Own Worst Enemy

Last week I had a day when I woke at 3am with a migraine, threw up and was still in work by 10am for a choir lesson I had to take. A colleague asked me what I was doing coming in and I reminded her that it's what we do. This, and catching up on the first three episodes of Tough Young Teachers have made me think about how teachers are their own worst enemies.

Tough Young Teachers is a programme that I was aware of from Facebook and Twitter, as it seems to have provoked a range of emotions in it's audience, almost all negative. I hadn't watched it before because it clashes with Pathologists Pretending to be Policemen, which I can't miss.  I was surprised at the negative reactions to it, though.  I thought it was funny.  I think children and teachers are inately funny and the casting was brilliant.  They managed to get Jack Whitehall to play an RE teacher and then there was the chap with the Scottish accent that pretended to be an American accent who ran off to the loo to cry and write a song. And the kids....well they are brilliant.

However, this is supposed to be real life and Charles is a real person training to be an RE teacher and not the imaginings of a comedy writing genius. The programme is following 6 graduates, as they embark on jumping the hurdles required to gain Qualified Teacher Status through Teach First.  They have had a 6 week intensive course to learn how to be a teacher and supposedly already know their subject really well having gained excellent degrees from good universities. 

The anger I've seen on social media, comes from teachers, parents and student's alike.  The trainee teachers were seen as useless jokes, the mentors were notably absent and unsupportive and the whole Teach First Programme seems not to be thought of as a good idea.  People want perfect teachers, who never make a mistake, who can turn every single student into a genius with the twitch of an eyebrow.  The social media world was happy to treat these trainees as though they were putting themselves forward as fully developed teachers who are the best examples of good practice rather than beginners who are learning how to do a job.  If we had a programme following trainee checkout operators at Tesco would there be as much anger at a person who couldn't find the code for a Mango?

There is chasm of difference between the public perception of the hours a teacher does to the hours teachers say they do. The public believe that teachers start at 9, finish at 3 and have holidays that would make anyone envious.  Teachers say they work,  ALL THE BLOODY TIME. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but teachers only have themselves to blame.  Who makes a teacher come in at 7am and leave at 8pm?  They do it to themselves.  It's almost as if teachers are trying to prove to the world that the perception of them is wrong but they aren't helping themselves or their students.

The Tough Young Teachers say they are working 13 hour days at a minimum and some are working much more.  They say they are working weekends.  This is unsustainable.  What will they do when they get Qualified Teacher Status? Their workload won't suddenly decrease because they've handed in a portfolio.  They will be asked to take on more challenges, tutor groups, become head of year, be responsible for collating the data for their department to make sure every child is above average. What will they do if they suddenly decide they'd like a life or a family?

In truth, if students are failing (and I don't believe they are) then they should be working harder, not the teachers. I could advocate that teachers shouldn't be allowed to take work home, that they shouldn't be allowed in school before 8am and should be kicked out at 5 but I can hear teachers shouting at their computers, "That wouldn't be fair. How would we get it all done?"  If you told the teacher who marks each book with a half page comment on the bottom that they now just had to put a tick they would be upset and the teacher who spends all weekend planning wouldn't take kindly to being told they weren't allowed to do any more than the 2 1/2 hours they are allocated a week.  This might be a bit controversial but a lot of teachers secretly enjoy these things.  They secretly like to be busy, they like writing essays on the bottom of work, they like dreaming up exciting ways to present their favourite subject.  

Teachers probably aren't all working as hard as they say they are.  When I read something like this:

Photo from Classroom Secrets Facebook page

  I feel guilty. I don't work these kind of hours and then I start to get anxious that maybe I should, maybe I'm not good enough if I don't.  A few years ago a colleague and I were discussing a book written by a teacher, who then went on to get sacked and advise the conservative government (can't remember it's title).  We just didn't believe that she was putting in the hours she said she was or if she was then she was doing an awful lot of 'faffing' but that was a few years ago and I wonder if we could have the same conversation now? Teacher's can't admit to themselves or others that they are not working extremely long hours and it's getting worse.  It starts to become a kind of competition.  If your colleague says they have worked all weekend on their lesson plans you can't say, "I did mine in 5 minutes on the back of an envelope", even if you did and your lesson gets just as good result as theirs does.

I don't think the public are particularly impressed with these confessions of long hours either.  As a parent, I'd much rather my children were taught by people who have a life, eat proper food and get enough sleep.  It's time that teachers stopped trying to be super-human, claimed their lives back and were honest about it.  If it can't be done in the time then it shouldn't be.  

Dislaimer:  I say this, knowing that today I will spend the day doing some school paperwork, writing some music for my flute group, learning songs to teach the choir and planning exciting lessons, where we can fight with Boomwhackers, even though I work part time and today is my day off. And if you try to stop me I'll get very angry.