Lessons from an Okay Teacher

  When you become a teacher you become immersed in the world of your students as well as their parents.   The former have been studied, pedagogy decided and you’ve been trained how to talk with them, how to keep them safe and healthy, how to educate them.   The latter.   Hmm.   Well, you’re pretty much learning about parents on the hoof, so to speak.   Your initial training will not have covered the multiple ways that they can affect the lives of their children or even the life of a school.   Unfortunately colleges and universities don’t wheel in parents to remonstrate with you, ignore you or even threaten you.   Nor do they rope in some parents to shower you with praise and presents and declare how their child loves you.   Should these teacher training places do that?   Maybe.   When you do your placements you get to meet parents for the first time but there is a sense that you are just training for the job and, in my experiences at least, the student teacher gets a free pass.

  Okay, so this is a rather semantic-based blog with a focus on a pet hate that my wife and I have often discussed; being ‘passionate’ about an aspect of school and education when you are talking about yourself and your role, particularly in a job interview. I think it stems from the fact that the both of us are English teachers and can recognise when a word or phrase is being overused.   I remember, sometimes vaguely, the 1980s when ‘synergy’ was the buzzword to use in business and I do remember that, at the time, thinking it was just corporate twaddle. And so it is with the word ‘passionate’.   You see it in job adverts; “the ideal candidate should be passionate about inclusion” just to quote an example.   Passionate about inclusion?   Really?   Why? Passion is when you support your Football or Rugby or American Football or Cricket team and you get properly riled up when they play.   When they score or hit a four you go absolutely beserk and scream and shout and scare the d