We strike because we care

As I look through my ‘Online Contacts’ list on Facebook at 1am on a weeknight and find the entire staffroom of my school online – planning , designing displays and resources, writing risk assessments, studying, marking books, putting together ideas for school events and responding to work emails – it becomes very obvious why teachers need to take a stand this Thursday.

We care a lot. We care about the children we teach. We care about our capacity and development as educators. We care about our colleagues. We care about our children’s learning and their assessment results.

It is great to work in a profession that has the potential to restore faith in humanity through small everyday actions, to shape young minds, to help kids make sense of the world and to build lasting meaningful relationships with adults and kids all united in their shared aim of learning. The problem is that the whole culture of teaching is blanketed in a dependency on our goodwill – to be a good teacher, as anybody living with one will know, requires levels of sacrifice which affect you and those around you.

Because we take pride in the work we do, we have a real sense of devotion. It makes us arrive at school before our pupils wake up, and for some of us, we are still working when our charges are put to bed, and we do it because their successes and hopes become our motivations. This devotion, however, makes us pliable to those who want to reap the labour out of us, pushing us to complete two, three, four, five occupations where one would fit comfortably.

I can’t speak for all teachers, but I think we are different to other unions. Our working lives are not necessary shaped by collaboration and constant teamwork, like factory-workers, and as a result we lack that immediate strength in numbers, because there isn't a clear 'Them and Us'. No group can shake off the upset of being misrepresented and stigmatised in the public conscience, but at least the miners (for example) had that sense of camaraderie which breeds solidarity.

Teachers in today’s schools don’t have that, really. When, after a 12 hour day in school which followed four hours sleep, you pick up an Evening Standard to see some new slur against you, which questions your professionalism, ethic and morals, it rankles and it hurts. It makes you question why you spend hundreds of pounds of your own money making your classroom somewhere the children want to be. It make you question why every weekend and holiday sees you catching up on  an ever-growing work backlog.

But it does not and will not make us question our care for our children and for the importance of their education. If we lost sight of that, we wouldn’t be worth defending.

We are striking  this week because we want to be able to teach to the best of our ability. We are striking because we think the work of teachers should be valued by government like we value it. We are striking because we don’t want a performance-related pay structure which will ultimately encourage the destructive attitude that ‘being a good teacher’ means ‘never saying no to management’.

I will personally benefit from performance –related-pay; I would still rather it didn’t exist. I would rather have a solid salary structure which pays me less if it means I won’t work in a socially divisive institution in which the most pliable staff who are willing to sacrifice their time will be promoted ahead of teachers who take a stand in order to create work-life balance, which leads them to have their ‘dedication’ questioned. It's not about the money.

We're the people who help your children towards the academic achievements that make you feel proud of them. We, like you, spend a lot of time anxiously worrying about your children.

We are striking because we care and you should support us.

When lunch-time detention became jazz singing

Up from the murky backwaters of guilt after yesterday's scene with Waleed from my old class, I've got a real positive gem to share today - one of those 'teaching moments' that reassures you that you have a great job and that you are quite lucky.

Karim is a troublemaker - when I see pictures of him, I can't fathom how he looks so cute because in class he is a frequent headache. He is more of a concept than a child - he is the famous Karim, that gentle implosion capable of bringing your day crashing down with the smallest of actions. I think maybe the fact that I haven't really had the chance to know him until this week is why today's lunchtime detention has a positive glow to it.

Karim, it has been unilaterally decided, had been in too much trouble with too many people and he is now subject to a behaviour order - no playtimes, no lunchtime playtimes and he has a behaviour report to be filled in each day. As a consequence, he has been spending his lunch times with me.

Many of the moral criminological questions about the prison system pertain equally to my lunch-detention law. Is the punishment the loss of liberty itself, or should further sanctions be imposed. In effect, should Karim be confined to his cell  (my company) or should he face further punishment during the break?

Not unlike my view of prisons, I feel the loss of liberty is punishment enough. As such, in a very Scandinavian-Justice-System style, Karim and I - prisoner and jailer - spent his detention today having lunch together in my room.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to Gregory Porter, and for some reason (possibly I said the words to Karim!) I felt the overwhelming need to put 'Be Good' up on Youtube.

Gregory Porter is incredible and this song is just so lowbeat, optimistic and chilled. With no shame, I joined in with some beautiful humming and to my surprise, I could see Karim was smiling and nodding along to it.

When Porter's voice kicked in for the first time, with that first 'Be Good', Karim sang it straight after, pitch perfect.

In my head, I started thnking ohmagodohmagodohmagod, realising I was having one of those buzzing inspiring moments of teaching, like when Mr Farthing goes to see Billy Casper in the field.

We started it from 00:00 and then this time, we sang it together.

I went for my PPA with a smile on my face and with the melody ringing in my mind.

Nice.

And then I called the child an idiot

Idiot is the classroom's c-word.

It carries a legacy of violence and humiliation that shot him and I back into the teacher/pupil relations of the days of the dunce hat.
It just popped out, without resentment or bitterness.

It was break duty and I was making my innocuous disciplinary rounds - tennis balls, footballs and cricket bats were flying across the playspace and I was frowning. I realised that I was flagging towards an energy dip, so I popped inside to grab a lovely hot coffee.

I cooled it down enough to drink and put it into my Thermos flask.

I re-entered the playground and unbeknownst to me, Waleed had seen me.

Waleed is one of the kids I have in mind when I wrote in previous posts about my unjustifiable favourites. You an justify favouritising a kid who works hard, is polite and follows instructions. It is harder to justify favouritising a boy like Waleed, who occasionally is intentonally disruptive because he finds it funny to be cheeky.

I taught Waleed last year and since then, I've not really seen much of him. My emergence into the playground set him off, and with gusto, he was running towards me.

I didn't know this. I was as oblivious to him running at me as he was oblivious to the hot coffee in my hand.

With remarkably awful timing, he smashed into me from behind, putting his arms around me in some weird 'this is aggressive enough to be acceptable to my street cred' hug. Coffee shot from my mouth, narrowly missing the child whose problem I was pretending to listen to, and it swilled up and out of my flask, soaking my hand in very hot coffee.

"Idiot!"

It just escaped me. I wasn't even thinking it, but the word just oozed out. Kids who saw the whole thing stood around caught between being shocked at me calling Waleed an idiot, and feeling the need to  hold back their laughter at me dripping with hot coffee.

Waleed apologised immediately, before the fact that I called him an idiot even registered. As soon as it registered, and despite him typically going about his life with bravado, he looked deeply hurt.

Memories shot by. Waleed and I dropping some raps over some grimey dubstep beats. Waleed receiving a handshake after we finally got him aceing his spelling test. Waleed proudly climbing into the facepalmingly awful binbag costume I made for him. Waleeds disarmingly sentimental end-of-year card.

With one utterance, it felt like that had been erased.

Idiot is the classroom's c* * * .

It carries a legacy of violence and humiliation that shot him and I back into the teacher/pupil relations of the days of the dunce hat.

I genuinely loathed myself and when I tried to apologise he ran away.

Iqbal is staring at a peg.

Iqbal’s dad lets himself into school somehow and manages to get into my room. Iqbal is having trouble in school and owns the most vacant stare of any child I have ever taught. I was midway through quiet reading when Iqbal and his dad, like some unstoppable force of nature, were running up the stairs before smashing through my door. Iqbal, like Lord of the Manor, ran to his peg and put his tiny coat on it, while Dad gave me a way-too-personal slap on the pectorals and handed a fiver  to me.

“This is the dinner money”, he shouted into my open eyes.

“Yes, well that needs to go to the Office, like always”, I reply.

“No! It’s your dinner money! Don’t spend it all on dinner!” he replies, laughing open-mouthed while 29 other children watch on in dystopian silence.

“Only joking Teacher, it’s his trip money!!”

I look over and Iqbal has short-circuited and is now staring at the pegs.

“Bye teacher,” he says, thus preventing me from telling him the trip money also needs to go to the office.

“Have a good boy day Iqqy!” he shouts to his static child, still gawping mindlessly at a peg.

I tell Iqbal to sit down, ask Bashir to tell the office Iqbal has arrived, and I grab my coffee as I prepare to teach 8 year olds the column method of multiplication.

Iqbal is still looking at a peg.

Do smile til Christmas

This will be my third year of teaching, and next week will see my third attempt at 'setting the right tone' for the year with the kids. While my fellow trainees and I were cowering around before taking on our first classes, we were all given the same supposed gem of advice.

Don't smile til Christmas.

Whether taken literally (some did) or metaphorically (I did), it remains a very problematic piece of advice. It is deeply logical, and as soon as you get into a school, you can see those teachers who are free-wheeling through October as a result of having set a firm tone through September. In fact, one of the abiding memories I carry with me of my first year is the view of my kids in amongst the rest of the phase during an assembly. Every other class was able to sit calmly and sensibly. Mine were shuffling to such an extent they appeared to be vibrating. The idea of 'Don't Smile til Christmas' is the idea that by being firm early on, and by not smiling along with them, you build in a distance between you and the children which controls their behaviour; then, later in the year, you can loosen the boundaries.

I am a believer that those people we see as successful are just much better at concealing their inadequacies. It suits my mentality to perceive that everyone is deeply flawed in most respects, and it also opens up the revolutionary potential that by focusing solely on those things you are good at, you can attain excellence.

I'm not very good at not making the children laugh - I need that feedback cycle. I'm not very good at telling children that their work is not good enough. I'm not very good at building an airtight consistent behaviour routine.

In some ways, and on some occasions, I wish I was good at these things. But generally, I'm nonplussed, because I've got other things that I am good at. I'm good at keeping the children on task by winning them over with enthusiasm and structured silliness. I'm good at working one-to-one with kids who do misbehave. I'm good at acting mortified when a child snaps one of my rulers.

Essentially, I am reactionary and pragmatic. I am good at dealing with the fallout of my own inconsistency, but this allows me and my children to enjoy a lively, exploratory and - at times - unpredictable classroom life. My kids do as well as others in more 'Don'tSTC' classrooms in terms of attainment, but they get there a different way which - to the outsider - might appear a little patchy.

Hamlet's Polonius famously said
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hear me world, I'm taking a stand. This year, I'm not going to punish myself by trying to maintain sternness in the face of amusing misbehaviours by my children. I'm not going to feel guilt for not having my books marked ten minutes after the work is complete. I'm going to accept that my style works better, for me, and I'm going to mark with a glass of Vino and a Mars Bar after nightfall. That's how I roll.

For those who want and can maintain a firm, deeply-structured classroom, do it. For those who'd rather not, like me, DO smile til Christmas, and the kids will be smiling with you.

Perils of living near your pupils

I've recently moved house and now I live dangerously close to my pupils. This is a result of convenience, financial necessity and the complete breakdown of relationship with the previous landlord, who I feel genuinely wishes I was dead.

When spotting this property, I felt assured enough that I wasn't going to bump into any of the kids from school, as I am a good walk out of the catchment area. What I didn't anticipate was how often I would need to dip through 'the catchment' in order to go to anywhere at all that I would want to go.

Just now, for example, I have been tasked with the innocuous chore of popping out to get some garlic bread and wine. This is no problem, and a bit of wine is just a delicious tipple to help the food down. You know who would disagree? My pupils, whose religious teaching has led them to believe anyone who indulges in even a gentrified sip of wine is in cahoots with Sheitan. As a result, what should have been the potential pretentious task of selecting a suitable wine instead saw me putting on a hoodie and hat, as though I was about to purchase a sack of heroin.

I feel as though I am constantly and forever 'in performance', as the likelihood of one of the many kids being out on the street or peeping through a window at any given time is high. I am not helped by the fact that my whiteness makes me ethnically obtrusive.

The Summer Holidays Ruin Me

Although I look forward to the holidays with the unwavering single-mindedness of a sailor on shore leave, by about the third day in I become slave to this soul-destroying psychosomatic reboot.

I've taught long enough now to know that this happens, and I have pre-empted my ennui-waterboarding with some community volunteering this year, but now that it over, all those familiar symptoms are kicking in.

First up, I feel wholly and completely insignificant ... because I am. If I stayed in bed until 4pm tomorrow, nobody would care and it would affect nobody. If I died in that same bed tonight, nobody would realise until they notice the biscuit tin is uncommonly full in our 'Welcome Back' staff meeting. During term, I am hardly the Dalai Lama, but colleagues to come to me for advice, kids do come to me for support and cleaners do implore me to take responsibility for my desk. My actions have consequences and my voice has a purpose, but only for 36 weeks a year.

Speaking of which, I've lost my voice. Clearly, I maintain such a bellowing vigorous thunder of a teaching voice that it is now quietness that ruins my glands. It is only now that I use my gentle chat voice with small groups of adults rather than my usual battlefield-centurion PE-teacher voice, that my vocal cords have wilted and died. I'm actually ill right now. I'm snotty, snivelly and gross because my body is crying out for stress and adrenaline; these two friends have become the crutches on which I rest my entire professional existence.

I am good at teaching. It's nice to do things that you feel you are good at. Now that it's the holidays, my positive-feedback-loop of teach -> do well -> feel good -> teach... is blocked. Instead, I am faced daily with all the crap that has fallen by the wayside during the year, such as my unkempt flat, my shrinking network of non-teacher friends (I cannot interact with teacher friends because they, of course, are in Spain) and I am also faced with my desperate lack of hobbies.

Not only is all of the above intrinsically depressing and morbid, it is all experienced through a lens of aching guilt for feeling that way. I know I should be relishing my freedom and should be putting school in the deepest recesses of the back of my mind.

Nope. Can't do it.

I posted an Edutopia article on Facebook to a chorus of sneers from fellow teachers. 'Already???'

Fuck you guys. The honest truth is this. I am planning my new classroom layout almost constantly. I'm looking forward to going back, even though I know full well I will join in disingenuously with the 'Give us another week, you shit' rants, on the first day back.

During the holidays, it's like being unplugged from The Matrix, after having been plugged into The Matrix for so long you forgot that you were actually in The Matrix. Though it's way more stressful and injurious, I'd rather be getting seven shades of shit kicked out of me by the Agents (Ofsted) in The Matrix, rather than sitting in the fusty old Nebuchadnezzar, eating bowl after bowl of gruel.