Take me away!

So, as I briefly mentioned in my introductions post, I’ve had a bit of a case of the wanderlust over the past couple of years. For this, first and foremost, I blame and thank my foreign friends. The academy that I work for hires a number of Canadian staff each year, some of whom have become my closest friends. I have also passed the (un)official Canadian test to gain my honorary Canadian status (something of which I am VERY proud).

Up until meeting these amazing people, I had done the France, Spain, Greece and Canary Islands trips that, to be honest, I think are the standard holiday destinations for a lot of people in the UK (I am very grateful for getting to go on holidays). I also did a bit of a longer stint in France which was part of my degree (and an amazing time) where I taught English in a Lycée (a French version of a 6^th form). I suppose that you never realise what is in your own back garden until someone new comes and wants to see it, and as a result, I have gone with my friends to see different cities all over England and have also had the opportunity to see some places that I never thought I would be able to visit.

At the end of my second year as a teacher, I got the chance to make the trip of a lifetime – I spent the whole summer couch-surfing, visiting friends all across Canada. I got to see Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal and Winnipeg over the course of about four and a half weeks. It was incredible to be able to see so many of these places that my friends had spoken about and, I’m not going to lie, I got very emotional when I was leaving (imagine me on a plane with a stranger either side of me, sobbing as I’m landing into Toronto Pearson airport to get my connecting flight back to the UK). While it wasn’t particularly glamourous having to live out of a suitcase for a month, getting to see sights like  the CN Tower and Niagara Falls made it all so worth it. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and with it being this time last year that I was there, I am definitely getting the holiday blues, looking back on my photos from that. I have definitely got an emotional attachment to the country now.

Also, this year, I went to visit a great friend of mine who is now working in Dubai. That’s the furthest east I’ve gone so far and it was really interesting to see such a different culture than what I’m used to. Everything there (in the main touristy areas) is bigger and grander than anything else – the shopping centres alone were enough to shock the system and there’s definitely a reason why Dubai has the world’s tallest building. Before going there, I thought that I might feel out of place, thinking that I knew about the country and its rules…but honestly, I felt safe all the time (even if I did feel a bit intimidated by the super-rich people and their mad sports cars, me being a working-class northerner and all).

I’ve also been to Amsterdam with friends and have become so much more confident in travelling by myself and having epic adventures which have been some of the best times of my life.  Now, I have definitely caught the travelling bug, and want to see more of the world. For people in Canada, the chance to visit Paris comes but once in a lifetime – think about the incredibly long flights that a family would have to book to see the Eiffel Tower – and now that it was on my friends’ doorstep, why not go and see it with them! Any opportunity for a trip away!

I definitely think that I would like to work abroad, even if only for a short time, so that I can have easier access to different parts of the world, and to gain new experiences to improve my own teaching practice. I would love to go back to Canada and really want to see Asia as well…we’ll see!

Until next time

H x

Then and Now - Part 2

From my own experiences being in school, I never fully understood or even thought about the responsibilities that my teachers had. Even though I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, it wasn’t until quite a bit later that I thought about the work that they had to do. I think a lot of young people see teaching through rose-tinted glasses – it’s all singing and fun and silliness with your pupils.

Nowadays, I feel as though students are more switched on to what teachers have to do (marking, planning, assessment, data, blah blah blah) – even though I did once get asked by a pupil if, during PPAs, I just get to play on my phone and stuff…I wish! I know that pupils don’t always completely comprehend what it takes to follow this career path, but they are definitely more aware than I ever was.

I have had some ideas on why this might be.

First of all, pupils in schools are under so much pressure to perform well in their exams that they must understand that there is pressure on the teachers too. What’s that saying?...something rolls downhill? Anyway, they know that school are under mounting pressure, year on year to get better results, make more progress (that word makes me want to upchuck just a little bit), get more A* - C grades (or whatever the number equivalent will be). Pupils nowadays definitely feel more pressure from schools and see that teachers feel this too (Performance Management nightmares anyone?).

Secondly, due to all of the changing policies and ‘best practice’ updates, the workload of teachers has changed massively over the years. I have recently come across some of my own school books and let me tell you, the difference in what my teachers did and what I have to do is astounding. Do not get me wrong, I am NOT degrading any of my teachers at all. If it weren’t for them, I would not be here I am today and would not have had the immense love of learning that they instilled into me. This is simply an observation on the ever-changing goals that teachers are expected to meet.

When I look at my students’ books, there are longer, detailed pieces of work in their books, with every error corrected and with detailed feedback given on core written pieces, including strengths and developments for their work. When I looked at my own school books, I saw the ‘tick and flick’ style of marking, with answers to what must have been listening or reading tasks in the front as well.

Over time, the demands of the job have changed to push more of a focus on the production of longer pieces of work and more detailed marking.

My third and final point for this is that pupils are far more aware of the demands of teaching because of…wait for it…social media *sigh*.

While a vast majority of pupils are not going to actively follow the news or education-specific pages, we all know just how far a single post can go. Perhaps pupils could be seeing posts that have been liked, shared or commented on by a friend of a friend of a friend…, especially when I hear students showing off just how many ‘friends’ they have on social media. Even if they see these posts accidentally, the students are still seeing them. Is this good or bad? I’ll let you make your mind up about that…let me know what you think!

Also, in my opinion, news travels much faster now than it did before the mass popularity of social media. Politicians, organisations and unions are all able to share their grievances much easier now compared to 10 years ago, and can make their voices heard by many more people. I do feel that as a society in general, we are more aware of the global issues that we face now, and that young people are much more ‘caught up’ on what is happening in the world nowadays…I highly doubt that when I was in year seven that I could have had a political debate! (And yes, I have seen this).

As my dad always says, each generation is always so much more advanced than the last.

Until next time

H x

New blog post is up! Feeling very clever now that I've managed to link my blog and Twitter! #technowiz https://t.co/Y2EqSGt4lH

New blog post is up! Feeling very clever now that I've managed to link my blog and Twitter! #technowiz https://t.co/Y2EqSGt4lH

— tea-cher in the UK (@tea_cherUK) August 2, 2017

from Twitter https://twitter.com/tea_cherUK

Then and Now - Part 1

In this post, I would like to talk about how people view teachers in wider society. Despite only having been a teacher for a short amount of time, I can still see how people’s perceptions of teachers have changed over the years. I’m going to be splitting this topic into a couple of posts to help to organise my own thoughts so that this doesn’t end up being just a ‘hodgepodge’ of thoughts.

If you go back 10 years, telling people that you were a teacher would probably be met with an ‘oh really? Wow!’ Fast forward to now and the reception that you get is very different. “It must be great to go home at 3:15 every day!”, “I bet you only do it for the holidays”, and the good old “all teachers do is complain!”

Below is an open letter that I wrote to a taxi driver that I once spoke to who had some very negative things to say about teaching, and even got quite nasty and worked up about it. I wrote this when I was an NQT but never actually published it anywhere…until now (dramatic music).

An open letter to the taxi driver who said that my job must be so easy:

First of all, thank you for referring to teaching as a job, not a career or vocation. It absolutely does not take a certain type of person to become a great teacher.

I am well aware that we get more time out of our place of work than many other people do; however, that does not mean that I am not still working myself to the bone to prepare your children for the future.

I am sure that you, like me, must spend hours outside of work preparing for your shifts, analysing data, planning ahead, contacting a wide variety of people in order to ensure that you are providing the absolute best service for your clients.

I am sure that you must lose sleep over what you have to do the next day and sacrifice time with your family and friends to try to perfect what you do on a day-to-day basis.

I am sure that you have piles and piles of data on all of your clients that you have to take into consideration on every shift and that you must sometimes change everything that you have planned in order to support that one person who may struggle to understand your methods.

I am sure that you may also need a second or even third invaluable adult in with you in order to support some of your weaker or more challenging pupils.

I am sure that your job must push you to breaking point and back as you prepare for inspections and observations that can happen at any time and that can sometimes decide your future in your job.

You are clearly a person who has been through the education system 20 years ago and, as a result, you are clearly an expert in this.

In no way would I ever mock what you do, complain about your ‘time off’ or make complaints about how you run your life, as I understand that what you do IS valuable to society. So why must you do this to me?

Think of it this way: what would the world become if we lost education?

There have been many times in this job when I have screwed up – I am definitely not going to pretend that it’s never happened. It’s not an easy thing to do, and the learning curve is massive.

One of the biggest things I’ve learnt to deal with is comments from people outside of school. Be that parents telling me off for sending a letter home about their child telling another student to “f*** off” in a lesson (they were just playing a game!) or people in public thinking that I have it so easy, getting all of this free time to myself!

When I first started working as a teacher, I used to get so mad when people belittled what I do. Now, I take a bit of a different turn, just to throw people off. Again, this is where the dry sense of humour comes in (I would definitely say that you should try this next time someone makes a comment to you about how much time you have off). All you need to do is straighten your back, look them straight in the eye and say with the biggest smile you can “I know, it’s amazing!”

Until next time

H x