In a previous post I talked about managing behaviour, and I briefly mentioned that I lacked authority because I was a young, female drama teacher. I want to talk about how my experience of being a teacher has been different and, at times, more challenging due to my age, gender and subject.
There are some men that can't get their class to listen. There are some older teachers who find themselves being taken for a ride. There are some young ladies who can command a classroom with nothing but a look that says "I mean business." There are Drama teachers out there who no one dares to question. So it might seem like there are some generalisations in this post, but I am outlining what has largely been my experience. I like to think, after 4 and a half years of teaching, that I can control a class, but that doesn't mean it's not a battle. I can confidently say you could walk into any of my lessons, and the students would more or less be behaving in an orderly fashion. However, every lesson I have to work extremely hard to keep it that way and I am tired.
Little
When I first started at my job I was 24 years old, and I was a brand new teacher. I remember at parents evening once, I told an A level student that I understand how tough the work load is at A level and that I was happy to help her to prioritise, and her parent said, "by the looks of you, it wasn't so long ago you were sitting them yourself!" I was often mistaken for a sixth former around the school, and once had to show my staff ID to get the staff meal in the canteen. There are worse problems to have, right? I'm in my 20s and I still look about 18. What a blessing! Until... you realise that people aren't taking you seriously. Students don't respect you because you look the same age as their big sister, and they'd never take orders from her. Parents don't trust you, because how can you possibly teach their child anything they can't if you're 20 years younger than them? They see you as inexperienced and therefore unfit to teach their child. I like to think my behaviour management has got better every year, but I can't help but wonder if it's just that I've got older. After all, I've always managed my classroom in the same way.
I do everything by the book. I try to build relationships by getting to know the children as individuals and taking an interest in their lives. If a student is talking over me, I stop. If there's disruption and I don't know where it's coming from, I position myself better in the classroom to catch it/stop it. I use my "teacher stare" and when necessary "teacher voice". I am in touch with parents. I have high standards and I don't let students lean on the walls, and if their work isn't good enough I make them do it again. I try to be positive, praising where I can and making my lessons as engaging as possible so that they want to get involved. I follow the behaviour policy down to a T. I was told that if I went in hard at the start of the year with these strategies, over time, students would learn that they can't get away with it in my lessons, and I wouldn't have to work so hard at it for the rest of the year.
However, I am finding myself having to work through all of my strategies over and over again every lesson of every day. Every single lesson there are a number of children who talk over me, so I remind them not to. They do it again, so I escalate the warning. They keep going, a comment to parents, a detention, and finally they might stop, depending on their mood. Then another student starts. Every lesson students slouch against the walls even though they know they'll get a detention for doing so. In almost every year 9 lesson without fail, I have to threaten a group with coming back at break or lunch to re-do their work because they haven't done enough. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. I'm firm but fair and consistent and I do everything right, and yet still the students continue to test me time and time again. Not a day goes by where I don't have to give up at least part of my break or lunch while I deal with detentions which don't even work! They just come back and do it again next week. It's almost as if the detention doesn't count if it's from me. I am too young to possibly know what I'm talking about. They'll tell their parents "don't worry, it's only Miss ***" and their parents will breath a sigh of relief. It's not like they've disappointed a real teacher.
Miss
I wish being a woman didn't make as much of a difference as it does. I've lived it, and I've witnessed it first hand. A female teacher gives an instruction and it's challenged, even laughed at. A man comes along and gives the same instruction and it's followed without question. I've been told time and time again when I've gone to heads of year about students' behaviour, "yes a lot of female teachers struggle with *name*, he/she often challenges female authority" or "they aren't taught to respect women at home." It's not good enough.
Women have to exceed their expectations, whereas men just have to meet them.
I have been mentoring a male trainee teacher this term. He's softly spoken and a little bit goofy, and he'll be a great teacher one day, but right now he's still learning so he makes lots of mistakes (which is to be expected). He doesn't use any behaviour management techniques, yet when he says "be quiet now", they do it. Right away. He doesn't have to give out detentions to get them to stop talking after every sentence. They don't wander around the classroom, not doing the work, waiting for their warnings before they will consider following instructions. They just do what he says.
Maybe you're thinking he could just be better at commanding the room than me. Perhaps he has a more authoritative demeanour. Except... he doesn't! Here I am, almost 5 years in, working my arse off every lesson to get the same results as a trainee who uses little to no behaviour management strategies whatsoever. It makes no sense. Is it to do with gender? I can't say for sure, but I also can't help but wonder if that might have something to do with it. The sad reality is, the children have a perception of what you'll be like before they even meet you. They find out they have a young woman teaching them, and they are expecting a kind, gentle push over. Women have to exceed their expectations to break that perception, whereas men just have to meet them.
Then, there's the worst part. The sexualisation of female teachers. In my first year of teaching a year 11 student asked me out on a date. How can I possibly discipline a student who thinks that I could be his girlfriend? It's offensive. At one point I genuinely found myself wearing trousers on days where I had more difficult classes in an attempt to get them to take me more seriously. I remember, once, a year 11 girl came into my office crying at the way she had been objectified by a group of boys in the canteen. She had to clean the tables as part of a detention and they were cat calling her, telling her to bend over the tables, dropping things on the floor and asking her to pick it up so they could leer at her bum. She finished by saying, "you should hear what they say about you, Miss. You'd be disgusted. They take bets on who can get you to..." she saw my face and trailed off, offering a sympathetic smile. This is not a level playing field. How can it be?
Drama
Too many parents, students and even sometimes other teachers don't take Drama seriously enough. If you teach the core subjects, you're already at an advantage. Maths - the students all need to do well in your class, they need to pass it to go to college. English - same thing, they'll have to re-sit it if they fail, they need it if they want to get anywhere in life. Drama - the "fun" lesson where they get to run around, they don't have to do any writing at KS3, and their parents don't care if their work is a pile of trash because they can drop it in year 9. I have spoken in other posts about attitudes towards Drama, so I won't go into it all again, but it seriously makes my life more difficult. As a Drama teacher, I am treated as a second class citizen. Someone less intelligent. Less relevent. Less worthy. The trouble is, no matter how hard I try, or how many detentions I give, if a student doesn't value Drama, I'm fighting a losing battle. Why should they listen to me if they think what I'm asking them to do is a waste of time? When I've had tricky classes before, I have tried to educate them on the value of Drama, only to be met with laughter and mocking, as if the very suggestion that they might be learning teamwork skills and building confidence was utterly ludicrous.
I'm a triple threat! I have had to battle to gain a reputation in the school as someone who is taken seriously, and honestly, I think part of my success in this has come from gaining the title of assistant head of year 7. A bit of status helps with how you are viewed by the students. I remember once in my first year I was complaining about a class I'd just had who had been particularly tough, and a middle aged man who teaches computing came over and gave me some tips. It was laughable. All basic behaviour management techniques, as if I hadn't tried them. Of course, he thought he was being helpful, because they all work for him.
So, what's the answer?
We have a big job on our hands. We need to change the way society views women for a start. We need to teach children that just because someone is young, that doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. We need to raise the profile of Drama in schools, and show the students that just because you're out of your seat and having a nice time, doesn't mean you're not learning valuable skills. Us young, female Drama teachers have to keep going in every day and proving that we are not to be messed with. If we all do it consistently over a long period of time, maybe we'll break the stereotype, and we won't have to work quite so hard. I won't be there to see that, of course. I'll be working in my new job in the corporate world, whatever that will be, feeling extra grateful that I'm not trying to teach mime to 30 miserable teenagers.
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