Taking it Personally: My Take on Education

If I were a polar bear... 

I am tired. Like, for reals... I can barely feel my arms and legs... a haze sits over my head as though I'm at a rock concert, but there's a bucket full of honey over my head... It's exam season, which means: Saturday classes, constant knocks at my door for more revision work, constant questions, some hand holding, a lot of affirming, some shooing away, lots of chocolate and coffee, a few jokes, and underneath it all the underlying torrent of whatiftheyallfail!? whatamigoingtodo?!

I've been wondering of late if I need more of a life... if I care "too much" about my students and (maybe) my school... Few people who spend probably the same amount of time at work talk about work as much as I do...  Getting Ems to talk about her office is like bleeding a rock... same with my other 2 housies. Friends at church... "yeh, it's hard. I had a good day. We went for drinks..." etc. etc. etc. A few friends in the medical field, keeping within confidentiality bounds will share concerns, but... I LOVE telling stories about my students. Their odd facial expressions... projects we're working on... jokes they made... things they've done well... concerns I have for them... I LOVE THEM (within the bounds of teacherly-student affection, of course).

No for real, I have the privilege to work with some amazing kids. The thing is, it's really hard for me to hide it.

Like, they KNOW.

Like, on a near daily basis someone says "Aww Miss, you know you love us..." and I sheepishly grin because I TOTALLY DO!

hahahahaha (google image search: cry with joy ftw!)

I love coming up with fun projects and weaving in reading and writing skills. I love exploring stories and finding new texts I think they'll like. I love to stare out at my class and see them pouring over thesauruses, furrowing their brows over some writing, encouraging and helping one another with a particularly difficult bit of their story, a troublesome word. I love reading their work and seeing that they are improving (I nearly CRIED a few weeks ago because some of them are doing so well), I love seeing them mature, learn group work skills, improve their diction, increase their vocabulary, stretch their imagination, come up with original ideas. I love seeing them try to impress me, and then, I love seeing them try to defy me... to challenge me, stand on their own 2 feet, think for themselves... I love the look they get when I've done something particularly silly and they're trying to work out how I can be an adult AND be just a tad odd and ridiculous.

And I feel so JAZZED about my lessons and then I read the paper and my heart falls into the bin because someone is saying something again about pensions and how teachers will have to work till they're 120 and how the Head of Ofsted said "Teachers don't know what stress is"...

If I have legs and teeth when I'm 120, I'll gladly work. I can't afford to pay into a pension, so I'm not even worrying about that... I've lost track of all the recent education fads that I have to do or I'm a bad teacher (fads are just that... they're so quick they can't even spell fade appropriately)... And Wilshaw is right when he gives his examples of stressihaven't dealt with, like:

"Stress is what my father felt, who struggled to find a job in the 50s and 60s and who often had to work long hours in three different jobs and at weekends to support a growing family..."
"Stress is what many of the million and a half unemployed young people today feel – unable to get a job because they've had a poor experience of school and lack the necessary skills and qualifications to find employment. Stress is what I was under when I started as a head in 1985, in the context of widespread industrial action – teachers walking out of class at a moment's notice – doing lunch duty on my own every day for three years because of colleagues who worked to rule."

Iwouldjustliketopointout that these are examples of things he faced as a head teacher... I am not a head teacher. I did not sign up for that job. I do not want that level of stress. So... no, Wilshaw, I have not dealt with the stress you or your dad did, but... that is your cross to bear, not mine.

However, I also agree that:

Teachers need to "roll up their sleeves and get on with improving their schools, even in the most difficult circumstances.... What we don't need are leaders … whose first recourse is to blame someone else – whether it's Ofsted, the local education authority, the government or a whole host of other people."

Blaming is BORING... no one wants to hear it. I completely agree.

Yet, this statement seems harsh, demanding, and not really helpful. Every school context is different... there isn't a magical solution, but "just do something" also doesn't seem so helpful. I'm the A* student in class with my hand in the air... I have IDEAS! Pick ME!

Firstly, I think that while "teachers' salaries were at a record high and that they had more power, independence and resources than ever before," we don't FEEL free...

I sense a really strong feeling of rebellion in most schools and among most teachers. They feel tied down, they feel restricted "If I had my way..." They have department and school protocols, they have exam and course deadlines... they have exam texts (not gonna lie, I HATE the GCSE English texts)... Every extra poem I showed them (as a starter or plenary) to help them "analyse" poetry, I felt like a rebel "They'll finally see some FUN poetry! WEEEE!!!"

A few years ago, I had to run around school and gather information from students and I saw a lot of classes "informally" and it made me realise that most classes on any given day, were both learning and rather informal. This emboldened me to adopt an "open door" policy. Come on in, any day and hang out with my class. You might not see anything on a IWB, or a formal powerpoint, or even a formal lesson plan... but you see contented students diligently working away, debating, reading, analysing, writing, drafting, revising, proving, evaluating--You will probably also hear me doing a voice, acting out something, singing, and maybe even a dance party... maybe... if you're lucky...

The thing is, I'm not really scared of Her Majesty's Inspectors, not because I think they will give me OUTSTANDING... I'm pretty sure they won't... because I know the kids learn and are having a pretty good time and I care about them. They'll be ok. I organise some programs, I write some curriculum and resources and manage a department... It's a lot of work. My lessons aren't outstanding, but they're good enough for the kids to be learning and having a good time. Would any pedagogists want to weep at the inspiration, maybe not (until they see how my ESL classes do CODEWORDS! Oh yeah! Booya! Betcha didn't see THAT ONE comin!)

The second thing I think is that in spite of all the stress, all of the deadlines, all of the planning and photocopying and marking and the stacking and unstacking of books... we need to make sure we're enjoying our classes and our students. Tell a joke. Marvel at their smiles. Notice their haircuts and broken hearts. Smile at their odd imagination, their quirky doodles. Tell it to them straight. Show them you SEE THEM... you see when they're ON IT and when they're drifting. Be IN the classroom with them... WITH them, not just in front of them.

I know it's crazy-stalker-mom of me... but I NOTICE when they're shoes are untied... I notice haircuts... I notice if they're pale or fidgety. They SEE that I notice and they know I care about THEM. Not just their marks or their learning, but them. Teenagers are mostly a jumble of potential, talents and emotions all mixed in with their own bag of issues. We get to square off every day with our agendas, emotional, personal and professional... and somewhere in this odd push and pull (tango? tarantella?) of education, people change. Not just the kids tho, I change too.

The students aren't the people who ruin my school for me... I quite enjoy most of them... it's the adults who don't act like adults... I'm sure these people ruin work places all over the world, but students shouldn't have to be more mature than their teachers... for reals!

Finally... teaching has it's own learning curve. Learn your style. Make mistakes. Adapt. Grow and develop your authority. Presence. Own the atmosphere of your classroom. Own the potential... When I first started teaching, I never noticed the chatter, now, a stray whisper has me shushing (unless it's group work). Before, I took up maybe 10% of the classroom... now, that space is MY DOMAIN! Enter if you want to learn. Create the positive energy around you.

The thing is, it's hard to do that if you aren't mentored or tutored or if no one shares stories and ideas with you. Maybe teachers talk so much about teaching because we're so used to collaborating ideas and getting feedback and consolation for the times we mess up. If you feel like you can't make mistakes, your learning curve will look less impressive. "With failure we learn. With success, not so much" (Meet the Robinsons).

TBH, I joined education because I loved books... not because I loved children. But the children were so awesome I couldn't help but love them. My first failure was thinking that that didn't matter. And as Donald Miller wrote "When somebody loves us... they will make us what we are" (Searching for God Knows What). Perhaps my best set of ammunition in the classroom isn't an IWB (hahahaha, as if), or new books (hahahaha) or amazing lesson plans... Maybe I can love them into better young people, love them into making progress, love them into believing in themselves, standing up to peer pressure, and thinking for themselves... I have no ed psych data to back me up. As far as I know there isn't a study on this. I just know that my students are awesome. I'm very busy. And we have a lot of fun. And somehow, they manage to learn.