Everyone has a theory

 I’m feeling grumpy today. I have a feeling that I’m not going to be fun to be around. You may think you know why. You could theorise that:

a) It is the end of the half term holiday

b) I’ve not read enough books

c) It is cold and windy

d) I’ve spent too much time in 1882

e) It’s close to some anniversary or another

f) The husband did it

You might be right or not but it’s fun to play armchair detective.

I’ve been thinking about that missing woman and her poor family (especially the children) that are splashed all over the news as our appetite for a pretty blond, middle class, missing woman knows no bounds.This story is one that everyone is talking about.

. “People don’t just vanish,” “I don’t trust the sister.”  . “It was the husband.” “The police don’t know what they are doing.” “A spaniel would be in the water with her.” “Has anyone checked the pump house.” “I’m sure there’s a load of refugees staying in that caravan park.” “It wasn’t even her on that bank - her sister dressed up as her so her husband could murder her because they’re having an affair.” “Her friend has too much make up.” “The police are watching the husband.” “That’s no shadow, it’s a bruise.” “No mother would leave her children.” “Her phone wasn’t on the bench it was in a tree.” “I’ve studied body language and I can definitely say the husband has dark hair.” “I’ve had menopause, it definitely makes you want to kill yourself.” “Stop victim blaming. Menopause is irrelevant .” “She’s bound to have been abducted.” “Has anyone considered aliens?” 

I can’t help feeling that if she’s gone off for a bit of a rest then none of this speculation will make it any easier for her to come back. 

In March 2020 there were 3300 adults who were long term missing. People do just disappear. 

Seemingly happy people do end their own lives. Check out the last photo project fromCALM

Husbands do kill their wives but there was a ten minute window that this missing incident happened and this husband’s whereabouts are documented on camera (Big Brother doesn’t stop the conspiracy theorists)

Water swallows bodies. I worked with someone whose husband never returned from a sea fishing trip. She was told to presume he was dead (his things were found on the cliff he was fishing from) and not to expect to find a body. It happens. It’s awful. My brain is rifling through all the newspaper reports of young people who went missing on nights out and the subsequent article 3 months later where their body is found in a canal by a fisherman. I remember a story from about the same time as the sea-fishing-incident in the 1980s where a foot in a trainer was washed up on a Scottish beach - the gruesome truth being that no one will ever know if that was their loved one and the rest of them was probably eaten by a hungry sea monster (big fish - in case you are getting more worried about me). By all accounts these incidents of a single foot in a trainer are becoming more common, which is thought to be because trainers are even more indigestible than they used to be.

Life isn’t easy. Death is a bugger for those left behind. Maybe we could cut everyone a little slack and allow them not to be perfect. I’m grumpy and horrible today. You can be too, if you need to be and you can talk about it  or not. Not everything a puzzle that needs to be solved by someone with a theory.

Here’s a picture of Happy Little Hector, encouraging me to keep reading. He’s cute. I’m hoping he’ll cheer you up after my grumpy blog.

School Holidays

 If you work in a school then you will have, bizarrely, been desperate for this holiday. The reason I use the word bizarrely is because it’s only been 6 weeks since the last one. What’s wrong with us that we need a holiday every six weeks? I didn’t need a week off every six weeks when I worked in a bank and I hated that. Having meditated on this question I would like to tell you about the February half term holiday, which I have affectionately called the smear test holiday (unless you are a weirdo who likes to throw yourself off snowy mountains with long planks of metal strapped to your feet)

What do I need a holiday for? Mainly catching up. To teach is to always feel behind. That is my experience anyway. I kept thinking, ‘I can’t wait for half term, then I’ll have time to catch up on…’

It is weird to need a holiday to catch up on bits of work you don’t have time for when you are working but I’m sure I’m not the only teacher to need it for that. 

 It it’s not just work.

It could be sleep. The classic anxiety sleep of a teacher who wakes up at 3am with ideas of how to stop 30 small people killing each other the next day is real. For many, sleep is so much better in the holidays.

It could be reading or doing anything that requires brain power. Weirdly, teaching seems to use up all the brain cells and then there’s nothing left at the end of the day. I’m actually ok with reading, it’s anything that requires a password. So, I will be deleting emails, renewing insurances and other delights. I will also read because my TBR pile is huge.

It might be cleaning or decorating. Although I believe Easter is the official ‘grouting break’.

It could be friends and family that you’ve neglected over the last few weeks. However, as the last holiday was the ‘social break’, you might still be craving more alone time. 

The main thing you will probably need to catch up on in this holiday is personal care. There wasn’t time in the last holiday because you and the people giving personal care were prioritising parties. You might go to the dentist, get your hair cut, soak the callouses off your feet, paint your nails, get your car serviced, or at least ring up to book all these things. This is what makes this the ‘smear test holiday.’ Now that GPs have a ring back service it is impossible to book a smear test when you are teaching. 

‘Thank you for ringing back….yes….hold on a moment….just carry on with your work children…yes…sorry….I just need to book a smear test….don’t worry what a smear test is Petunia……oh no…sorry…it has to be in half term….’

Also, there’s a greater chance that the nurse won’t be the parent of a child in your class, as when you are a parent school holidays and child care are a bit of a pain. 

I’ll be honest, there are better holidays to have but the ‘smear test break’ is necessary. 

Enjoy.

The holidays are good

 Yes the holidays are good but….

Really, who would be a teacher? 

The current battery of adverts suggesting that every moment of teaching shapes a life may be true but the risk is that it’s the teacher!s life that’s shaped and shaping can be traumatic.

I am currently convinced that in my dotage I’m turning into a cat, due to a day with the six year olds.

Luckily, I’ve never had a hairy face. Some women are prone to a moustache but not me. I’ve never even noticed a peachy fuzz before but six year olds don’t understand personal space. They pop up before you, like unleashed Jack-in-the-boxes, breathing their jam sandwich breath directly into your face. Getting them to all sit down at the same time is like a complicated game of whack-a-mole. 

So, the after lunch register needs to be done and I’m hearing about tummy aches, playground disagreements, lost jumpers (what do they do with them now? My children never lost jumpers - even though I’m sure they were just as careless with their belongings as kids are today. Maybe we have a jumper eating invisible monster in our school - but I digress.) and they are nearly all sitting on the carpet except one child who is so close I can feel their hot breath.

“You are a bit close. Could you step back a bit? Or preferably sit down like everyone else.”

“I’m just looking at your face.”

“Oh” *thinks* Don’t say ‘creepy’ “but…”

“You’ve got a hair on your face.”

“That fine. My hair blows about a bit.”

“It’s ok I’ve got it.”

The child pulls offending hair and it turns out my first old lady cat whisker has been expertly plucked from my cheek.

Oh God!

Thank goodness the holidays are good.

Teachers: what are they like?!

A useful addition from an expert at walking out in a strop (Brexit)

The press and right wing commentators are having a jolly old time with this question at the moment. Some teachers went on strike and it’s highly inconvenient. Good. That’s the point of a strike. If no one notices then it’s very difficult to get your message across. Many people are striking at the moment because in a country that is reeling from a pandemic, following a stupid decision to leave our biggest trade body, being governed by a bunch of people  that have run out of steam and effective ideas, where inflation is at an all time high and public sector pay freezes over the last ten years haven’t been relaxed, it has all come to a bit of a head. The pimple has been growing, quietly under the skin and now it’s out, oozing and suppurating all over the place. Discontent. Anger and disappointment everywhere. Not just teachers.

But the rhetorical question - what are teachers like - will be wielded in an attempt to undermine any genuine concerns. 

The answer to the question is that teachers are human.

What?

Yep. It’s that simple. Human.

There are also lots of them because people will insist on breeding and expecting someone else to educate the little blighters. 

Teachers  come in all shapes and sizes. They are not all the same. They don’t all believe the same things or act in the same way. 

‘But they’re all loony lefties!’ the right wing press shout from their front pages. 

Nope. There are a spectrum of political beliefs. Obviously, the profession attracts more people that place others before money, specifically those who can’t help themselves. It’s the only way they are able to put the needs of 30 children over their own need to pee (or eat, often). It takes a certain kind of mindset to do that.

There is one trait of many teachers, however that allows this kind of silly talk in the press. This is the tendency to be our own worst enemy. Why does the profession attract so many people with slightly low self esteem?

This need to justify everything that you do, to feel guilty if one child out of thirty falls asleep in your lesson, the need to reinvent the wheel all the time, to insist that the job is worth it, even when it is grinding you down, to buy your own glue sticks, books or lolly sticks (never underestimate the importance of a lolly stick in teaching), to write everything down, to have sleepless nights over the child that smells of weed and screams through most of the day, as though that’s your fault. These things show a level of poor self esteem that you wouldn’t get in banking (or unfortunately, the current government). Bankers would say, “Oh, there’s no glue stick. I won’t stick anything in then.”

The point is that teaching is one of many difficult jobs with workers that are asking for a fairer deal. Don’t be sidetracked, by anyone tapping into their poor self esteem, into believing that they, and the children of this country, aren’t worth more.