‘… the job of teaching is so difficult, so complex, that one lifetime is not enough to master it’. Dylan William, Embedded Formative Assessment, 2011
The problem with teaching is that it isn’t just achingly complex, it’s also bewildering, frustrating, exhausting and really really hard. But it is wonderful, too.
Complex
Every single student is unique. Each one brings a unique set of characteristics to the lesson: their background and home circumstances, how much they already know and can do, their personal dispositions – their level of motivation, concentration and conscientiousness, and so on. Because they’re unique, they respond in an individual way to the teaching they receive. And, of course, there are hundreds of techniques that teachers could employ, and many thousands of activities that students could be given to do, to help them learn. And learning happens in the brain, which is as complex an organism as it gets.
Bewildering
Teaching 25-30 unique individuals so that all of them make at least good progress can feel bewildering at times – there are just too many variables, many of which are outside of our control. And yet – entirely understandably – this is what the Teachers Standards expect: ‘Promote good progress and outcomes by pupils’ – Teachers Standards, 2011.
Any number of things can derail a student’s progress: a chaotic home situation, bereavement, poor peer relationships, ongoing mental or physical health issues, and low or very low prior attainment are some obvious examples. But teachers are accountable for the progress of every single student they teach, which is both understandable and scary.
Frustrating
We feel we are doing everything right: we know our subject material inside out; we have planed our Monday morning Period 1 lesson with care, we turn up organised and positive and cheerful. Six students drift in late; Katie and Ellie have fallen out over the weekend on Social Media and they arrive arguing; Farhad says he slept badly and he‘s tired and doesn’t feel like working today; Chelsea, Bo and Zenia are playing some game where they start whisper-calling across the room to each other; Frank is cheerfully humming, which he sometimes does entirely unconsciously; two of the students have EHCPs but the TA is absent today; and the technology has just stopped working, so the lesson activities won’t load up.
These are mundane frustrations. The far bigger, long-term, frustration in teaching is that the teacher can do pretty much everything right and some of the students may still not make good progress over time, for any of a thousand reasons. That’s just the way it is, because learning and progress are not a certain thing.
Exhausting
A typical classroom teacher at Hinchingbrooke School teaches 44 lessons out of 50 over a fortnight. They are also a form tutor, so they have a daily session with their form class in the morning before Period 1, and in the afternoon before Period 5. They also have to fit into their school week 2 duties and 3 or 4 morning or after-school meetings. And amongst all this they have to keep on top of their planning and marking and emails. This is, of course, a definition of what work is – and I absolutely recognise that lots of people in lots of different jobs work really hard – but teaching is also performance work, performing lesson after lesson, day after day; and performing is hard, draining work. The holidays really help, but term time is exhausting, because in teaching there’s no hiding: you have to be at the top of your game every day.
Hard
Hard for all the reasons already given, the chief of which is the continuous uncertainty about students’ progress and attainment – you can do everything right and it could still be that Amy gets a bitterly-disappointing grade 5 when she was predicted a grade 7, and needs one to take the subject at A level. A teacher’s life is constantly uncertain.
And yet…
Wonderful
Teaching is wonderful work. There are few jobs in the world more valuable. There are only a few careers in which you can, quite literally, change people’s lives – teaching is one of them. There is nothing like seeing the joy on students’ faces when they are happily immersed in the activities you have set them and are clearly ‘getting it’; and they achieve the results that they wanted, and needed to take that crucial next step. And they come and find you to thank you. I am so glad I became a teacher.
Mark Patterson
Sent from my iPhone
