Teaching

Teaching is, I've often thought, both the best and the worst of jobs.

I'm not thinking about the "short hours, long holidays" myth here. Believe me, it's a myth. I've done other jobs. The hours on paper may be shorter than many other jobs, but the actual hours are huge. Teaching can occupy your whole life, if you let it. The problems a particular pupil has shared with you. The lesson that didn't go well. Ways of tackling what is euphemistically called "challenging behaviour". New ideas for teaching. Creating resources. Marking. Analysing results. Planning. And the filing - oh, the filing! Teaching has become, during the years I have been in it, more and more paper driven, paper obsessed. Even though I use my computer as much as possible, only printing when absolutely necessary, my desk is constantly shrouded in handouts, memos, directives, statistics... Holidays contain more of the same.

The actual contact hours are intense. In the classroom I often feel as if I am in a battle zone. So many things - and people - clamour for my attention. While explaining a task, I am also scanning the room, challenging with a look here, a shake of the head there, watching for the child who needs to be asked a question to check understanding or to bring her back on task, encouraging the child who is on the verge of putting his hand up to ask a question for the first time this term. Language has to appeal to the brightest child in the class, stretching her, while still being accessible to the child with special needs. While working with a group I may need to clarify the task to individual pupils and I always need to have eyes in the back of my head. Children bring their own baggage - often from home - to the classroom, but the teacher is not allowed to.

Day by day, we teachers are being asked to achieve the impossible. We are expected to inspire, organise, counsel, administrate etc on a daily basis. Make no mistake, it IS an impossible job to do to the standards government seems to expect. We are set impossible targets for our pupils to achieve, and judged on those. We are expected to improve, year on year on year. No wonder that teachers become burnt out, suffer from stress, become disillusioned. No wonder that new teachers decide after a couple of years that teaching is not for them.

But it would be wrong just to focus on that. This job is also one of the most rewarding I have ever come across. That moment when, for the first time, a pupil understands a new concept. The time when they quietly thank you for a lesson they enjoyed. The pupil who calls into school a year after leaving and tells you how much they learnt with you. The parent who tells you that you really made a difference. The colleague who thanks you for the lesson plans or resources you passed on to them. A pupil sharing a smile with you across the room as they understand your joke. The knowledge that you have got a class on your side and that they want to work with you. Being told that your lessons are interesting. All of these things and more make this the best job.

I think it comes down, in part, to the attitudes of everyone involved. The attitudes of pupils, of management, of colleagues, of government and of myself. I can't control all of these all of the time. I just need to remember teaching can be the worst of jobs - but it can also be the best of jobs too. In those bad moments, I need to remember the good ones and try to spot what needs to shift in order for my perception to change. I need to remember that, day by day, I am being asked to do an impossible job. But I also need to remember that the rewards can be intense.