Dean Yeah

[deanyeah]

The Education System is About To Crumble

I am a teacher in the UK. So when I tell you that the public education system in Britain is on a train set to crash straight into a mountain. 

Now let me preface this by making everyone aware, I absolutely hate my job. There is absolutely no way I would recommend the teaching profession to anyone I know. The whole system is well and truly broken and, if allowed to continue, will have absolutely no one willing to teach no matter what the payrise. 

The pay rise is what is constantly debated in the news. It is what all the headlines focus on to create the rhetoric that teachers are greedy and the villain. I never see any of my actual issues with teaching being spoken about. I have spent the last two years looking at other jobs both within education and within the private sector, so when I tell you I absolutely hate my job - believe me. Now many may wonder that if you've spent two years looking for a job, surely an experienced teacher can find one. I will admit I am being picky and that's because a) whilst I agree with the need for payrises, I can't seem to find a suitable job to match the salary, b) the holiday's genuinely keep me in the job - nowhere can match these and they give me the drive to survive and c) I have an 8 minute commute. 

The more interesting reasons are why I want to leave. There are several and some of them overlap, the biggest reason is it is physically impossible to do a good job. It has given me an absolute disillusionment about the future. I am exhausted with the children, I genuinely have no hope for the future of our country because of what I have seen in school. I am also at the point where I realise nothing I do or say in the classroom will have any lasting impact on a child's life. Too much is completely out of a teacher's control that there is no possible way to complete your workload. The changes the current government plans to put into public schools will only further create problems for the future of our county. 

Behaviour is one of the greatest challenges teachers actually face day after day. The amount of time I spend managing pupils behaviour is probably twice as much as I spend teaching - the brutal reality is we do not have the tools or systems in place to actually have control over the pupils in our schools. If a child wants to do something they are now of the mindset that they will do it regardless of whether the adult in the room has said anything to the contrary. Teacher's attention is immediately drawn to the poor behaviour and it has to be. But it has an immediate impact of every child in that room. They are missing two thirds of their time and their education because of behavioural issues that they equally have no control over. 

SEND needs in main stream schools, isn't the issue. SEND needs are perfectly manageable in a properly funded education system, but in the current state cannot be handled. I had an LSA with one of my classes for the first term. Within that first term the class were near perfect, as soon as the LSA was taken to a different class they descended into apathy. Here the LSA was attached to a child in the class, this child moved classes and so did my LSA. But I had seven other SEND pupils in the class. These kids went from having two adults in the room and were excelling to one and have flatlined. It takes me far longer to interven because I now have more pupils to help. I can't physically be another person. I've also seen cases where pupils couldn't be moved to higer classes because their were multiple EHCP's in their current class and only one LSA to all three. The current financial pressures means schools are forced to limit pupils potential because of the needs of their EHCP's. Lumping all pupils into one group just because schools cannot afford is not something teachers have control over. The needs and adaptations within the classes can also clash simply because we must fill all classes and reduce sets to afford to run. One child might need a quiet relaxed atmosphere and tone, another may need a firmer tone of voice or even exercise and movement breaks. It is physically impossible to without separating those children. The class sizes and lack of funding for LSA's is the real issue - not keeping SEND pupils in mainstream education. 

The most important factor in a child's education is their parents. The vast majority of issues pupils have with their education is down to where they come from. Everyday I see pupils who challenge this representation but unfortunately this is a special few. I once read that if a child hasn't learnt to read by aged four, the damage to their educational outcomes is irreperable. What is the point in teaching if damage is already done before they have even had any formal education? Those who at home are encouraged and taught will do well. When parent's tell their child to respect the teacher - they do. The amount of parents who complain like teaching is a customer service is wild and thus a generation of children with no respect for the word no. It was enough of a battle to get children to comply with simple requests when I first started teaching, now with the defence of their parents, the sense of entitlement has surged. The sense of self importance and self righteousness has surged and the majority of pupils will not comply or push themselves any further than the average. It is no suprise that the newest generation are statistically the first generation to be less intelligent than it's predecessor. If all teaching has to be done at school they build a resistance to that an apathy. Whilst behaviour can be an issue, apathy is also an issue. If the teacher doesn't tell me to I won't do it. If they're not marking it then there's no point in any effort. Instead of seeing the gift of your education as reason enough to complete it to the best of your ability. 

The final reason is the amount we are expected to be in early or stay late or work outside of hours when the reasons are an absolute waste of time. I am sick and tired of being told to stay late for this garbage meeting, be in early for this stupid session. I would not mind if these were contracted hours. If I knew I was being paid for the time I would gladly stay. However we are not, that knowledge alone, the knowledge that this is my free time grates on me in unimaginable ways. A job is a job. I am there to be paid and no other reason. I am very self aware that if I did not need to work to survive, I would not. I am very content to be doing my own thing and puttering about. So to me whatever is in the school calendar is in the school calendar. If it is not in my paid directed time then I do not wish to do it. I also hate being told to do something that cannot be done within school hours. I have five free's a fortnight. If it cannot be done in those five hours it cannot be done. The expectation that we should put in our own hours 'for the kids' is absurd and not expected in other professions or in other countries. All of this leads to a working life where you are consistently looking at your to-do list and going I can't achieve all this what can I cut? 

We are constantly being told who to target and what child is more important and we are done in. 

The most important children in the room are the ones who want to do well. They deserve our attention and they are consistently overlooked. Teaching has also made me decide that I never want children. I cannot see any future for a child I have. Essentially any child in the current education system who is not SEND or disadvantaged is going to spend their entire educational career over looked. The stupididty of this is that the rest are the majority. We are overlooking the majority - which means a future workforce is going to be mediocre. Is going to have a harder time getting a job. Will have a harder time achieving the salary we have. Which is already not enough for the cost of living crisis. So what is the point in creating a life that will be overlooked it's whole life and find adult life even harder than we are. I can't morally justify it - let alone afford it. I'm not the only one to think like this about children - as we can see from the declining birth rate. A number of my friends are choosing not to have children and they all come from the majority background that would make a future generation that could have a positive impact. Instead the population is stagnating. 

So for nowI am a teacher. I hate my job and I think that education has at most fifty years in it's current format. It has to change. I reckon I've got five years of teaching left in me. By then I have to have found a new job.

[deanyeah]

The Millennial Trap

I had a fairly standard middle class millennial upbringing. Two boomer parents - who despite the rise in divorce - managed to stay together until death did indeed part them. My folks had the standard two kids, four bedroom house, two cars, two holidays a year and I remember growing up thinking I wouldn't mind this life. So this set the goal. The goal of what I wanted out of life.

My father had a nice job, my mother worked part time for most of my life, there was a period where she was a stay at home mum. I knew that to be able to afford this lifestyle I needed a good job and to be earning in the region of what my father earned. I was instilled with an academic work ethic. You go to school, you earn the grades, you go to university and get a job and you work up the ladder. This was the millennial dream I was sold. It was the millennial path that I followed. It was a lie. 

I did everything I was told to do. 

I let go of dreams in pursuit of the 'normal' life. I focussed on my academic subjects. I worked the gruelling ladder in my career and about two years ago I reached the salary my father was on when he retired. There is no way I could afford the life he had. I can barely afford one holiday a year. Neither me nor my partner can afford to go part time. We are literally going to work, coming home and paying the bills. We might be able to afford a couple of things for ourselves in the month but there's no where near as much disposable income as my parents had. But I did everything right.

It's this idea that there was supposed to be a reward for the hard graft we put in during our younger years that now traps me. I don't want to have to retrain. I don't want to up work the ladder anymore - the trade off between time/stress and money is not worth it. But where do we go from here? What do we do when the affordability of our lives are no longer within control. That's where we lose hope.

The millennial trap worked because we believed that we were in control of our lives. That if we did the things we were supposed to do then we would have earned that reward. The nice life. But the vast majority of us are finding that the cost of merely being alive means that we need triple our parents salaries just to break even. That's not feasible. Not in my career, not even at the top of the career. The removal of the control of our path means that we wander angry at the world. Shouting and screaming internally about how unfair the economy is, the price of everything and the politics. None of which we have any control over. When we lose control we feel entirely lost. Entirely trapped. 

We like certainty, you do something this is the outcome. Most millennials are now sat in their thirties to mid forties a thousand steps behind where their parents were thinking what was the point? Where do we go from here? How do we crawl back our control and create a life that doesn't just plod along on survival mode? The reality is letting go of the perception of control. Because we never really had it anyway. We just thought we did. 

We've spent the majority of our lives focussed on the idea that we can control our future. That by making the right decisions we can control our future and the reality of the future is it is full of uncertainty. It is over 8 billion people all making in the moment decisions effecting everyone around them. Rippling out over the water, constantly changing, constantly evolving, making waves and crashing into the lives of people thousands of miles away. We literally have no control and as soon as you realise that control is gone then you're realeased from the trap.

All we can do, all that we have control over is the moment we are in right now. All I can control is my choices. The choice to be angry about my lack of control or a choice to be happy with the things I do have.

I choose to let go of the perception of control. I choose to embrace the chaos of the millennial trap. I choose to understand that life is that bit more difficult than it was for our boomer parents. I choose to live in the moments I have instead of worrying about the ramifications of my choices. I have the choice to embrace what I have right now without worry or anger. I have the choice to be happy or wallow in misery. Having choices is better than control. Control means that everything is set. That there is no escape from the trap. There is no chance. Our choices are our reward. The ability to choose is what we worked hard for and whilst those choices might seem more limited than what we had hoped for.

With choices there is still hope.

[deanyeah]

Why Are We Here?

The reasons are two fold. The first is to share my experience of the millenial trap, that's right another millenial with a opinions and a blog. The second is a bit more complex: I recently read the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and I went to therapy for a traumatic life event. I discovered that I have far too many fuck's and that writing was a way for me to alleviate them.

I wasn't much of a fan of journaling in the typical sense of sitting down with a notebook, a pen and writing. However typing was cathartic and enabled me to vent my feelings and thoughts in the same way. The therapy has ended but the journey of my life is still ongoing.

When I read The subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck two messages stuck with me; we all care too much about too many things that are entirely out of our control and that every human being reaches a stage in their life when they realise death will come for them. Not in a childish 'everyone dies but it's ages away for me' kind of way. But there is a moment where we truly understand what that means and we shift from thinking about what we want for our lives and what we want for our legacy.

I've had that moment, at an age where I think most people haven't.

The traumatic event I mentioned before was my father's death. He died quite suddenly due to cancer and through therapy I have come to terms with his death. But I am still consumed by my thoughts of life, the craziness of the world we live in and all the issues I have no control over.

Which brings me to why we are here. This blog is about taking back some control over my fucks. The things that whizz around my mind with uncontrollable velocity and bury themselves there; a way to disperse them whether they're read or not. To share them in the hope of a legacy beyond what people control. The hope of sharing ideas that other's feel but don't say. Doing something different. Doing something no one has told me to do. Doing something for me. Doing something without restrictions or really any fucks. Doing something with hope. I guess that's what it's really about and why we're really here. 

Hope.