THINGS I WISH I KNEW 15 YEARS AGO.

THINGS I WISH I KNEW 15 YEARS AGO.

This week I was looking through some paperwork –and I found a piece of paper that stated that 15 years ago next month I officially completed my teacher training and was ready to start my first teaching post as a fresh-faced English Media and Drama teacher.

15 years – gosh ! Where did that time go? My first year 11 class will be approaching 30!!

The sweet year 7 class I taught ‘prefixes’ to would now be 25!! Older than I was when I started teaching !! Wow !!

I remember the day I decided I wanted to teach. It was August, raining and I was coming to the end of 6 months working in central London pursuing my ‘dream’ career as a city worker. I had spent the summer after graduating partying in Ibiza and had to get myself a ‘real job’ . The bright lights of the city called and I soon found myself, a stunned 22 year old wearing a ‘big girl’ suit and smart shoes, standing on a loud sales floor clutching a list of FTSe 100 companies I was supposed to call. I quickly found that I was terrible, utterly terrible at sales, but my boss liked me so kept me on to organize the admin. Which brings me to the rainy August day. I had been told to go and collect some dry cleaning, something I had done before, and pick up the tickets for my boss’ flight that evening. I stood on the corner of the road and saw a coach pull up, it was full of teens visiting the Tower of London on a school trip. They looked so happy, and the teacher stepped out with her clip board to call the register. I remember looking down at my arms, full of finely pressed shirts and trousers and tickets to a destination I knew I’d never get to visit and I wondered what the hell I was doing.

I taught at the weekend, and I was never happier than was during those three hours of teaching. So what was I doing standing on the corner of Leadenhall Street holding someone else’s laundry? Why was I not teaching? Why did I think I needed to be in the city to be happy?

I marched back to the office, planted the dry cleaning and tickets on my boss’ desk and handed my notice in that day. I was enrolled on a teaching course for the September. Just making it on the course for the new academic year. I was free!

That was 15 years ago. I look so very different to the 22 year old standing in the rain watching a teacher excite and inspire her class! 15 years ago! Of course I know teachers who have worked longer than myself; longer than I’ve been alive, and they are awesome teachers! But I am a little proud of my 15 years.

So to mark this I thought I’d look back and reflect on the things I’ve learnt about teaching, things I wish that someone had told me 15 years ago!

Apologies to all the ‘lifers’ out there, this is just my own experience – I’m sure I have many more to come.

1)You will learn how to survive on coffee and snacks – you just do not have time to sit and eat lunch when you teach. Your breaks are made up of chasing students, doing a duty, running clubs, catching up with emails, planning, fighting with the photocopiers/printer, consoling a colleague, counseling a student, chasing a colleague. Coffee (or energy drinks) will become your ‘go to’ and you’ll end up with a drawer full of cereal bars, nuts, biscuits and the occasional piece of fruit. — bad for your health – surprisingly good for the waist line.

2) You’ll develop the ability to go all day without visiting the loo– this is not healthy, but unfortunately true. See above for the list of things you’ll end up doing in your breaks – this list does not include ‘comfort breaks’

3) You will get things wrong – in my career so far I’ve made lots of mistakes, nothing ground breaking but I’ve done it all the same. I’ve chosen a text to teach a year 8 class, got halfway through when the swear words kick in. I’ve chosen a play I loved during my studies, only to realise it was totally wrong for the class I was delivering it to. I’ve chosen the wrong student for the part in the play, I’ve planned the wrong sort of lesson for an observation. Not to mention the odd ‘faux pas’ against my colleagues. But hey, it’s OK – you learn move on and never make the same mistake again.

4) You will spend a large chunk of your free time thinking about teaching – whether this is planning, looking for resources, marking, worrying about students or reliving a lesson you’ll think about the job a good percentage of your time. I’ve been kept awake at night worrying about something a student has said, or something I should have done that day. It is the nature of the job,

5) You will be sad, or will cry – a lot — whether it is something that has happened to a student, a lesson that was terrible, a colleague who is making things difficult, a cohort graduating and leaving, stress, a lesson observation, OfSted, a student that is having a hard time, government changes, – whatever. You’ll cry and feel sad.

6) You’ll feel proud of others achievements – my own children aside, I have never been prouder of anyone more than I have when I’ve watched my students graduate from school, go off to Uni, start careers, perform on stage, read aloud, speak in front of the class, pass their exams. Teaching makes your heart burst with pride. Daily.

7) You will make a fool out of yourself. – so far in my career I’ve – arrived to work still wearing my slippers , tried to ‘hurdle’ over a fence and landed on my face in-front of stands full of students during sports day, sang, cried in front of an audience of adults and students, backed into and sat down on a students lap mid ‘teaching flow’, fell bottom first into a bin mid ‘teaching flow’ and most recently had my shirt pop open in the middle of my 6th form class ! It happens – laugh move on.

8) Your colleagues will become like family– quiet literally in some cases. I married my NQT mentor, and one of my daughter’s godmothers is Hubby and I’s very dear friend and ‘ex-colleague’. But seriously, you’ll spend a lot of time together and will go through a lot together, and you’ll need each other for support and friendship. Then you’ll grow to love them, not all of them, just the special ones. The colleagues that become your ‘work significant other’, your confidant, partner in crime, surrogate mum, bestie, coffee buddy, work sibling. These people will become part of your life and you’ll love them. When you move on you’ll keep in touch, you’ll miss them, and you’ll need them from time to time. Just like your ‘real’ family.

9) Your year begins in September – to all your friends out in the ‘real world’ the new year begins in January. For teachers you celebrated ‘New years Eve’ sometime in July when school closed for summer. This is perfectly reasonable, and therefore it is totally acceptable to party on the last day of the summer term as if it were ‘1999’ so to speak.

10) You can’t imagine doing anything else. – we often have little fantasies about starting a new career, some of us do. Especially at the moment, when things are hard for teachers – especially those at the beginning or end of their career – but when it comes down to it, if you stick it out long enough, the actual teaching takes over. Pride for your students’ achievements makes everything else worth while. You think about starting again, then something magical happens in your classroom to remind you that you love this job. – not everyone finds this — like I say – just my own experience.

And one more

11) You will think of old students from time to time – I hope some of my first classes still remember me, albeit as very young, slightly disorganised, ‘rabbit in headlights’ looking woman, with pink hair. I hope that they also think of me as someone who really wanted to be there, and to do right by them. I hope they sometimes hear something on the TV, read in a book, see a reference in a film or play and remember something I taught them. I certainly remember them, each and every one, and I am always proud.

I am now looking forward to seeing what the next 15 years have in store for me, and I am forever glad that I made the decision that rainy August afternoon to leave the dry cleaning on my boss’ desk and pursue the career of my dreams!

Mrs L