no the guardian, education...
"Teaching
is a great job. It’s something I’m good at, and at times can excel at.
I’ve even had those once-a-decade moments of a child telling you
something you’ve done has changed them or inspired them permanently. But
“being a teacher” (the whole job and everything it entails) ground me
down so much over the course of 10 years that I felt I never wanted to
go near students or schools again. I genuinely believed I had no place
in the teaching profession and that I had made a lucky escape.
I’m not the only one. This week figures were released
by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers which showed that in 2011
only 62% of newly qualified teachers were still teaching a year later – a
sharp drop from 2005, when 80% were still teaching after a year.
“Why are we losing the next generation of teachers,” asked Mary
Bousted, the ATL general secretary. “Is it, I wonder, because trainee
and newly qualified teachers see very early on just what teaching has
become and decide that they do not want to be a part of it? Is it that
they learn as they work with exhausted and stressed colleagues that
teaching has become a profession which is incompatible with a normal
life?”
How did I come to leave the profession? I completed my PGCE in my
early 20s, before I had a young family, and went to work at a
comprehensive. I was teaching English, so the preparation and marking
was all-consuming, particularly in the early years after I qualified. As
soon as I began having children, I realised how incompatible full-time
teaching was going to be with any semblance of that miraculous notion:
work-life balance.
I immediately went part-time, which presented its own problems; if
you are teaching a core subject you end up with split-teacher classes,
which involves detailed lesson handovers and highly organised
marking/planning being passed between two teachers (or more – in one
particularly complicated year I was one of four teaching the same year 9
class. I don’t know who was more confused, us or the students).
My
departmental colleagues were supportive, and I worked this way for
several years. But, increasingly, other things began to crowd in. Yes,
that workload, the one teachers talk about constantly but I still feel
is met with scepticism and suspicion. (Do you really work that
much after you leave so early every day? Simply, yes. If I left when
school hours finished I had to work later, after I’d eaten and the kids
were in bed. And many days, I simply stayed at work long after the final
bell.)
I know couples who are both teachers, who take one day each every
weekend – one day for childcare, one day for marking and preparation.
Separately. And I was only part-time. I found myself growing more and
more resentful of the time I spent thinking, planning and worrying about
my workload when I wasn’t at work.
Then there was the weight of responsibility I felt for the kids I
taught, particularly regarding their exam results. Parents’ evenings
were a chance to connect with parents who I didn’t see from one year to
the next. Some were grateful, some simply wanted numbers, and some were
confrontational: one demanded a detailed copy of every lesson plan I
intended to teach for the next half term, because her child had told her
he didn’t feel my lessons were interesting enough for him.
The constant doubting of my work, and the passing on of every ounce
of the exam burden my way took its toll. I began to examine my dual role
as a parent and a teacher with careful scrutiny: did I hold my own
children’s teachers entirely responsible for how well they did in every
aspect at school? Did I make their teachers feel as I felt? I hoped not,
but it’s possible I did.
Eventually, I just got sick of being in a profession that I felt held
no real status in this country. I had countless arguments with other
parents – they felt that although there were individuals who worked
hard, teachers as a whole were lazy and complained too much. Although I
knew the opposite to be true, I didn’t want to be seen as one of those
any more. I felt flattened by having to constantly justify what I did
even deserved a wage (“Miss, my dad said to tell you he thinks it’s
disgusting that we pay you to have holidays.”)
People who had been in teaching for much longer than I had told me I
just needed to be robust, that it was irrelevant what people thought of
your job (particularly those who have no experience of it), and that the
students always made it worthwhile. I did love engaging with the kids,
but it no longer felt worthwhile. My confidence plummeted, and I knew it
was time for me to get out.
I left, and thought that was it for me, that I’d never go near a
classroom again. Then I started helping out in specialist drama
workshops – outside of schools, in an extra-curricular role that was not
attached to Ofsted observations, exam results or parental expectation.
To my astonishment, I remembered that at some point I felt I had
something to offer children – energy, enthusiasm and creativity.
I now do this as a freelance practitioner, and am relieved I left the
classroom “system” before it claimed me as someone else who left
teaching, in any capacity, for good."
aqui.
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