about summed up my 11 years of school education. Okay, my two best subjects English and Maths aren’t mentioned but Mr Cooke summed up in four lines what it took me 11 years to realise.
I wasn’t a bad pupil, I didn’t ‘bob off’ school and I didn’t mess around in class, not a lot anyway I was brought up in a working class area and sent to a school that produced factory fodder. With the factories in that area now long gone, I wonder what the school churns kids out for today?
As the song progressed to the line:
Now I don’t claim to be an ‘A’ student
my mind wandered to one of the classroom inspections I had when teaching. The guy in his best ‘bib and tucker’ gave me a 4 out of 5 with 5 being the lowest. Did that make me a bad teacher? Well, the end of year examination results for that class were 50% gaining grade ‘A*’ and 50% gaining grade ‘A’. A bad teacher – I think not! A teacher not fitting in with the ystem – definitely!
So you see, even during the sanctuary of ironing (even with brand new iron and board), why is it always academia, academia, academia? ‘Turn off brain’ screams private English tutor.
Am I alone in having a brain that has a mind of its own or are we all in this together?
Wonderful World (Sam Cooke song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Recently I was awarded the ‘Dragon’s Loyalty Award’. Thank you Pish’s Blog of Loveliness
It is the custom in these acceptances to thank the nominator, say how much you like their blog and advise others to explore their writings. That is what I will do with pleasure. There are some blogs that you form an attachment to – I am correct aren’t I? Ones that you will read even when you are pushed for time. The one that you will read if you have to choose between four or five that you have waiting to be read. For me, one of my favourites is Pish’s. Written with beautiful sensitivity and heart-felt truths some of her posts are painfully truthful. An experience to read.
Plainly speaking, I have never really been a big fan of dragons, fantasy and the like. The closest I have ever been, I guess, is breathing fire in the classroom to errant and wayward pupils. I did read (and thoroughly enjoyed) ‘The Hobbit’ more than four decades ago, way before the recent Tolkien mania of the last decade or so. Smaug never really captured my imagination. Not sure why – I was more of a ‘Lord of the Flies’ reader. Perhaps that was because I was dealing with the likes of Piggy and Ralph on a daily basis at school.
The rumour on the ground seems to be that this award is a combination of the old ‘Versatile Blogger Award’ and the ‘Very Inspiring Blogger Award’. Not sure how that works. Not sure what dragons have to do with it and not sure who makes up these things. . .
I am, however, really pleased to receive recognition from such a great blogger and I am very happy to pass it on. I know some of you may not be into these awards and that’s ok. Simply look at it as a fellow blogger saying ‘love your blog’. You don’t have to spend time passing it on but you might just make someone’s day – so no pressure.
The Rules of Acceptance:
Place the dragon image on to the side bar with a link going back to your nominator – the most confusing part I think.
Thank the person/people who nominated you and link back to them in your post.
Share seven possibly unknown things about yourself.
Nominate up to 15 bloggers you admire.
Contact the chosen bloggers to let them know and link back to them.
Seven possibly unkown facts about myself:
i. I am writing my first novel
ii. This week my novel will reach 50,000 words
iii. Once written, I am certain that I will not be able to find a publisher
iv. I will, however, approach every person that dares to put ‘Publisher’ on their office door
v. I will epublish it anyway
vi. I will have a hard copy published to put with my other favourite novels
vii. Those favourite novels include: ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Catch 22′ and ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’
I Nominate The Following:
The Rogue Blogger – A blogger of wonderful humour
The Emporium of Lost Thoughts – This and that with a good dose of humour
robbie macniven – Consistently thoughtful and interesting
Ronin Literati – Extremely thoughtful, deserves far more than the 28 followers there are now.
Why have I chosen those above? I have not passed on awards to them previously, none has hundreds of followers and it would seem selfish to keep their quality to myself!
This private tutor wishes you all well in the blogging bubble
Thoughts From The Corner
Once again, this private tutor finds himself mulling over numbers.
Lifting my head from its customary naval gazing, I realised that I had recently posted about blogs and numbers – you know: followers, views, comments, etc. Would I be covering old ground?
This week ‘experiencedtutors’ received its 100th follower, thank you bradfonseca That was until the next day when someone ‘unfollowed’ (what did I do wrong?) and it was back down to 99. First it was a ‘high’ and then a ‘low’. Ultimately, though, did it really matter? Somehow it did. 100 seemed more important than 99 and even stranger than that, 100 seems more important than 101. So what is it about numbers?
In my first school, when our regular teacher was absent the class would be taken by the deputy headmaster. I loved these days. Not only would I not be sent to the corner but towards the end of the day the deputy head would test us on mental arithmetic. He would quickly say something like, ’6 plus 2 plus 6 divided by 2 multiplied by 3′. Our hands would shoot up into the air faster than a ferret down a rabbit hole. The first one with the correct answer (and the fastest hand in the air) would be allowed to leave the class early. I was always good at this. Not always the first to leave but certainly in the first three or four out of a class of 40+. Leaving school at 16 I achieved top grade in the maths exam and even today I retain telephone numbers in my head with ease. Me and numbers go way back.
Today I am writing my first novel – 44,000 words so far. There are some of you out there looking to write 50,000 words this month as part of NaNoWriMo. That’s not for me; my target is 1,500 per week. Not a lot really but I do love Aesop’s ‘The Hare and the Tortoise’. I always hit my weekly target and that feel-good factor carries me into next week’s writing. Usually I achieve 2,000-2,500 but it’s the numbers that are the thing, not how many or how few. It is the numbers that govern our writing.
The Tortoise and the Hare – Project Gutenberg etext 19993 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What is more number-orientated than a clock? We live our lives by the clock. That whole man-made (okay, okay – ‘woman-made as well time-slave is with us from the cradle to the grave – both your time of birth and time of death are recorded. No shackle ever produced, constricts, constrains and imprisons you like a clock. I used to carry the time on wrist but now I carry it in my pocket on my cell/mobile – no escape!
The clock paragraph above is fairly sobering so just to clear the depressing air a little I would like to thank Ryan Brooks for pushing this blog back up to 100 and those of you that followed me on Twitter from last week’s post – it’s now 14 followers. There I go again with those numbers. Perhaps a return to naval contemplation for this private English tutor is in order.
