Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 2702

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 2702
by Angharad

Copyright© 2015 Angharad

  
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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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The days were pretty well dry but the sun didn’t seem terribly warm for July perhaps made worse by persistent cool winds, irrespective of the direction from which they blew. Once again I managed an hour on the turbo each day and on the Thursday rose early and rode up the downs and back. I felt I was climbing better and feeling stronger on the flat; how long I could sustain it was another matter, but this old lioness felt capable of defending her alpha position against a youthful challenger.

Friday, I suggested we had a family run, which was agreed with Trish and Hannah and reluctantly by Danni—she was playing a friendly football match on Saturday. I decided I would do a ride first then come back for the youngsters; I would also suggest we had a ride on Sunday, when I would allow Danielle to challenge me if she wanted. My plan was to take her up over Portsdown and see what happened.

However, we still had Thursday to get through and after taking the girls out for a walk to feed the ducks I left them to their own devices until lunch. I’d told Danielle that we were committed to the dormouse survey on Saturday morning which she’d forgotten about but said that it was fine providing I got her home to play soccer for three o’clock. As we were only surveying one site that seemed easily doable.

In the afternoon we went out into the garden and trimmed hedges—I did the trimming with the electric trimmer and the girls scooped up the bits and put them in the wheelbarrow. It took two hours and for their assistance I gave them each some ice cream. Danni had opted out and gone over to see Cindy.

We had a system for cutting the hedges, putting a tarpaulin under the bit being cut, then dragging it to the compost heap and tipping it on there. However, even though I saved loads of back breaking work some pieces escaped the system, at times quite a few, and it was these the girls were picking up for me.

Meems seemed to tire of the task most quickly, Livvie and Trish sticking to it until I’d finished the bits I’d wanted to tidy. Then I helped them clear up and Trish got to push the barrow to the compost heap while I dragged the last load in the tarp. It was at this point that Livvie spotted some movement and shrieked, dashing off towards the house at breakneck speed. Of course Trish and I were curious as to what caused her exodus and we both stood still and quiet.

Our patience was rewarded by a grass snake slithering into view, which was probably what Livvie saw. Knowing it to be harmless, we left it to its own devices and took the various tools and the barrow back to the shed. It was here that a large orb web spider fell out of the tree alongside the shed and into my hair. To say I went hysterical is probably an exaggeration but not by much. To cut a long story short, Trish, had to slap me to calm me down and enable her to untangle the unfortunate arachnid from my hair. I apologised to her for my lack of control and she just smiled, “Don’t worry, Mummy, I won’t say anything.”

I didn’t know if she would honour her silence or not, she’s a little young to realise the significance of such pledges, but I can’t deny it or won’t, so I could be at her mercy in the near future. I can, however, categorically state I won’t be saying anything to Livvie about freaking out about a snake.

Hannah had been reading some children’s science books I’d got the girls ages ago, she said she felt really enthusiastic to study science which pleased me. She wasn’t sure what she’d like to study and I reassured her that the object of school science lessons was to enable a basic grounding in some of the more understandable theories or laws and to offer a taster of what the various branches were about.

She said she quite like the idea of biology except cutting things up to see how they worked. “We already know quite a lot of it so why have we go to go killing worms or frogs again when you lot did it twenty years ago?”

“Sadly it’s also about learning techniques, you can’t know what dissecting something is like until you do it. Then you have to understand systems like respiration or digestion and compare how that differs in different groups of animals. For instance cats have much shorter guts than dogs or humans because cats are carnivores, they’re designed to eat flesh while dogs and humans are omnivores, designed to eat almost anything, so have a much longer gut and comparing that to herbivores like cows which have an even bigger gut plus the regurgitation and mastication required to digest large quantities of herbiage.”

“You know so much, Mummy, I’ll never remember all that.”

“Who said you have to? You only need to know it if it’s part of the syllabus you’re studying. I’ve also been around a bit longer than you, like three times as long, so I’ve acquired information in much larger quantities and remember, I am a biologist, so some of this stuff is my bread and butter, I teach it—and sometimes teachers learn something from their notes, too.”

She laughed at my self-deprecation, but it was true, some teachers teach from their notes without actually digesting what they’re saying. It therefore goes from the notes of the teacher to the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either. Hence my determination to use novelty to disarm any defensive behaviour in my students. It also keeps them on edge, they have no idea what’s coming next so can’t block it.

I believe learning is fun or can be, so my playfulness enables this in likeminded students, some of whom come to my lectures for fun. If they take away the idea that learning can be fun they might actually learn something. Given they’re paying up to nine thousand pounds a year to play with us, I sincerely hope they’re getting their money’s worth. In defence of my methods, I seem to get far less complaint about my teaching methods and those of my staff than my equivalent in the chemistry department. Mind you Brian Cox showed that even quantum physics could be fun when it involves setting fire to James May, and embarrassed Jonathan Ross when he couldn’t do the maths to demonstrate Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Glad he didn’t ask me, I couldn’t do the maths either.

I referred Hannah to my Brian Cox collection of DVDs and she went off to watch one of them. If I can ditch the others, after I shower, I might watch it with her.

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Comments

Playtime

Rhona McCloud's picture

"All the world's a playground,
And all the men and women merely players." (What Shakespeare might have written)

Nice build up to the race but I hope nobody's ego is too badly bruised. Maybe they will join forces to chase the Russian Mafia over the Downs - I always half expect the unexpected in Cathy's life.

Rhona McCloud

Maths....

did someone mention that horrible word! If there was one subject i hated at school it was Maths , I could never see the point of algebra , trigonometry was a total mystery to this student and as for long division and its like all they succeeded in doing was confusing my poor brain, As i have found out since i left school i have had little use for anything other than simple adding up and subtraction, And if i do need to to check anything more complicated i can generally find someone far better equipped than i am to sort it out for me ... So i can sympathize with Cathy to some degree , She may be clever in lots of other areas but its nice to know she has weakness's too :-)

Kirri

I have to agree with Cathy

I have to agree with Cathy and her comments regarding teaching methods and keeping students aware and actually awake in class by adopting and adapting various teaching methods. During my instructor training in the Air Force, we learned approximately 8 different styles of teaching; each different enough to give the instructor a boost in keeping students engaged in the subject matter being taught.

Cathy has not forgotten

what it is like to be young, and bored. In many ways she was a match for young Trish when she was that age, but her creative energies were wasted on her headmaster and Dad.

It's not always

It's not good to teach by reaching, as kids get the wrong idea which is doubly hard to eradicate. Having a new kid to teach IS a good template. You can try out new ideas. Of course care must be taltalken.

Thanks.
Annette

It's not always

It's not good to teach by reaching, as kids get the wrong idea which is doubly hard to eradicate. Having a new kid to teach IS a good template. You can try out new ideas. Of course care must be taltalken.

Thanks.
Annette