I don't want to talk about the 'C' word. No, I'm not referring to the one I caught my year 7s using the other day.
I won’t talk about it because I'm joining the rest of the world in pretending it's gone away now, but it was the height of the pandemic when I learned something that made me want to start this blog. I learned that hundreds of thousands of people have got this idea about what teaching is, that is not only untrue but is utterly insulting. The way that people spoke about teachers at the height of Covid made my blood boil. I decided I needed to give the world an insight into what teaching is really like. To help dispel this offensive myth that we are ungrateful, moany old hags who swan in at 9 and out at 3, live the dream during the school holidays and demand too much for this cushy half a job that we do. I realise that I am being moany… but I hope that by blogging I’ll be able to explain why.
"If teachers have it so tough, why don't they just get another job?"
I’d like to address this.
My training Year
Before I started my teacher training, everyone told me that teaching was the best job in the world. I was sold this idea that if I could just get through my training year (I admit, I was warned that bit would be tough), I’d have the most wonderful, fulfilling, rewarding career and my life would be complete. So, I did my training year, and it was the hardest year of my life. I used to come home from school at 8pm, have a nap, get up, have dinner, work until the early hours of the morning and then go into school looking like the walking dead the next day.
It was a month or two before graduation when a guest speaker came to talk to all the trainees about our NQT year (as it was called back then). “Next year will be just as hard as this year” he said. Our faces must have been a picture, as he followed this up with, “well, what do you expect? New teacher, new schools, new schemes of work, a full timetable…” Ok, so I just had to get through one more year and then it would start to get easier.
My NQT Year
Lo and behold, my NQT year was awful. I teach at the top school in the county, yet the behaviour of some of my students was appalling. I had 12 and 13 year-olds throwing chairs, making sex references, starting fights and ignoring my desperate attempts to discipline them. I tried everything to get them under control, but I was a young, female Drama teacher with the authority of an Andrex puppy. I’d heard other teachers also found these classes tough, but I couldn’t imagine any of their lessons were as bad as mine. Looking back, I was being far too hard on myself. Us teachers usually are. We are programmed from our first day of training that whatever we do, we will never be good enough, and that we have to constantly strive to be better. I had never ever had serious anxiety or any kind of mental health issue before, and now here I was having panic attacks in the mornings and emotional break downs in the evenings. Don't be thinking I could have taken a day off to look after my mental health! It was made perfectly clear to me, "we don’t call in sick at this school unless we’re seriously ill…” It’s ok, I thought, I just have to get through this year.
Near the end of the year, I got some observation feedback and I burst into tears. I’d worked hard all year on my lesson plans, my behaviour management, my differentiation, and it was all a lot better! But as usual, "better" still isn't good enough. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. As I was sobbing, my colleague put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I know it’s hard. The first five years of teaching are the hardest. But I promise, it gets better after that.” FIVE YEARS! I think she was trying to comfort me. She did not.
Now
My fifth year of teaching is now approaching, and while I admit it has got slightly better, it’s still not great. That ‘rewarding’ feeling pops up every now and then, but is absolutely not something I feel daily. I work 10 times harder than any of my friends for half the money, I certainly don’t feel “fulfilled”, and I’ve peeled back the rainbow exterior of the teachers who once told me it was the best job in the world to find empty shells. If you ask them, they insist that they love it. But is this what love looks like? I see their bodies collapse into their chairs as the last students leave the building at 3:30, and watch the blood drain from their faces as they open their To Do list. I see the way they count the hours until home time, strike the days on the calendar as they yearn for the weekends, drag themselves to the next school holiday. I see them return each time with even less enthusiasm than before.
So this year I thought, this is it. I’m looking for a new job. I admit, giving up on teaching now does feel like a bit of a waste after I worked so hard to get here. I just can’t do this forever. I also don’t know what I want to do, but whatever it is I’d probably have to retrain and therefore take a pay cut. That really isn't ideal considering I have a mortgage to pay. I’ve thought about changing schools, but I worry that the grass isn’t greener. I’ve been browsing, so the other day I checked my contract to see how much notice I have to give. 3 months notice, and must leave at the end of term. So if I don’t find a new job now, I’m stuck until Christmas… What else could I do? I have no idea, teaching is all I know! Maybe it’s just easier to just stay for another year.
Comments