Listening to the Radio 4 serialisation of the book To Miss With Love by Katharine Birbalsingh recently, I realise that there are so many things that so many people don't understand about our work.
The current trends are that:
1. Teachers are lazy;
2. Teachers sit on their backsides while the students run amok and out of control until the bell rings for the break;
3. Teachers are entirely accountable for the success/failure of all students, even the ones that don't do any work, rarely come to lessons, and when they do just disrupt the class;
4. Teachers do nothing but sit and slag off the students during their breaks;
5. Teachers have overlong holidays;
6. Teaching is an easy job.
So in response, to most probably repeat what has been said by many before me:
1. Teachers work hard both in and out of the classroom - how often do people doing other jobs have to take piles of tests and papers home to check every night? It is most definitely NOT a 9-5 job!
2. Teachers have what's called a syllabus to follow. The students have a set amount of work to complete within a school year, some of them have to take an important exam at the end of that year, and come hell or high water we must achieve this.
3. Teachers are only accountable for presenting a topic, guiding students and encouraging them to the best of their abilities - they cannot make the students complete work if they don't want to, they cannot hold their hands and lead them to every lesson to ensure they attend, and if a student hasn't been taught what respect means by their parents, then it certainly isn't our responsibility to do so, but we still have to endure the consequences of bad parenting!
4. Teachers barely have time to piss, pick up the books they need for the next class, along with hunting down the register and room key before the bell rings for the beginning of the next lesson.
5. Teaching is both physically and mentally demanding, not to mention emotionally exhausting at times. We certainly need 8 weeks off in the summer to recover after a year of having to control YOUR badly behaved brats.
6. Teaching is the hardest, but most satisfying job I have ever done.
So, you might ask, what qualifies me to answer these points in this manner? Well, I guess you need to know a bit more about what my job is and what my life was like prior to teaching, before you pass judgement on my ability to make such comments.
Let's take a step back in time...
1981 - Anna's final year at a grammar school in Kent. She hasn't been a good 'performer', she doesn't show academic promise and is being advised to apply to hairdressing school, by the careers adviser and by her own parents.
Fast forward to 1999, and my first teaching post at a company in a small town in the south-west of Poland, not far from the Czech border. Since that day in 1981, I have completed - and failed, no thanks to my personal life and other things beyond my control - A-levels in Maths and Physics, attended a course at agricultural college, worked for a horticultural firm in Winchester, returned to college to gain an Access qualification, attended university to complete a BA/BSc in Maths with Media Studies at Canterbury Christ Church College, continued at Manchester to complete an Advanced Diploma in Education, and finally retrained as a TEFL teacher in October 1998.
During that time, I have also had many jobs - farm labourer, shepherd, secretary, computer room supervisor, temp, restaurant worker, PA, junior manager, researcher and auxiliary nurse. So far the only ones that I really enjoyed were the ones that allowed me to spend as much time as possible out-doors, others were boring, pointless and over-glorified.
So, having been a failure at school mostly due to the lack of support from the teachers, and having undertaken many different types of work, I think I AM qualified to say what IS and what is NOT a difficult job. See :)
Jump forward to the present - I have been at my institute for 10 years, switching to the State system after completing a miserable, but valuable in terms of experience, 2 years with a private language school. To do this, I took a pay cut of around 50%. Also at the time I chose to make the switch, I did not possess any pedagogic qualifications and had no experience of what a State system is in Poland or what was required of me as a teacher, but I wanted to do this so badly that I was willing to plunge in head first and learn. My current salary is now approximately equivalent to what I was earning at the private school 12 years ago, having gained the recognised State qualifications to reach Senior Lecturer status and in addition, complete my MA in Linguistics.
On an average day, I have to be at my institute around 9am, some days earlier, some days later. My timetable is organised such that I am able to teach both in the college and the high school at the same institute, but due to the lessons being timed differently and the breaks not coinciding I am usually on the run between the 2 buildings from the moment I walk in to the moment I leave. I do not have my own classroom or office. I teach 5 academic subjects at college, and prepare 3 years of high school students for their final exams. Every lesson requires a room change and different books or materials/equipment, plus an attendance list or class register and keys to each room to be collected from and returned to a central point. Most days my bag weighs around 6-8kg and contains books, papers and my laptop. I also have to carry this bag with me for the above mentioned classroom changes, or I'm bound to forget some or other materials I need for a lesson. Most days after my classes have finished I am teaching sons and daughters of my colleagues, who either come and meet me at the institute, or I visit on my way home. Most days I can make it back home around 5pm, some days earlier, other days much later. Then I can think about checking tests and papers. Most days there is some proofreading waiting for me in my mailbox, if I'm lucky it'll only be a few pages, but 40 or 50 pages that need checking isn't unheard of.
Anyway, enough about the working conditions, we'll come back to that later. What about me? Well, of course I'm in the 'enviable' position that I have neither a partner nor children, only my dog. This means that my 'free' time is entirely my own...doesn't it? Does it? Well, apart from having to pay for everything myself (I have a mortgage and a small clapped-out car to my name), cook, clean, shop and everything else myself, then yes, I suppose my time is my own - what there is of it. It also means that if I'm sick, I still have to do those things while being sick. The one blessing is my wonderful neighbours who allow my dog to stay in their garden the whole day, but before I moved here and met them I was also doing the 5-times-a-day walks with the dog, though I was probably fitter then!
And before any of you accuses me of complaining, I urge you to look back through my post and find evidence of complaint. As far as I'm concerned I'm merely setting the scene so you understand my situation. I'm not saying I'm better or worse off than any one else, that's just how things are for me right now.
And speaking of 'now', my life is just about to change for a while - I'm taking up a post in Oman from September. There are several reasons for this, which I'll elaborate on in a future post, but hence the title (never one to miss an opportunity for some alliteration!) and forthcoming content of my blog.
