Why I love teaching – and why I had to leave the profession
Anonymous
‘Figures show that in 2011 only 62% of newly qualified teachers were still teaching a year later – a sharp drop from 2005, when 80% were still teaching after a year.’ Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy
Teaching is a great job. It’s something I’m good at, and at times can excel at. I’ve even had those once-a-decade moments of a child telling you something you’ve done has changed them or inspired them permanently. But “being a teacher” (the whole job and everything it entails) ground me down so much over the course of 10 years that I felt I never wanted to go near students or schools again. I genuinely believed I had no place in the teaching profession and that I had made a lucky escape.
I’m not the only one. This week figures were released by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers which showed that in 2011 only 62% of newly qualified teachers were still teaching a year later – a sharp drop from 2005, when 80% were still teaching after a year.
“Why are we losing the next generation of teachers,” asked Mary Bousted, the ATL general secretary. “Is it, I wonder, because trainee and newly qualified teachers see very early on just what teaching has become and decide that they do not want to be a part of it? Is it that they learn as they work with exhausted and stressed colleagues that teaching has become a profession which is incompatible with a normal life?”
How did I come to leave the profession? I completed my PGCE in my early 20s, before I had a young family, and went to work at a comprehensive. I was teaching English, so the preparation and marking was all-consuming, particularly in the early years after I qualified. As soon as I began having children, I realised how incompatible full-time teaching was going to be with any semblance of that miraculous notion: work-life balance.
I immediately went part-time, which presented its own problems; if you are teaching a core subject you end up with split-teacher classes, which involves detailed lesson handovers and highly organised marking/planning being passed between two teachers (or more – in one particularly complicated year I was one of four teaching the same year 9 class. I don’t know who was more confused, us or the students).
My departmental colleagues were supportive, and I worked this way for several years. But, increasingly, other things began to crowd in. Yes, that workload, the one teachers talk about constantly but I still feel is met with scepticism and suspicion. (Do you really work that much after you leave so early every day? Simply, yes. If I left when school hours finished I had to work later, after I’d eaten and the kids were in bed. And many days, I simply stayed at work long after the final bell.)
I know couples who are both teachers, who take one day each every weekend – one day for childcare, one day for marking and preparation. Separately. And I was only part-time. I found myself growing more and more resentful of the time I spent thinking, planning and worrying about my workload when I wasn’t at work.
Then there was the weight of responsibility I felt for the kids I taught, particularly regarding their exam results. Parents’ evenings were a chance to connect with parents who I didn’t see from one year to the next. Some were grateful, some simply wanted numbers, and some were confrontational: one demanded a detailed copy of every lesson plan I intended to teach for the next half term, because her child had told her he didn’t feel my lessons were interesting enough for him.
The constant doubting of my work, and the passing on of every ounce of the exam burden my way took its toll. I began to examine my dual role as a parent and a teacher with careful scrutiny: did I hold my own children’s teachers entirely responsible for how well they did in every aspect at school? Did I make their teachers feel as I felt? I hoped not, but it’s possible I did.
Eventually, I just got sick of being in a profession that I felt held no real status in this country. I had countless arguments with other parents – they felt that although there were individuals who worked hard, teachers as a whole were lazy and complained too much. Although I knew the opposite to be true, I didn’t want Why I love teaching – and why I had to leave the profession | Anonymous | Comment is free | The Guardian: