Dot, dot, dot #6

 

… Confronting the challenges of teaching every day as a school leader and going home to sleepless nights in despair broke me.  While some tried to convince me that my aspirations were too high, I couldn’t understand why they didn’t properly grasp the scale of teachers’ responsibilities.  Part of me wanted to shake them by their shoulders and ask, ‘What if these were your own children?!’  Last week, a student who has had an especially negative experience of school told me that he didn’t blame teachers because they don’t have the resources they need.  His remarkably magnanimous and mature reflection echoed the larger part of me that similarly realised many teachers are doing the best they can in impossible circumstances, dealing with the immense pressure of their role even if it means letting down some young people; others are simply in survival mode.  With hindsight then, it doesn’t surprise me that, as those pressures dangerously crushed me, no-one noticed the warning signs, only telling me too late they’d thought I hadn’t seemed myself or that something was wrong.  Like that student last week, I don’t blame colleagues whose capacities were already max’d-out for their lack of support – nor even those whose lack of empathy and instinct for self-preservation drove them to pile on more pressure with harsh criticism.  I left my role with depression and now fear that a return to teaching would kill me.  That’s not just hyperbole.  When you train to teach, they don’t …

Dot, dot, dot #5

… We want our children to have the confidence, understanding, abilities and imagination to build a bright future for themselves; while far from alone in this, good teachers give them the best tools.  Despite this unshakeable belief of mine and the respect I have for serving teachers (many dear friends among them), I myself have fallen out of love with the profession.  The realities of classrooms, schools, the communities they serve and the broader education system make it impossible to be as good as children and young people (and wider society) need teachers to be.  I’ve been told my aspirations are too high but I can’t look at a class of children and sanction compromising on the future of any one of them.  Our broken education system is failing; children are paying the price and in the long-run, we all will.  Confronting … 

Dot, dot, dot #4

 

Teachers are my heroes.  Miss Gentry, Mr Graham, Miss Edworthy and Mr Dudding were extraordinary people and I have very fond memories of my time in their classes (year one, year four, year seven and my secondary school English teacher respectively – not that year groups were labelled that way back then).  They shaped my life: I credit them with my love of English and my commitment to learning; they inspired me to line my teddies up at the weekend (my hapless little brother on the end), call the register and teach them Maths and, of course, eventually to properly follow in their footsteps.  It wasn’t long into my teaching career that I developed the strong belief that every child and young people at school deserves teachers of heroic stature, that society needs teachers of that calibre and that teachers ought to have that status.  As we applauded the very real heroes of the Covid pandemic from our doorsteps during lockdown, I imagined those doctors’ and nurses’ own lists of the teachers who inspired them and set them on their paths to successful careers.  We want our children to have the confidence, understanding, abilities and imagination to build a bright future for …

Dot, dot, dot #3

 

… research has even been carried out into the happiness of chimpanzees with remarkably similar outcomes.  For me personally, the even better news is that the average low-point on the happiness curve (for humans, at least) is the age of forty-eight and right now, yours truly is the grand old age of … forty-eight!  I have everything crossed that I don’t buck the trend and that around about now, I am turning a corner and am on the way back to a happiness-high!  The podcast on which I first heard about the happiness curve explained that for many of us it is understandable why rock-bottom would hit at about this age: for parents, it’s when children might be flying the nest; many of us are confronting significant family bereavement; we might lose the companionship of a first pet; we could be far enough into a career to be questioning it; we may be experiencing new and unwelcome physical challenges.  It’s obvious really.  Suddenly, the verve of youth seems a shockingly distant memory, the term ‘middle-age’ has shocking relevance and the prospect of our own mortality – while still disturbing – comes as less of a shock.  Crisis?  What crisis?!

Dot, dot, dot

 

If anyone read my previous ‘Dot dot dot’ post, you may have reached the ellipsis at the end and thought it remarkably well timed!  I have a confession: that first post was contrived to end just-so.  Think of it as an introduction.  This time, a fifteen-minute timer is running and I have no idea how much I can write with that time limit or how far I will get.  My heart is actually racing!  Friends who know me well may be familiar with my recent obsession with the happiness curve – and they are probably now rolling their eyes!  I heard about it on a podcast several months ago and it resonated with me because it helped to explain my negative response to that turmoil in my life to which I referred in my last post.  It also chimed with my intrinsic sense of optimism, which I am proud to have retained in spite of everything.  As I recall, researchers have ascertained that we experience a happiness high somewhere in our late teens then our level of happiness declines steadily over the following decades until it reaches rock-bottom.  The good news and cause for optimism is that their research then shows a steady increase in our level of happiness until it returns to a high-point that is similar to that of early adulthood.  Another striking thing about their findings is that it doesn’t matter where in the world the research is conducted or with which demographic group or what the background is of the people who respond, the results are almost identical.  Apparently, research has even been carried out into …

Dot, dot, dot

A wise friend recently suggested I should once again make time to write.  In the age of podcasts, Tik-Tok and Instagram, it could feel anachronistic but I enjoy writing in the same way I enjoy baking and probably as an artist enjoys sketching and painting.  Putting words in black and white – capturing them in a lasting way – pays homage to the power of words, which I believe in strongly in a world where powerful people fail to understand the significance of the words they use and treat them with such disdain.  Writing takes effort, thought and time but results in something considered and polished.  It lacks spontaneity, I know, but spontaneity can get me into trouble and it’s not as if I only ever communicate in writing: there’s room for the spontaneous too, whether that gets me into trouble or elicits laughter.  I think my writing also reflects something of how rammed-full my brain is of thoughts and ideas and arguments that ricochet through my mind.  I think that is something I had in common with Dad, together with his confidence to hold an opinion, however controversial.  I like to write to make sense of things.  I like to share some of what I write not because it’s particularly good but because it shares a bit of who I am and I want to test some of my ideas and thoughts, opening them up to scrutiny and challenge.  Be they spoken or written, I think words carry a charge that draws them to an audience, without which they’re just cerebral fluff – albeit fluff that feels like it might cause my head to explode if I don’t get some of those words down on paper (so to speak).  'Dot dot dot' is an experiment: an attempt to satisfy that need of mine to write.  The title reflects the turmoil of my life in the last couple of years – not knowing what comes next.  It could also be a trailing off, because sometimes that’s all there is.  Who knows: maybe it will also stir some anticipation.  It’s an experiment that has to be manageable too so every time I write (at least a couple of times each week, I hope), I’m going to set a timer and be strict with myself so when the alarm sounds …