It may sound callous, but I did not enter the teaching profession to improve the lives of children. That’s not to say I don’t want to or think that teaching can, but my daily slog of teaching, planning, marking, monitoring and emailing, is not motivated by a burning desire for social change. This is despite the constant pressure from above to care more for the job and the lives of my students than my own sanity.
I came into teaching for three reasons: to do something related to my degree (I studied literature at university, so becoming an English teacher seemed like a logical career decision); to avoid becoming another jobless graduate statistic; and to do something challenging and not office based. A couple of years into the job, I can already spot my own naiveties with regards to my decision, but nevertheless, I stand by the fact that my decision was not motivated by the desire to “improve the chances of young people” or “foster a love of learning” in the pimply, pubescent, moody creatures we call teenagers.
Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects of my job that I love. I love being able to discuss literature with GCSE and A-level students, especially when they bowl me over with their interpretations of texts. I enjoy being a form tutor and chatting to my students about their weekend and what they got up to, hearing them gush over the sleepover they had the other night, or listening to their woes about how much French homework they get. And I’ll always maintain that young people can teach you more about the world than a whole library of encyclopedias – when they’re not being all hormonal that is.
However, the crux of the issue is this: teachers are working more hours than ever before, dealing with more difficult students and parents than ever before, and are under more stress than ever before – all under the guise that we don’t mind because we’ll do anything to improve the life chances of our students. But that’s a fallacy for me – and I am sure others too. I’m not a superhero, I just want to make a living doing something I like, with enough time and money left over to enjoy myself at the end of it.
Earlier this year, I was faced with a nightmare student, the sort who makes your heart race at 100 miles per hour as they enter the room and you realise that, to your utter dismay, they aren’t absent after all. After declaring that my lesson and decision to punish his poor behaviour was a “piss take”, he proceeded to throw things across the room and disrupt the entire lesson until he was eventually removed by senior management.
Please don’t think me narrow-minded enough to believe that teaching in state schools shouldn’t involve any behaviour management issues. It’s foolish to believe students should or could demonstrate behaviour tantamount to angelic cherubs: some children are damaged by their situations outside of school and don’t know a thing about basic manners and respect because they have never been taught the rules by their parents.
I understand that. But my job is to teach English. I have to keep things going inside the classroom and make sure the majority of students learn and make progress. As unfeeling as it may sound, in my position as a classroom teacher, I just don’t have the time or resources to deal with the deeper issues that many students have.
The first email I received about the boy removed from my class was not on the management’s decision to impose sanctions for his poor behaviour, oh no. Any detentions that were given were to be run by me after school and I was faced with a barrage of questions about what I have done for him in my subject. He’s very disengaged with school you see, so is there any extra work you can give him? Could you put on any catch up lessons to improve his progress? What strategies have you put in place especially for him?
And here lies the other half of the problem – all the extra hours piled on teachers in the name of intervention. We are expected to stay behind to teach struggling students extra lessons – nevermind the mountains of marking or the five lessons I have to plan for the next day. If we don’t stay back and work what is essentially unpaid overtime (I could be offering private tuition during this time and charging up to £40 an hour) then we are bad teachers because we don’t care enough about the “life chances” of our students.
The sad thing is that I sound really bitter here, and that’s because I am. In an ideal world, I would love to be able to offer additional help to those students who work really hard but, no matter how much they try, just don’t get it. However, teaching is not an ideal world. The lack of time, and indignation at the demands put upon me, mean that I really do object to having to carry on teaching when the day is over. Extra lessons, clubs and meetings all lengthen the day unbearably, and mean that the evening hours are inevitably spent at the laptop, rather than relaxing with the family.
Teaching is not just a profession, it is a life choice. I was aware of this before I committed to the job. However, so dictatorial has it become in its assumption that we are all dedicated philanthropists that it is sapping any enjoyment out of the job. Two years in, and I’m throwing in the towel to become part of the growing statistic of dropouts. You see, I never wanted to be a social activist. I just wanted to teach English.
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