Tomorrow is the beginning of my first ‘school holiday’ in 12 years. Technically, I have had the equivalent of school holidays within the last decade or so, not least when I went to the destination of ‘Over-Educated And Under-employed’ in 2008 (this destination is, I hear, an increasingly popular destination for many people of my generation – and who knows, I may visit it again this time next year), but tomorrow afternoon, as soon as I clear up after my exuberant first year class, I will begin an important ten days of being secure in the knowledge that not being at work is official, technically paid, and hopefully fruitfully spent penning more of my bastard novel…
To say that I am exhausted would be an under-statement. However, to say that I think I have found a job (teaching) that I love, in a sector (education) that, while I may not agree with every direction it is heading in, nor appreciate the rules 100% of the time, at least doesn’t make me want to give myself a lobotomy, would be true. And this makes me rather happy.
What doesn’t make me happy is the recent McCormac Review, which paints teachers in some ways as feckless layabouts who can’t be arsed putting in the hours. At the same time, it contradicts itself by stating that teachers are wonderful and angelic professionals who always go the extra mile. It then says that teachers should not be allowed to leave school premises during school hours, like we are a bunch of fourth year lads and lassies who might scare shopkeepers by entering the outside world in more than pairs at a time… It is quite bizarre to me why this point is even in the Review, as, in my albeit minimal experience, no teacher leaves school during school hours unless they are on a school-trip or have forgotten to pack their lunch…
Ah – teacher’s hours. Teacher’s holidays. Two subjects likely to cause outbursts of denial and anger, rage and individualism in many a trolling commenter. If I were to be defensive at this point, I would state the hours that I have worked since August – penning you a detailed list of the 60 hours, 80 hours, 38 hours, 72 hours a week that I have variously worked since starting. I would also point out that, as a teacher of current affairs and politics that, to be any good at my job I have to pretty much constantly be updating any of the minimal resources available for my subject, while also planning lessons and contributing to departmental work and the wider school. I might also mention that it is exhausting, faintly stressful even at the best of times, and often involves young people speaking to you as if you had mortally offended their heritage and stolen their lunch money. I only do the latter occasionally…
It is only when I read overly-economistic drivel like the recent McCormac Review that I want to be defensive in the slightest. Teaching is very rewarding, and even when it feels like it isn’t (which is often – hey: I know this sounds contradictory) something will happen that makes it really rewarding.
“I just found out that you teach my brother in S2 as well – he loves your classes, he was saying the other night.”
Or “Miss Lindsay – you know that Chinese artist you mentioned the other day, well I asked my Dad about him and we looked on the ‘net and there’s this campaign to try to get him freed…’
Or even, though a small victory, when the boy who has spoken to you like you are every adult that has ever ignored, upset or belittled him, finally hands in his homework and it gets a C. And it makes him smile…
Shit – even when some kid says Good Morning, Miss it can make my day on occasion.
Anyway: I think teacher pay is nice. That there are no jobs whatsoever, no chance of progression, an increased pension contribution in the pipe-line, a seemingly ever-increasing public attack on teachers, an onus to solve every single one of society’s problems, a complete lack of time on occasion, behaviour issues, a changing curriculum characterised by an almost complete lack of concrete detail, an age-old debate about what education is actually for and all the rest of it (such as the fact that even with a nice wee salary I still can barely afford to pay my bills because of the wider societal issues that no doubt it will be put on teachers to solve), it still doesn’t take away from the fact that, as a vocation as well as a profession, teaching can offer a teacher who loves it an exceptionally enjoyable work-life. Overall. You’d have to be deluded to like it all of the time, of that I am quite convinced…And you would be mad to stay in it if you hated it consistently: it is a job that requires a general love of it and empathy for teenagers that I can’t quite imagine in a lot of other jobs…
I hated school. I have no way of knowing if all schools were as bad as the one I went to, but in my experience of working in schools over the last year I have been overwhelmed by just how damn good some of the teachers in Scotland are. When I allowed myself to be, I was quite saddened by the thought of the teachers that I had in my own High School, who were clearly in the main de-motivated, cynical, fire-fighting all the behaviour issues at my school, unable or unwilling to meet the needs of able students (one of many examples: I was put in a cupboard to ‘teach myself’ in Higher Music, because the teacher couldn’t control the rest of the class – no wonder I plunked off…), and, as I understand it, fighting a system that needed a kick up the butt at the time for how much it expected for how little pay and recognition. Though I know that the McCrone Review has had its problems, it seems to be undeniable that it aided teacher motivation, retention of professional staff, and also gave teachers a much fairer pay deal that recognised the fact that the hours can be, on occasion, bloody awful. The notional ’35 hour week’ at the very least made a calculation of the average hours a teacher may work if they worked 52 weeks a year or whatever the bloody calculation was…
The suitcases under my pink eyes tell me that the holidays are needed – at the very least because I haven’t seen many of my friends since August… That the holidays are amazing and are undeniably long when we are all used to being flogged for every drop of ‘productivity’ that our employers can eke out of our creaking bones is unquestionable, but I think that we often forget that the salary of a teacher is based on the hours AS IF they worked the full year. To put it more simply: you are paid for the hours you work: nuff said. You have to work like a dog for the school year, and, since you have done your hour in that time, you have holidays… What Cosla et al forget is that the teacher is the most important resource in the class: and while the school year may well be based on an “old, outmoded agrarian-based system” of harvests and what-not (Cosla spokesperson idiot), you will physically maim any teacher or pupil who you ask to be part of an institutionalised education for 52 weeks a year. Which is my crux…
Rarely is the educational rationale of changes to teacher pay and conditions explicitly laid out. In fairness to McCormac, he doesn’t hedge his words when he admits that a lot of his proposals are based on economistic criteria, ie, getting more for less. But, what is education for? Where does it happen? That schools are places that you learn how to socialise and how to learn are undeniable (hence the onus put on schools to solve problems as diverse as teenage pregnancy and writing a CV), but they are also where you can learn in-depth subjects that are important – not for any economistic or ‘skills’ based reasons, but because they are just…important. Heck – they are important for humanity, if that doesn’t sound too overblown…
Hannah Arendt wrote that “education is the point at which we ask ourselves if we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it”. That is the world. As it is. As it has been.
Basing the future of Scottish education on an imagined future, which is almost inevitably described as “un-knowable” (what the frick is the point of basing anything on that then, eh?!?) is misguided, dangerous, and damaging to the folks who are the point of this entire post: young adults; teenagers; children. You can be as pragmatic and economistic as you like, but if you are simultaneously saying that education is expected to solve society’s problems, then you damn well better make sure that you ensure it thrives instead of flounders. If education is, as I believe it is, about more than just schools, institutions, exam results, then you had also damn well make sure that you don’t demonise the folks who deliver it. Who deliver education. That would be all of us.
Assume responsibility, or, as the wonderful poet Graeme Hawley would say, “Show some f**king leadership.” Pitting the public against teachers is dangerous, wrong and, in terms of education it is about as rational as shoving a Grade 5 pianist in the cupboard to teach herself guitar…
