I have just started my sixth year of teaching. By now, according to popular wisdom, I should be disengaged and furious with the state of education. But I’m not.
I love my job. I love how challenging it is. I love the kids who tell me how it is. I love the endless learning I get to do. I love the varied pace of life that working in a school provides – I can be a clown at 9am and a relationship counsellor at 10am.
I can be sworn at, let down, burst with pride, celebrate, talk to 500 people and actually teach some children, all before lunch. There aren’t many people who can say that. I honestly don’t think I could do anything else.
But I know this is not a fashionable opinion in education. We are an angry, disgruntled workforce. And I worry that our complaining is making us lose the respect of the wider population.
I try to stay away from the moaning. This means I often end up hiding in my classroom, dodging the endless conversations that I know will only frustrate me. They seem to take place all the time, on a variety of topics – the culture of complaining is too strong to break down and too well embedded to counter.
Don’t get me wrong, working in education can be frustrating. Each successive government uses us as a political football, or tinkers with us like a toy. But that’s because our work is so important – we are part of almost everybody’s life, in one way or another. We should feel proud and positive about being part of something that serves so many people every day. We should reflect, question and challenge the motives of government, but we should not allow this to drag us into a downward spiral of moaning about everything.
I suppose one of the reasons that I feel so happy to be in this profession is because I tried so hard to knock on the door. It took me ages to get into teaching. Since my early teens, I wanted to be a teacher (apart from when I was 9 and wanted to be a fighter pilot, until I realised I was scared of heights and fast-moving objects).
Teaching had always been the goal, but I struggled to get on to a course in my non-shortage subject. It took me two years of applying to finally secure a place on a PGCE. Once I had finished, I did two years of supply work and maternity cover, sending dozens of applications (and begging letters) to get a job and complete my NQT year. After that, I went on to become a head of faculty and an NQT mentor. I understand the value of having a job that is both secure and bloody good fun.
My wife is a solicitor. When I see her workload – which regularly includes putting in time on weekends, evenings and early mornings – I realise that teachers are not the only ones who have it tough. There are lots of jobs that make these kinds of demands, and maybe we just have to make the best of it.
There are, thankfully, some positive people around me. I am in awe of them all; from the NQT who makes me want to try new things and review the way I teach, to the 60-year-old veteran who embraces every new bit of technology wholeheartedly, volunteers to cover any lesson and comes to work with the sole intention of enjoying her day with the children she is there for.
My colleagues who complain so fiercely don’t seem to realise that they are part of the problem. They bring the morale down and create an environment where everyone is scared to change anything for fear of the repercussions.
They are the ones who refuse to help out when a teacher has gone home sick, or when we need someone to cover this one breaktime. They are the ones who use the phrase “That’s not in my job description”. They are the ones who see a problem and make it bigger by rolling the snowball down the hill.
So rather than moaning, let’s discuss and question change, but embrace it when we can. Let’s celebrate teaching and get away from the negativity. Above all, let’s remember why we love this profession.
