Secret Teacher: I didn’t enter teaching to improve students’ lives. Not wanting to put students’ life chances before my sanity doesn’t make me a bad teacher. I never wanted to be a social activist, I just wanted to teach English. Now read the rest of the story.
It may sound callous, but I did not enter the teaching profession to improve the lives of children. That’s not to say I don’t want to or think that teaching can, but my daily slog of teaching, planning, marking, monitoring and emailing, is not motivated by a burning desire for social change. This is despite the constant pressure from above to care more for the job and the lives of my students than my own sanity.
I came into teaching for three reasons: to do something related to my degree (I studied literature at university, so becoming an English teacher seemed like a logical career decision); to avoid becoming another jobless graduate statistic; and to do something challenging and not office based. A couple of years into the job, I can already spot my own naiveties with regards to my decision, but nevertheless, I stand by the fact that my decision was not motivated by the desire to “improve the chances of young people” or “foster a love of learning” in the pimply, pubescent, moody creatures we call teenagers.
However, the crux of the issue is this: teachers are working more hours than ever before, dealing with more difficult students and parents than ever before, and are under more stress than ever before – all under the guise that we don’t mind because we’ll do anything to improve the life chances of our students. But that’s a fallacy for me – and I am sure others too. I’m not a superhero, I just want to make a living doing something I like, with enough time and money left over to enjoy myself at the end of it.
Earlier this year, I was faced with a nightmare student, the sort who makes your heart race at 100 miles per hour as they enter the room and you realise that, to your utter dismay, they aren’t absent after all. After declaring that my lesson and decision to punish his poor behaviour was a “piss take”, he proceeded to throw things across the room and disrupt the entire lesson until he was eventually removed by senior management.
To read the rest of the article, click the link below.
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/feb/14/secret-teacher-teaching-students-lives
to follow the website, click the link (s) below.
I came into teaching for three reasons: to do something related to my degree (I studied literature at university, so becoming an English teacher seemed like a logical career decision); to avoid becoming another jobless graduate statistic; and to do something challenging and not office based. A couple of years into the job, I can already spot my own naiveties with regards to my decision, but nevertheless, I stand by the fact that my decision was not motivated by the desire to “improve the chances of young people” or “foster a love of learning” in the pimply, pubescent, moody creatures we call teenagers.
However, the crux of the issue is this: teachers are working more hours than ever before, dealing with more difficult students and parents than ever before, and are under more stress than ever before – all under the guise that we don’t mind because we’ll do anything to improve the life chances of our students. But that’s a fallacy for me – and I am sure others too. I’m not a superhero, I just want to make a living doing something I like, with enough time and money left over to enjoy myself at the end of it.
Earlier this year, I was faced with a nightmare student, the sort who makes your heart race at 100 miles per hour as they enter the room and you realise that, to your utter dismay, they aren’t absent after all. After declaring that my lesson and decision to punish his poor behaviour was a “piss take”, he proceeded to throw things across the room and disrupt the entire lesson until he was eventually removed by senior management.
To read the rest of the article, click the link below.
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/feb/14/secret-teacher-teaching-students-lives
to follow the website, click the link (s) below.
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