Yesterday a recruitment consultant from Hays Education called me on my mobile (I'd clearly filled in a form at one of the job-hunting events they've been organising for teacher-trainees recently). Once he'd established who I was and done all the cheery-cheery stuff recruitment people get trained in, he hit me with "So, Mary, you're coming to the end of your PGCE now..."
"Am I???" was my first response, or as I replied to him "I wish that was true."
But it's now the Easter holidays (well, I have university all day tomorrow and friday and a tutorial about an essay on tuesday. But at this point, uni work SEEMS like holidays. Anyone stressing about essays and research, go and spend a few hours in front of a group of 30 15-year-olds who WILL NOT listen to you and are more interested in disrespecting you, more or less openly, while you try to figure out how to react. It'll give you a new-found love for studying) and ahead is only another half term of school plus a month of uni-based finishing off. So the worst is definitely behind me.
And, you may point out, it's NOW that I find the time to update my student teacher blog with its 4th post??! I know...ridiculous. But maybe my silence is most indicative of the true student teacher experience - one of utter, overwhelming, time-consuming, workload.
Before starting the course everyone told me, over and over again, what hard work it was and how difficult...to the point that I eventually got fed up and started protesting "I really don't understand how it can be THAT hard, I mean, what can they possibly ask you to do?"
At this point in the course, I can finally reveal the truth: they just ask you to write minutely detailed lesson plans with boxes to fill in about how you are going to differentiate the lesson for stronger/weaker/different children. One of those for every lesson that you teach, so 2 or 3 a day, combined with the actual lesson preparation, refreshing your memory of your subject, marking 31 near-identical essays and trying to write fair, positive, and encouraging comments on them AND constructive, realistic, comprehensible targets...is enough to ensure that as well as spending 8am - 4.30pm-ish at school everyday, you have another 3 or so hours to do every evening when you get back, and then fall into bed exhausted because your alarm will be sounding at 6.20am.
This does not require super-human strength by any means (I have a friend who works in the city who I know works twelve hour days in the office extremely regularly). But factor in the psychological stress of being a student teacher and you start to get a real picture of the difficulties. The constant demands that you evaluate your own practice and identify areas for improvement (adding to the insecurities of many students who, like me, are self-critical enough without help!); the pressure of being observed regularly by experienced teachers, always with an eye for what you could do differently/better; the self-doubt that gnaws away after even the most tranquil of lessons - am I doing this right? did the kids really learn anything from that? what does learning actually mean, anyway? does anyone ever really learn anything? what is knowledge? what will the function of the school be in post-apocalyptic society? etc - and worst of all, the utter hell of the bad lessons, when the kids will not shut up no matter what you do and when you have revelations like "I'M the teacher we all used to moan about and say he/she "just shouldn't" try to be in charge of a class because he/she clearly can't take the pressure".
I don't think I've ever done anything where I have felt so supremely incompetent for so much of the time. The temptation, while filling in the "what I need to improve for next time" box on the lesson-self-evaluation form for what feels like the 3,455,785 time, to fling down the pen and proclaim "Fine, I'm clearly not doing well at this, so I'm just going to go and get a job that I'll definitely be good at, like maybe filing," is very strong.
This far, I've resisted...:-)
hilst the paper work load gets less (thank goodness) that feeling of "I'm never good enough" never properly goes away. And the disturbing part of it is that I've had members of senior management tell me that it's that attitude that makes me a good teacher. So essentially, to be a good teacher, you have to be into constant self-flagellation (especially those of us who are infinitely self-critical). I wish I had a magic wand to arm me against my own worst critic (myself) - it's hard on the ego, make no mistake about that!
ReplyDeleteBut... the rewards more than make up for the constant insecurity; The children who respond because of something you've done, the breakthrough you have with difficult children; the thank yous and the knowing you're making a difference however small. It would be so easy to go and find a job filing, but where else do you get the diversity and manic-ness of a day in school, and that's why we do it. When was the last time you were bored in the classroom? I certainly haven't been in 4 years of teaching (well, apart from the marking - but that's just a necessary evil) - and there aren't many other jobs where people can say that.
Believe in yourself, you'll be a fantastic teacher and your students will remember you for all sorts of reasons. But try not to be too harsh on yourself, there are enough people (and children) in the world who will do that for you, and it's resilience that wins out!
Good luck for your final part of teaching practise. I hope it goes well. It's not rocket science, but it's a war of attrition on your mental strength that you're more than capable of winning!
Hannah xx
Thanks Hannah! I'm actually feeling positive and motivated (well, now that term's over...;-) ) but thought it was time to update my blog, and when I started writing about teaching practice this was what came out!! All this said, I think I will enjoy the job...being a student teacher, less so, but of course it's temporary.
ReplyDeleteMary xx