Why I’m walking out of teaching...
I have been a teacher for 7 years and last week I made a monumental decision. I decided to come out of a career that I’ve invested so much of my time, effort, money and passion into. It was an easy decision to make. Not because I’ve suddenly decided to hate children and, of course, not because I’ve fallen out of love with my subject but because I no longer believe in the system. I cannot any longer put my soul into a system which, in my opinion is failing our most vulnerable individuals and which, despite all teachers’ best efforts to highlight the problems, is refusing to acknowledge such a failure.
If you’ve never worked in a school, of course, it’s hard to appreciate what goes on. In a nutshell, every teacher across the country, it seems, is hounded by constant scrutiny from inspectors and local authorities; books and marking are being permanently judged and staff meetings seem, these days, to constantly criticise and undermine our own professional decisions. Last minute decisions are made about us, redundancies are given out and contracts cut without any consultation and budgets are being slashed to unmanageable amounts. All of these factors add up to make teaching harder and more stressful by the minute- have you ever tried to teach a set text to a class without enough novels to go around? Or to provide differentiated worksheets without a budget for photocopying? - And despite all of this teachers are entirely the accountable party. Not the business managers, local authorities or executive head teachers who make these colossal decisions. The teachers. Those who are powerless to change the system are being blamed hands-down by those who are making the decisions for the disappointing results they create.
We are all professionals. We are educated with Degrees and PGCEs as a minimum. Many of us have Masters Degrees or higher in our subject or, like me, in specific areas of teaching, which bring specialist understanding to certain aspects of the field. Frankly, we know our stuff and we have dedicated years of our time and energy into making sure that this remains the case. Teachers are experts in learning. They never stop learning. Every specification change or new learning framework means that teachers must learn all it involves before they can teach it. Every change in policy or new teaching model means teachers must constantly adapt and develop their practice to suit expectations. If anybody is qualified to judge a student’s learning style, progress and target it’s a teacher. However, our opinions within schools today seem to account for nothing. I’ve been in staff meetings where an entire cohort of teachers unanimously agrees that a target is unmanageable for a pupil, giving well explained and legitimate reasons for this and they have been shot down by senior leaders because these reasons don’t match the school’s data.
How can I believe in a system where students are nothing more than numbers on an Excel spreadsheet, a system where those students who are not SEN or Pupil Premium are ignored because they don’t impact the school’s yearly data goals?
And don’t get me started on the fact that we are demoralising our kids with unrealistic targets that make them feel like failures even when- often- they’ve pushed themselves to the limits to achieve their very best.
This isn’t about having low standards for children. It’s about having fair and realistic standards. It’s about the way we make our children feel and the way we motivate them to be resilient learners. Giving them impossible targets only makes them feel like giving up.
To put it into perspective. I once tried to take up running. I have two friends: one friend whose running is mildly better than my own and another who is some kind of ridiculous fitness-freak. I tried to go jogging with each friend on two separate occasions. The latter of the two, who bounded miles ahead, made me (completely unintentionally of course) feel that it was impossible to reach such a standard and as a result, I gave up and went to the pub instead. The first, however, continued to run very slightly ahead of me for the whole journey, but seeing him in sight gave me not only a sense of direction but also a sense of hope. I pushed myself harder than I’ve ever pushed before and made it to the end. I was motivated to challenge myself and it worked, I achieved more than I ever thought I could.
When will the local authorities and government realise that the same applies to children? An aspirational target is a great thing, but when will we stop pushing to set targets that go further and further out of a child’s reach? The key to resilience and persistence is not constantly raising expectations, it’s providing stepping stones that guide a child upwards at their own pace. I’m not talking about capping a student’s chances to progress or putting a ceiling up against their possibility to achieve- of course not. But putting an unachievable target over their head is actually the quickest way to provide them with limitations and cap their progress. We talk about resilience and how to harvest resilient learners in the classroom but how can students be expected to remain strong when they are lumbered with the stress of being expected to achieve things they don’t know how to achieve?
Of course, as teachers we guide and push our students towards their targets as best we can. We show them ways in. We encourage them to do things independently and we nurture in them the confidence to push as far forward as they can go. And for many students this is enough to get them to their goal or push them to achieve their target.
Then comes that dreaded question. ‘But how can I achieve a grade nine?’ And the worst thing about this question: nobody knows.
For those who are unaware of the new GCSE grading system- a grade nine is identified as the top 10% of the country. There is no grade boundary for this score. There is no specific success criteria for students to see how they can achieve it. To achieve this grade they must simply be better than the other 90% of the country. And, not knowing the other 90% of the country, they’ll never be able to identify the things they need to do to achieve it. Neither will teachers. But teachers are expected to coach them to achieve this grade and, in July, they will be held accountable for the pupils who failed to achieve it. Let’s not forget that the pupils, understandably, feel let down when their teachers can’t tell them how to achieve this grade. To them it is the teacher who has let them down even though, in reality, the teacher has no more opportunity to understand this system than the student.
I’ve seen pupils crumble under the pressure of this elusive level 9 and I’ve seen teachers crumble under the pressure of guiding their children towards it. Since when did our education system become so focussed on creating stress and anxiety in young people and adults alike? Is it any wonder when you look at the system that one in ten young people suffer with a mental illness?
To me, I cannot be part of a system any longer, which seems to measure success by numbers and regards any empathy for young people as an excuse for failure rather than consideration of a young person’s individual needs. When I became a teacher I was very much of the belief that ‘every child matters’, that ‘equal opportunities’ doesn’t always mean equal treatment or equal expectations. It turns out, much to my disappointment, that I was very much mistaken.
