Throwing Chalk: diary of a trainee teacher

As the (academic) year comes to a close for me - it's time to reflect on the things that have caused me to struggle this year. What I have found most difficult. There's lots. That's the point, I guess, it's not meant to be easy & I'm not a genius - well, I like to think I am, but even if I am, I'm lazy and disorganised. And leave things to the last minute. Here is my top six most difficult things - in the order that they jump into my brain - rather than order of most difficultest:

6: Paperwork.
Now I came into the teaching game from the so-called real-world. So I take with a pinch of salt the teachers' gripe about how 'There's too much paperwork!' I used to work for a telecoms company and planning the fibre optic network for an office block would involve many engineers, customer service people, billing people, 1000s of emails, 100s of forms and databases. Planning = paperwork - or its modern equivalent - database-work. But still, with all that said - there's lots of stuff to fill in aint there? And every college does it different. For me at the moment my paperwork gripe is with my teaching portfolio - it's finished - hurrah - but as I've done my PGCE part-time - I've had to create two portfolios... not fun x 2.
WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: yeah, I reckon so. Cos once you've filled in these things a few times, you get to doing them with your eyes shut - and there's always copy & paste - just remember to change the dates.

5: Lesson Planning.
Related to the above - but a real bette noire for the trainee. How many hours spent working out what you're going to do? How many times does it not go at all right? How many times do you end up stood there and realise this grand plan you've come up with makes no sense at all to the yawning, half-asleep people sat in front of you. Umm, too often for my liking.
WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: Hopefully I'll spend less late nights trying to think of things and endlessly surfing the web for inspiration. I've got better things to do with my time. I could be doing something useful like playing online poker...

4: Differentiation.
Really this is my number one. How hard is this? A class of 30 - some of them keen and bright, some of them less keen but bright enough to survive with minimal effort; some of them only wanting to put in minimal effort but not really keeping up at all. Coming up with activities that keep all of them engaged, all of the time - is easily the hardest challenge of all.
WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: I have and I've had to. Each class is different.

3. Human Interaction.
Some people don't like you, they don't get your sense of humour or they think you're a slacker for wearing the wrong colour shirt. I don't know. No matter how liberal and sensible people (other teachers/mentors) might think they are - you can feel their superior contempt even as they smile at you. O well. It's all about chemistry. It's the same with students. Some classes fit you like a glove - others make you feel nervous before you go in, like you're about to wrestle a bunch of pit bulls in a barb wire cage. But maybe that's just me...
WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: I already have. Coping mechanisms. Small talk. Fake smiles and confidence. The more confident you are the less xxxx you have to take. If you're insecure the pit bulls smell it - classic student teacher syndrome...

2. Marking & re-marking.
This disturbed me last year. The amount of teacher input into coursework. The number of times a student was supposed to write and re-write and use teacher input to get a higher mark. It seems illegal to say it - and very 'on my high horse' - but from someone who isn't currently obsessed by stats and results - I have to say I don't like this trend. Having worked in a couple of F.E. colleges - there was a big difference between the amount of teacher comments and help with coursework. And this seemed to be reflected in the students' grades at the colleges.
WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: No doubt should I get a job (here's hoping) I'll have to deal with it like everyone else - and work that line between helping and 'writing the work for the students'. I know my local university has a set number of times that a tutor will look at an essay. That seems sensible.

1. The Curriculum.
Keeping to the curriculum. Aims and outcomes - it probably says something about my inexperience or lack of ability (at the moment) but the hardest thing for me is probably creating lessons that have a beginning, middle, end - and a plot and a theme. I can organise a general set of activities - but how have we moved on this week? How are we advancing our understanding of the topics we're meant to be covering. I think this can be hard in English Language in particular - you're repeating things in more detail or in a different way. WILL I GET BETTER AT IT: I have to. Or else it's just waffle and time wasting - and I know I'm good at that already.

I guess now I'm ready for the next level. The level where I'm a bit better, where I'm qualified, but perhaps most importantly - the stage where I start getting paid. I've got student loans to pay off, but then, that's probably too adventurous - but psychologically if nothing else - it would be nice to get paid. Time for me to go look for something suitable. Arriverderci x

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 16:54 Comments

That's it! I give up! I give up! Okay, I don't. It's actually funny. So keen was I to include enough learning material in my session (it was being observed - but it was a last minute observation so I doubt it would have been much different if there had been no one there watching) - I ended up being told that I gave out too much information to the students.

More than they could take in. Too confusing. Basically it was a booklet of information. Info for this week and next. All lovely and photocopied on both sides and stapled together.

It's the Reprographics Dept's fault really. I'm having issues with them. At the previous unmentionable college you merely used a photocopier and entered a number - for really big jobs there was a slightly odd sounding man who lived in the cellar that would sort things out for you provided you gave him 6 weeks notice and asked nicely and made sure that any request you made included all the right information written in the right colour ink. At 'New College' it's similar but you have to face off with the team of Reprographicos. The Reprographic reprobates. No, they're lovely I'm sure, they just don't like the way that I barge in and demand some photocopying with less than one day's notice. But... ummm, I'm only here not often. And in all honesty I'm struggling to stay more than one day ahead of myself. Something hard wired into my brain makes me a last minute merchant. I can't help it. But then with them - anything less than 10 days is last minute. But they're nice, I blame myself, for being a bit afraid when I go in there to make my latest request. No one taught me copyright law! I'm sorry!

But enough of them. I can stand up to them and discuss football with them, really I can. It's not like ever since my 'too much information' criticism I've been trying to use the smallest amount of photocopierable information ever. No. Well, yes, it is. I've been trying to downsize. With the inevitable consequence that things have not been stretching out across the 3 hour lesson so well and the quicker learners have started getting bored. Hmmm. I need to develop a happy medium: some handouts, some other activities. It's all really simple. It's all about balance. Everything's easy in theory...

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 19:05 Comments

That was yesterday. How did it go. Hmmm. It was fun. But it was one of those lessons i have a habit of doing where if the question is asked - what did you learn today - I'm not sure they would be able to say.

In concrete terms. They know the difference between the isle of Wight and the isle of man? No. I learnt that - getting rid of desks is good. Sitting them in a circle meant no one could hide. And mainly that I'm still learning their level of comprehension. I need to put this in my 'reflective diary' that goes in my portfolio of yawn evidence.... But mainly i learnt - the Beatles really enunciate well. McCartney almost speaks in when I'm 64 - you can hear the words. Gloria Gaynor - less so. And we listened to i will survive far too many times. Next week they are getting theory. Oh well. Although they do have exams it's not like GCSE so I'm not under so much pressure. That's the good thing. I'd rather just teach creative writing or teach 3 year olds how to pretend to be deep sea divers. That's where my skill lies. Living in a made-up world. I feel that my plan a has been shunted but what can you do. This has to be done. And will be over in May. So no matter. Then we can have a think about what I actually want to do. And indeed what opportunities there are out there...

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 18:04 Comments

The Panopticon defined by Wiki as: a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." Hmm, I thought - I could use that. Perhaps I've been watching too many episodes of Lost. But it was a late night thought I had. Teaching too many students. Too many students that like using mobile phones and engaging in random chitterchat. I often dream of prison systems.Teaching in a Total Institution.

Well okay, I jest, just slightly, but an owl-like revolving head and cctv cameras in my elbows might be a good idea. But then, I'm not sure I really want to know. Sometimes it's best to just let a few things slide. Hmmm. I'll never be like my maths teacher at school. He never did anything other than look at us. And yet he had the reputation as the scariest, most dangerously fearsome teacher in the school. I always had my homework in on time and rarely spoke in his lessons so that's probably why I don't know quite how scary he was. I remember him standing in the doorway and people chitterchattering. And suddenly the room going quiet as quickly as if a light had gone on. One kid with his back to the door, suddenly realising that he was the only one standing up and talking. Freezing. Dying inside. Realising all too late. 500 lines.

It clearly wasn't just the lines though. He had scary charisma. And a drole sense of humour that occasionally popped out - but I was neither bright enough to appreciate it or able to control my bladder and facial muscles enough in his presence to let myself ever think about anything other than quadratic equations. Fear. An all boys school - not a public school but one of the still existing Grammar Schools in Northern England.

Compare that to the physics teacher that threw things. Board rubbers, chalk, and weirdly a collection of plimsolls he kept behind his big physics desk at the front of the class. Although not so weirdly as he used the rubber soled plimsoll to smack people with. Yeah, they still did the caning, strapping, smacking thing when I was at school. I think by then it was a bit more regulated - well it was supposed to be. But Physics teacher didn't give a feck. Mess him about - stay behind. Get "the whack". I think he favoured the bottom. But he was known to do the hand as well.

It seems weird that I'm not a thousand years old. Although, perhaps I am. But the idea of spanking 15 year old boys on the botty nowadays seems as wrong as wrong can be. Well from my perspective as an adult. Although I really don't think there was anything mucky about the whole thing. From the physics teachers perspective anyway. He was a big angry fellow with chalk stained trousers and felt that he needed total discipline. If you looked out of the window. Chalk or the board rubber would come flinging your way. I got hit on the head a few times.

It could, obviously have taken someone's eye out. *Health & Safety Issues*. It really does feel like another era. I really can't imagine a parent complaining - unless of course someone had lost an eye. Then there might have been the odd quiet voice raised. But then my mum would have been too accepting. She would have said it was one of those things, you had to put up with it. She was taught by nuns so any flying board rubbers were pretty much nothing to worry about. Her brother wanted to be left-handed and got daily beatings by the monks at school. He was very good at art but probably dyslexic. Except that hadn't been invented yet. And in those sort of Jesuit schools it probably still hasn't. I think dyslexia is rated somewhere to the left of homosexuality on the list of *Things That Make No Sense And Are Not To Be Mentioned.*

No one was mentioning my 'learning issues' when I was getting 1/20 in spelling tests. (The lad next to me saw me copying after the first question - so did that elbow coving his answers thing to stop me copying any more). But never mind, I went on to fail my English O level. I was just not very good at spelling and needed to learn the words better. Ahhh, those happy days of detention and the strap.

The geography teacher was a *funny* one. He was reputed to wear a toupee, and it was also reputed that he had a 'winter wig' and a 'summer wig'. People said his hair could grow overnight. Someone claimed to have seen his wig when on a geography field trip, but given the teacher's very flirtatious, joking manner, and allegedly gayness - no story could ever be really believed. Like the gayness it was part of his myth. As was his proclivity for giving boys the strap. In private. I don't know if that ever happened. He seemed very laidback. But there were all sorts of stories. A boy's dad was reported to have complained and had a fight with him. But that might have resulted more from anti-gay paranoia 'get your hands off my boy' than any reality. I don't know.

Discipline and where to draw the line. It's difficult. Even more so with adults because they are making the choice to be there - and they can also make the choice to go, "You know what? Forget it. You're an idiot. How dare you tell me what to do." And leave in a hail of swearwords. And Lord knows colleges don't like to lose students. Students = funding = part of your job performance as teacher.

So the obviously scary fellows were alright. They could do what they wanted. Although it may already have been on the edges of the 'rules' back then.

Certainly when it was my turn to get the strap in the 5th form - age 15 - the Head Teacher asked me if I wanted it to be 'official' which would involve the Deputy Head being present and it going down on my school record or if I wanted him to do it unofficially. "I know you're not a bad boy," he said as I gulped and shuddered and sweated. How I had enjoyed that 15 minute wait outside the headmaster's study. And the look on the faces of the two boys that went in before me and came out in tears. Lovely.

I agreed to him giving me the strap 'unofficially'. 6 of the best. Lovely. What a glorious phrase!!!

Six of the best. The strap being a belt basically. Worse than the cane by those that knew from experience. As the strap would wrap around your bot. Slap it rather than whack it. And just to make it even more lovely - the strap had a slit down the middle for its final 5 inches so that the two pieces of leather would separate and separately slap you.

It hurt. And he said I was to go back to classes. And being a boy I was trying not to cry. The pain in my head as dreadful as the arching, aching pain from my botty. And ironically it was physics next. I walked in and apologised for being late. The teacher told me to hurry up and sit down. They all knew what was going on but no one said anything. They didn't want to get a board rubber on their bonce. And then I did start my weeping. Except I think it was accepted. No one was going to have a go.

And my crime, yes, my misdemeanor that caused me to get the strap on that day. I went to the chippy every day to get my healthy portion of chips, gravy, sausage and batter scrapings. Before coming back and playing football for the next 50 minutes. Except on this day the Headmaster had decided to have a crack down and parked his car near the chippy and did spot checks on who had a official pass to leave the school grounds at lunchtime. I didn't. Hence the beating.

I'd like to say it taught me a lesson, but being the contrary little b'stard I was. I went to the chippy or somewhere else every lunchtime after. Without a pass. I wanted him to catch me again. Just to show that I could take it. That is how you grow up to be a man, I guess. But it wouldn't stop me doing the 'crime'. I know there was a punk lad in the year above me who used to moan and make s3xy noises when he got the cane. I'm sure that was disconcerting for the Head. You don't expect those sort of noises from a boy. It may have lead to the punky lad's expulsion soon after. His hair was a bit of a disgrace on the school after all...

Now where was I. I got lost in a haze of indulgent memories. So really, all I want to do is be a little more listened to. Have a little bit more attention paid. But it's not like I didn't gaze out of the window "in my day" & have a board wiper lugged at me. I will have to rely on the power of words and a variety of different seating arrangements to keep everything under control. The circle worked very well. I think that was all I intended to say. Umm. I better go off and do 500 lines, "I must not whine self-indulgently about the olden days." Now that WAS a good teaching aid. Repeating lines lots and lots of times. It taught you to find a smaller bully-able boy to force to do the writing for you. Nowadays you'd press copy and paste a few times. I bet detention still works. I hated detention. It was so booooooooooooooring. A teenage hates nothing more than boredom.

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 16:37 Comments

Keep it simple - make sure you explain idioms like "Get Cracking". Make sure that everyone knows exactly what they are meant to be doing. Go round one by one if you have to. They will sit and not do anything if you don't check. They rarely ask. I'm learning that. They ask each other or just do nowt.

So check understanding all the way through the 3 hours. Give feedback on the speaking exercises.

There's a question there of how much do you help them if they're not getting anywhere - to which there are a number of possibilities. Make sure they have firm set guidelines to work with. MODELLING.

I do need to do this more. Use a cloud of words on the board. Get the students to suggest useful words and phrases and subjects for the conversation they are about to engage in. So that they can be more expansive and aren't having to just repeat certain stock phrases and irrelevant material.

I think giving them an attitude: angry, polite - to model worked well but needed to keep them to that. And probably another improvement would be to make notes as they speak, so that I can provide immediate or later feedback and also show that I am listening. My feedback was a bit polite and generic. Lots of well dones etc.

Remember: I am not their dictionary - they are perfectly capable of looking stuff up. And when they do - get them to write a sentence on the board containing the word.

It is very difficult to ensure understanding of everyone all of the time. Perhaps it is like - well beign abroad where you pick out the scraps of the conversation in an immersive way and grow to understand more almost subliminally. In that way the act of talking, writing is important in itself and the fact that you push them to do new things is important.

Remember not to let the more confident and perpetually answering individuals from hogging the limelight. Encourage the quieter ones - particularly the Somali women & also Lulu who is happy to just breeze through the lesson then say she has to leave early. I need to use more Direct Questions and make sure I'm shushing the louder, quicker ones. Ask the name before the question, but then move on if it is embarrassingly silent, but come back with another question to make sure to involve the student and also to get a sense of their level.

I need to sort out discipline on mobile phones and leaving early. This is something I have inherited from the regular teacher and the laid back ethos. It's not easy. They have a lot of issues in their lives and an expectation that they can get away with things. Once a week I need to persuade them to be fully engaged in the matter in hand.

I need to not be afraid to ummm, "Tell them to shut up" to put it bluntly. Demand some respect without ever looking like I'm not in total control. Velvet glove, iron fist. A smiling tyrant. A bit like Stalin. He should be my role model, but with more jokes and less executions and forced labour in Siberia. Well actually, perhaps I'll keep the forced labour bit. And open the windows to stop people nodding off. Good old Stalin, he's an inspiration for tyrants everywhere.

Timing. I still over-run, under-run. Well, not so much of a problem when you're not being observed cos you just need some back up activities or else to wrap things up nicely with some plenary.

So my plenary here - Gosh what a rubbish word that is - what's wrong with conclusion? More formative assessment, more differentiation, more obvious structure tailored to group and individual needs, better behaviour management. Ummm. Yeah. All the usual things. I know. It's just the way it was presented with my previous mentor. That made it feel like a personal attack. Very unsensitive person -> meets ummm slightly too sensitive person = bad atmosphere.

Anyway. I have moved on. I'm good like that. I think. Now I just need to work out this thing about some of them "having" to leave early.

What would Stalin do?

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 18:41 Comments

Ooooh. No one ever told me I was gonna have to do all these essays. Did they? yeah, well, they probably did. I just wasn't listening. And anyway, it's fun at the beginning. It's a novelty & you're proving you can do it. That you've still got it - if you ever had it in the first place that is.

I signed up for an M.A. about 3 years ago in my first foray back into the world of proper learning (Spanish Level 2 Conversation at the local college doesn't really count, does it?) - and when I did sent in my application with all the - I'm great, here's what I've done - stuff on my application form - and they said, yeah, but can you write an 'academic' essay. And I thought, yeah. Well pseudo-academic. And as I was just wittering about books it wasn't that difficult. It's an English/Creative Writing MA - I know, I know what you're thinking... those oh so witty graffitios you get in the toilet at Universities above the bog roll holder: "English degree - please take one."

But while the initial 'essay' was easy enough (if time consuming) it did lead to me having to do lots of research projects, and practical creative writing teaching projects bla de bla bla bla. So there was a lot of work - although obviously it isn't nuclear fission studies.

So, redigressing back to education - and the PGCE - which I - like a fool - decided to do part-time the year before last. Coz, of course, if I'd done it full-time I would have got myself a generous grant, but no, part-timer, that's me. Poverty stricken, that's me.

And so last Easter I had the mother & father of competing assignments with my PGCE & my MA and there was a lack of sleep and a wish that I had been better organised...

But again, I knuckled down and did it. I read the books. I surfed the web and read the articles on education. I downloaded the government Pdfs (Oh how I loath reading pdfs....)

But 3 weeks ago, I think I just hit the wall. I wasn't well and I needed to write an essay that had the most detailed title ever. In fact - it wasn't really a title - it was just a list of demands: the learners' journey including these 13 stages and considerations; Quality Assurance and how it impacts on you and your college; Quality Improvement and ...... oh dear.

I read so much. I cared so little. OfSted by the bedsted. And yes, I know it's important but boy was it dull.

So that was that. I did it. It took me a long, long time. It wasn't the most entertaining thing I've ever written and I kept being distracted by everything and anything while I was trying to write it. "I'll just check my email..... Oh, I wonder what the news is....... I think I'll make a cup of tea, make a quick phone call then re-read my notes.... Is it 2am already?" I was worse than a 14 year old.

How I yearned to write some Schemes of Work, some Lesson Plans; please no more Quality Assurance.....

But it's done. And now I feel bereft. The night after I completed it I just didn't know what to do with myself. "What do I normally do with my time?"

I've got one more project/assignment to go for my PGCE (well apart from the hell of my personal portfolio of evidence - but I'm trying not to think about that - that's what Easter's for....).

One more then I can retire from academia....... or do a Phd. Cos as much as I hate it, I think I might be slightly addicted. A Phd in blogging? My assignment is going to be about the uses of Web 2.0 applications in the classroom.

Anyone using Twitter to teach?

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 13:58 Comments

So here I am, admitting yet again to my lack of knowledge. ESOL teaching, as previously said, it wasn't my first choice but in January with most FE colleges full to the brim with student teachers and me wanting to get away from my assigned mentor - it was an opportunity and one that I jumped at. Teaching what? Yeah, I can do that.... Ummm, what does ESOL mean again? It's not TEFL is it?

It's not gonna be hilariously like the 1970s sitcom, 'Mind Your Language', is it? As Wikipedia describes it: "The series focuses on the adult students of the English as a Foreign Language class in a London school. The classes take place in the early evening, and are taught by Mr. Brown, though on occasion other individuals take over the class if he is not available. The class consists of foreigners with varying degrees of English proficiency. The humour of the show is derived from the students misunderstanding English words or terms, and plays up to the cultural stereotype of their individual nation of origin." A series for which the phrase, "not politically correct" was probably invented...

No, it isn't. The learners have some knowledge of English depending on the grade they've been assigned to. (There's a beginners level that isn't taught at my new college - then there's levels 3, 2 & 1 - which leads directly into Level 1, then level 2, then level 3 - which is GCSE equivalent - but with better grammar and less poetry). So that's where I am right now. Teaching English. It is the most fundamental skill of them all. Here is where all potential English students start at some age or other.

And I can't help thinking it's all quite noble. Not from my point of view, but from the students'. They have their reasons to be here and they have their reasons to learn the language, but they don't have to. Lots of people live within their ethnic communities and survive with very little knowledge of English. In fact, in some ways, the larger the community is, and the more resources it has, the less need there is to actually learn the language of the country. Like Brits on the Costa Del Sol or in Dubai, if you've got everything laid on for you: entertainment, shops, jobs, friends - why would you bother learning a difficult second language?

So I bow down (not literally) to my new students and hope that they will be hard working and willing. Although I already know that some of them like to be cheeky and turn up late, and want to leave early and leave their mobiles turned on cos they're expecting a very important call from bla bla bla.....

Except, in there case it might be an important call from their lawyer about their immigrant status, so I've been told I might have to accept that., but ... I'm not so sure, we shall see.

All the same, the mix of students is very interesting, being made up primarily of asylum seekers (and those granted asylum? I'm not sure yet) at the lower ability levels - Iraqi Kurds, Eritreans, Iranians - then moving into the next class and perhaps reflecting how long they've been in the country or whether they knew any English before they arrived - there are Somalian women, people from the Congo - then in the higher ability levels various European nationals: Russians, Polish people, young people from Spain. It's interesting and apparently there is a high level of pastoral care and advice given by the teachers.

Mr A. isn't going to be coming in again because he's been sent back to ...

In the meantime, I need to concentrate on the teaching and find out what works, find out how they respond to my ideas. I need to learn a whole new curriculum and set of 'behavioural & educational outcomes'.

I feel I need to read lots and lots about this subject/style/genre of teaching - ask lots of questions - train and try - go with the flow - test ideas and see what works. It's quite a pure environment - with one obvious outcome if all goes well: they learn to speak, write and understand English. And while you might be able to question the value of some skills (I'm still bitter about spending time learning to draw machine parts for my Geometrical & Engineering Drawing O Level - yeah, thanks computers - you really made my skills with a t-square and pencil pretty obsolete) - I don't think English is ever going to go out of style.

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 00:06 Comments

So here's a big difference between Nincomport College & Porringo College.

At Nincomport an essay subject was set. There'd be a hand-out or two. Then the students would start writing the essay (this is after the book or whatever the subject matter has been read and discussed - probably with a few extra exercises along the way). The students would toddle off to the library to do their work. Then a few weeks later - with possibly another lesson given over to essay writing so no one had any excuse that *they didn't have time* - the essays were handed in.

The teacher would hand them back and discuss how they could be improved.

Then the essays were handed in and marked.

With a few exceptions that was how it worked. Things were pretty much like that across all classes as far as I could see. Students got some advice, they wrote, more advice, they re-wrote. Then handed in.

But at Porringo College it's different. The essay is set and the writing has to be done as homework. The lessons are filled with a wide variety of perspectives on the essay subject. Various ways of writing the essays are outlined. The essays are supposed to be written at home but the reality is that most students don't get them done in time. Not a big surprise, but they only start coming in when the threat to contact the head of department and start disciplinary procedures is given. Then the work gets done and the essays get handed in. But whereas at Nincomport College it was a one step/one advice session process - at Porringo - the work has only just begun. There now follows a month of back and forth, rewriting and 'suggestions' by the teacher. Until the essay is up to standard.

I understand it, but I'm not sure I like it.

The same applies to re-taking GCSEs & AS exams - or more usually, re-taking the coursework so that a few more points can be added and the student can climb into the next grade. I know it's the game, and I know that some colleges play it better than others, I'm just saying a big hmmmm. I feel a bit like ambitious lawyer Tom Cruise going to work for an uber-successful law firm and finding out just how they manage to stay ahead of the game. It's not quite a case of selling your soul, but it is all about how you and the students decide to play the game. There is no level playing field.

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 00:26 Comments