Silicon Valley in the noughties was the place to be. The dotcom era promised high risk but massive reward. The promise of new technology was everywhere, from the incredible growth of the internet to the first iPhones. And Jenny Henderson, 46, was right in the middle of it. Back then she managed massive projects at IBM. Now, she’s a physics teacher at Mill Chase Academy, Hampshire – and doesn’t miss the Valley at all.
“I’m so glad I got to work in Silicon Valley – it was a great time and place,” she says. “It felt so new and exciting. I was working on multi-million dollar projects, all over the world, spending a lot of time on client sites and in hotels. But I got to a point where I realised that OK, this process is getting a bit quicker, but that doesn’t make any difference to the world. There’s only so long that you can do the same stuff, again and again. I was earning a lot of money, and there was no other reason I was doing it. I wasn’t helping anyone in a significant way.”
Henderson moved back to the UK, got married and had children in her mid-30s. After maternity leave, she decided to give up her tech career and train as a teacher. “I just didn’t want to be in an office environment anymore,” she says. “I had already thought about teaching when I was in school, and I’d investigated it quite a bit then. And when I stopped work, I didn’t miss it at all. My heart just wasn’t in it.”
Her teacher training lasted two years, both at the University of Southampton: the first on a subject knowledge enhancement course, enabling her to specialise in teaching physics, and the second on a postgraduate teacher training course. “Everyone asked me why I didn’t choose to teach IT or computing, and I thought: ‘No, I’m fed up with computing.’ I wanted to teach something that really interested me, and physics was a subject I really enjoyed at school. If you have a passion for something, then that rubs off on the kids – they can tell when you’re enthusiastic.”
She’s now been teaching physics to secondary school children for five years and loves it. Teaching is like no other career, she says. “There’s not really a typical day. In what other profession does a bell go every hour, and you completely change what you’re doing?”
The highlights of the job, she says, are the little things. “A child might suddenly say that they’ve done well on a test ‘because I really enjoy it now, Miss’. Or a pupil may say that they’re going to study physics at A-level – that’s particularly satisfying when a girl says it, as we need more women in science. It’s those throwaway comments that you don’t ask for, but when you hear them, they make you feel really good. You think: ‘Oh yes, that’s why I’m doing this.’”
There’s also something special about the collaborative nature of schools, she says, where the teachers don’t stop learning. “In business, everyone is competitive. But in school, everyone wants to help each other. Sharing ideas with other teachers, in particular, is great. It’s funny when you get a bunch of science teachers together and someone’s found a new way of doing something or demonstrating a concept, and suddenly a new aspect opens up to you. It’s a bit geeky, which is great when you enjoy science.”
Of course, like most professions, teaching is hard work. But, she says, the positives far outweigh the negatives.
“I’m not saying every day is brilliant. You get kids who are challenging, and situations that don’t go as planned. But when I think back to the days I sat in front of the computer and used to work on spreadsheets, there is no comparison.”
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