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 …