A couple of months ago, I tried to find an article on Othering to use for a class Harkness Discussion about the treatment of a particular character in a text we're studying. This was for an A-level English Literature class, so I wanted to encourage the use of precise language that they could use in their exams.

I wanted to make sure that all the students were on the same page before we started the discussion. That meant getting us all to agree on what 'Othering' even meant. So, I went on a bit of a hunt online and found this article on Hodder's The Sociology Review.

It would have been perfect for my class. It's pitched at exactly the right level for A-level students. It's literally written for them! Plus, it uses a lot of great words and phrases that they could add to their own banks for their revision and essays. Perfect!

But there were so many problems with trying to get hold of the article that I frankly had to give up. Other than only having a week to prep this lesson, I was just left despairing at what I discovered.

The first problem I encountered is that Hodder Education/Hachette Learning doesn't let you buy single editions of any of its magazines – including The Sociology Review. It also doesn't let individuals buy access to any of these magazines. You have to be set up as an institution.

I think there are some students who would genuinely love to buy access to the Hachette Learning archive, which brings me onto the next problem I discovered: you have to buy access to each magazine individually!

Surely, giving students access to an archive of all of their magazines would be a really good business model. It's my opinion that with the rise of AI and short-form content, it would be really beneficial for students to have a short-form magazine with credible content that they can check regularly? I would personally split it up into articles. Then, for a small monthly subscription, students or schools would be able to access the archive. I'd make it so that students fill in the exams they're doing and then they get weekly recommendations of articles to read.

Then there's the fact that you can't buy access to a single edition or purchase hard copies of the magazines for posterity.

But right now, it's even worse than just those things: Hachette are completely getting rid of the magazines, too!

After I tried to access the sites, I discovered that they posted their final new magazine this year and are in the process of phasing out access to the old ones.

I'm so gutted! This is such a loss of content!

If I could afford it, I would buy all the magazine articles from Hachette and then put them on my tutoring website for a small subscription fee instead. I genuinely don't know what's going to happen to them!

I hope they have a rethink about getting rid of the content, or sell the rights to someone else who will actually host the content they need.

This might be another ADHD thing, but I just can't retain students' names once I stop teaching them.

I feel so bad about it. I really don't want to, but I just can't help it. Like, I'll learn my students' names really quickly when they're in my class and I'll remember them for the whole year. But, to be honest, I've already forgotten some of the names of the Year 13 students who just left! Yikes!

The thing is, it doesn't have anything to do with whether I like a student or not. I mean, the idea of disliking students is foreign to me. They can annoy me in a given moment, but holding a grudge is bizarre because I know when they chafe against my authority, it's not me they're being mean to but the teacher figure that I'm embodying.

And when a student's behaviour isn't appropriate for a classroom, I focus much more on what went wrong and what I can do better next time. Whether the kid meant to be rude doesn't really factor into my thinking, apart from to think about whether they'd be willing to hear me out and if I can help them to improve for their future.

Even when I forget a student's name, though, I won't forget their face, or what we'd chat about to build a rapport. I'll remember what school I taught them at and which text they loved. But the name? It flew away. It's just that to me, their name is tied to seating plans and the register and cold calling and data. Their face is tied to their personality and the books they love to read. And I know which one my brain has decided is more important.

I think it might be another ADHD thing. Most teachers will say they only remember their students' names if they did something completely memorable – and nine times out of ten, the memorable thing the students do will be negative. But I guess with me, the process is just much faster than it is for most other people.

I don't know what I could do to make this better, or even if I should do anything about it. But I'd hate to think that a student will come back to the school to say hi and feel terrible because I won't be able to name them.

If anyone out there is like me and loves Englicious, you might have been disappointed to see that it’s down at the moment.

The good news is that it’s not down forever!

I had a quick chat with the amazing Bas Aarts, who said that Englicious is changing servers and will eventually be back. It’s all temporary!

I can’t wait to be able to use it with my students again!