Lessons from an okay teacher

 

These are the notes of someone who has been an okay teacher for thirty years.  They may be odd.  They may be illuminating.  They may be boring.  They may be, well, okay. 

Why an okay teacher?  Why not a great teacher or a good teacher?  What’s so wrong with calling yourself that?

Well, I’m with the late, great Graham Taylor, a famous English football manager.  He said this about his job but I feel it is also very pertinent about your job as a teacher. 

He said “In this job you get nice things said about you and bad things said about you.  The trick is not to spend any longer thinking about one than the other. In the end they are both bollocks.”

He’s right.  I’ve been a good teacher and a bit of a crap one sometimes in my 30 year career.  They even out to being an okay teacher.  Of course, I would like that to be a positive kind of okay, like “Yeah, he’s okay!” rather than a negative one like “Well, I suppose he was okay, I guess.” 

I’ll take being okay.  I am aware that this isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement should any potential employer be reading this but, I have learned that being okay is okay and that sometimes that is all a school is looking for.

I’ve been a primary and a secondary teacher.  I’ve been (briefly) a member of management and I’ve also been a union rep.  I’ve worked on three different continents in 7 different countries.  I’ve worked in the public and private sector and I have learned a lot. 

The over-riding lesson is about being okay.  And I don’t mean with reference to your competence, I mean being okay physically and mentally.  I’ve experienced the worst that teaching can throw at you and found myself not well as a result.  I have learned that this is not what your job should be doing to you and that there are ways to avoid it. 

As a teacher, you need to know that it is you who is the most important person in that classroom and in order to be in that classroom, you need to be able to stay healthy in body and mind – you have to take care of yourself.

And we are, generally, rubbish at it.  Sometimes we are terrible at it.  We have all, I think, gone into work when we have been ill or injured and when, in any other job, we would have stayed at home getting better quicker.  Or not, in many cases, making us worse. 

We stay up until the late hours marking or planning or doing reports or, possibly the most tedious thing in teaching, inputting grades.  Yeah, let’s not go there just now.  We’ll save that for other lessons.

There is always the danger that the job we do takes over our lives.  That is not a healthy situation for anyone to be in.  There are, of course, other jobs where it also applies.  I am not saying teaching is unique in that but if you’re not careful it can and will dominate everything that you do.

What I think we as teachers are crap at is understanding that our job is just a job.  That’s what it is.  A job.  A job that is complicated and physically exhausting and emotionally demanding but it is, at the end of the day, just a job.  A means to an end.

Some teachers want it to be more than just a job; they may see it as a stepping stone to what they hope will be a career in education.  That’s fair enough.  Good luck to them.  But I hope they remember that their desire to advance up the pay scale does not mean that you have to live as a teacher 24/7, that they keep that mythical life/work balance. 

If your work becomes all-consuming, how are you going to maintain relationships with people that you love – the ones who REALLY matter?  If all you do is work work work, how will you find the time to play and, crucially, switch off your brain from what is going on in a workplace to the more important things like what would you like to cook this weekend for your family or friends?

That may sound a little trite but you know what I mean. 

And it shouldn’t just be down to you to make sure you have some sort of life outside school.  One school I worked in would, quite literally, chuck you out if you were still there at six o’clock.  Other schools I have worked in have banned any emails after seven in the evening and at weekends.  Others have made sure their staff have pitch time so they can play football once a week together.

I know not everyone likes football but in large secondaries, lots of teachers do.  One boss that I had loved playing football but felt that he couldn’t join in with our Thursday evening games.  Not because we would have kicked him up in the air – because he’s the boss and also a nice bloke – but because he didn’t feel that he could spare the time.

Couldn’t spare the time to enjoy himself for an hour with his staff.  

What a shame.  His senior managers were playing but he just couldn’t tear himself away from the office and laptop to join us in what was a lot of fun with an occasional bit of grudge from the previous week.  It was, for us, a huge pressure release and a lot of fun. And lots of aches the next day of course.

You need to do something that makes you switch off from the job.  Preferably something that will allow those lovely endorphins to flow.   And give you something to talk about other than work.  If your school has a gym, use it.  If it has a swimming pool, use it.  If it has a golf course, use it.  No, seriously, I visited a private school that did, indeed,  have a golf course. 

Go to the gym on the way home.  Go for a jog when you get home.  Do some yoga.  Do pilates, do anything that keeps you okay. Get out that Nintendo and blow stuff up. Read a book. Watch TV, even awful TV. Cook something scrummy. Get some mates over. Go shopping for something you don’t actually need. Go to the football. Sing songs. Play a piano. Take your dog for a walk without your phone.

It doesn’t matter what you do, when you do it or how long you do it for. You need to do stuff that is nothing to do with work. With friends and family is better, with your dog is good and with your partner is great.

Let’s stay human. Let’s stay okay.