Annus Horribilis, Annus Mirabilis

Although December is less than halfway through the academic year, our cultural reference points draw us still to reminisce at the end of the calendar year and to make resolutions for the next one. Before teaching, my husband and I used to send out annual newsletters talking about all the wonderful things we had done that year. As it is, the wonderful things are increasingly the awesome achievements of my students, which fill my heart with joy but which don't lend themselves very easily to being read about by relatives at the breakfast table. So that tradition has rather died, but I have a need to do some kind of stock-taking.

2014 was split down the middle. Up to August I remained at the college I had worked at for five years. The academic year 2013-2014 was the worst of my life, with no exceptions. We had an Ofsted inspection in the spring term, the outcome of which, and the decisions then made in our department, broke my heart. Worst of all, it finally impacted on my teaching. Throughout my teaching career, I had been able to avoid stress, bureaucracy and bullying affecting the quality of my teaching, but some of my students could tell I wasn't on top of my game. I still performed very well - my graded observation (oh yes, FE still has them...) was good, I successfully got the department through the BTEC external verification and HND external examination for the second year running, and my students got the best pass rate in AS and A2. But I was losing the spark, and I was dangerously close to burnout. My husband and I sometimes wondered if we were just being over-sensitive, but everyone we spoke to in the education field responded with a variation on "Damn, that's terrible."

So it was time to move on. I probably should have moved on a year earlier, but the 2012-2013 year was so awesome that I was lulled into a false sense of security. I interviewed for a job in July and was offered it the same day (which is actually pretty unusual for FE, though not schools). It is pure A Level teaching and a tutor group. I work in a department where people are genuinely friends, where it is always possible to find someone willing to help, and where my managers encourage us to minimise our workloads and leave the office promptly. There is a lot less paperwork, and a lot more time for teaching. I have survived my first term at the new college, and have thrived. I have amazing students, brilliant colleagues and nurturing managers. Some of the edited highlights:

• My manager offered to buy me a skeleton for my classroom (duly bought and named Silent Bob), and agreed to buy me a microscope with USB camera, which is used nearly daily.
  
• My classroom is so welcoming that, even though it's the coldest room in the department, my students still like hanging out there between classes.
  
• Every time my manager walks past my classroom I seem to be talking about something utterly random and possibly inappropriate to the lesson (e.g. David Nutt and "Nuttsack", colorectal cancer, how a rolled Ammophila leaf resembles a roach), and because she teaches biology too, she laughs - she gets it.
  
• During a game of biology-themed Pictionary, one group of students got the word "turgid" in under two seconds because their artist drew a penis.
  
• My efforts to educate my students on intersectionality are starting to pay off, even if they're not quite there - on a hexagons revision table I saw the Bundle of His renamed to the "Bundle of Sexism".

I have no regrets about changing jobs. I earn more for having less responsibility, and I am able to devote the bulk of my time to my students and their learning. This time last year I was broken, and wondering what on Earth I could do if I didn't teach. But there is life after teaching in an awful, awful college. It just took me a while to feel alive again.

Season's greetings to all, and a happy new year.

Mind The Gap

Given that I have a policy of removing blogs from my RSS reader after six months of inactivity, I suspect that a gap between posts of 11 months might have lost a few readers, but I shall attempt to restart the old blogging machine.

People close to me will know this year has not been particularly easy on a professional level. When you play the Game Of Thrones you win or you die, and it was very nearly the latter. With A-level, Access and HND - all very intensive, high-level courses - plus the "professional challenges" faced on a daily basis (which I do not intend to discuss, but oh boy are you going to find out about them), there was nothing left of me at the end of the day to fulfil even my basic physiological needs. My weight and mental health both took a dive, and I'm sure colleagues got as sick of my sarcastic responses as I did of their constant questions as to what my weight-loss secret was!

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I interviewed for and was offered a position at another college. With a stronger A-level provision, an established sixth form, and a good track record of Oxbridge applicants, it's in a different league altogether. I will predominantly be teaching A-level, and you have no idea how good that feels. Nearly four years ago I interviewed for a position that was exclusively A-level, and I turned it down because I felt I'd get bored. Now I don't think that's possible. To be able to focus on one subject and one specification and really strive for brilliance in me and my students could be the most fascinating role of my career yet.

The academic year 2003-2004 was absolutely awful. The academic year 2013-2014 has matched it, but for (mostly) different reasons. Ten years ago, I felt broken. Now, I can use the painful memories to help me be a better teacher, friend, wife, daughter and sister. Maybe I'll be able to put this year to similarly good use. To those of you still here, thank you for not getting round to sorting out your RSS feeds!

On Realising I'm An Emotional Wreck

This evening, Paul and I were channel-hopping, and we thought "Super Tornado" looked good. Normally, I find shows about natural phenomena really interesting, so it seemed the right choice. But when we started watching (a little after it had started), the programme was focusing on the staff and children at one of the two elementary schools that was hit.

I watched for a couple of minutes, wondering why it would occur to anyone to film this on their cameraphones rather than doing everything they could to watch out for danger and survive. Then they showed the footage of children and teachers leaving their hiding places and stepping out into an absolutely destroyed corridor. And I couldn't watch any more. I got very tearful, and had to switch channels to find something less school/college-focused.

This has happened regularly since I became a teacher. It never happened in any of my other jobs. I watched dramas about gunmen in court rooms when I worked for a judge (never worried me), footage of the July 7 bombings when Paul was commuting to that area of London (it absolutely bothered him though), and numerous campus incidents, fact and fiction, when I was a student, and it never affected me like this.

A friend once said that having children was as though someone opened a direct route to her heart and just left it exposed. I've never had children, and won't be doing so, and I would never dream of comparing being a teacher to being a mother, however much I mother and nurture my students. But I think I'm starting to get a better understanding of what my friend meant, and a little taster of what she must experience every day.

I struggled to deal with my feelings after the Sandy Hook shootings (in particular I couldn't get Vicki Soto and her sacrifice out of my head). Hell, I found it difficult to watch the "Silent Witness" episode "Shadows", and that was fictional. We have a lockdown policy for the College. My lab is the furthest point from the main entrance, so, one might imagine it would be the least likely place to have an incident. But that doesn't stop me spending far more time than is probably healthy, at least once a week, thinking about our lockdown policy, how quickly I could shut the door, turn off the lights and get everyone away from the windows. Where would I tell my students to sit? Would they be safe under the lab benches? Would the back of the lab under the windows actually be safer as we're on the 2nd floor?

I've become increasingly protective of my students. My manager has commented on this. And it's true - I will go up against Senior Management (and have done!) if a decision will adversely and unfairly affect them. I refer to it as "going Mama-Bear", though Paul says it's more that I'm the Khaleesi and the students are my dragons.

Do other teachers find they become complete wimps when anything violent happens in a school or college? Or am I just over-sensitive?

Worry

I worry.

I worry about my students.

I worry that, after all that they've done, the students I've prepped for interview at top universities won't get offers.

I worry that my prospective vet student just won't manage to pull three A grades out of the bag.

I worry that this is my fault for failing to teach him properly.

I worry that trying will do him more harm than good.

I worry that some of my students will slip through my fingers because I'm too busy trying to hold on to some other students.

I worry about the pressure of the HND programme on my frayed nerves.

I worry that Michael Gove is going to do to teachers what Thatcher did to miners.

I worry that it's been so long since I ate proper food that I have a vitamin deficiency.

I worry about why the staff in Domino's know me and Paul by name and our usual order.

I worry that I spend too long at work and not enough time at home with Paul.

I worry that Paul spends too long at work and not enough time at home with me.

I worry about the results.

I worry about the feedback.

I worry about how long I can keep this up.

I worry that Ofsted might be just around the corner.

I worry that I am not, in fact, an excellent teacher, and that all I do is entertain while relying on nothing more than charisma to engage the students.

I worry that I am a charlatan, an imposter, a pretender.

I worry that nothing I do as a teacher is ever good enough.

I worry that I'm too emotionally involved with my students' education.

I worry that one day I'm going to punch a colleague in the defence of one of my students.

I worry about burnout.

I worry that I have slowly regressed to the lifestyle, hours and vices that I had as a PhD student.

I worry about dying young.

I worry that I'm doing this not to impart enthusiasm and knowledge to the next generation but to surround myself with admirers.

I worry that I'm the cool teacher.

I worry that I'm not the cool teacher.

I worry that my hair will break from the bleach and dye.

I worry that underneath the bleach and dye my hair is grey.

I worry for the welfare of the young people I teach.

I worry that they will have their hearts broken.

I worry that sometimes I'm the one who does that.

I worry about worrying.

Like A Candle

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.

I don't know what it is about teaching an A2 class. More so than any of the other classes I teach, these students get to me. Perhaps it's the fact that I am their only biology teacher for two years, but even the Year 2 BTECs don't have such a profound effect on me.

This year is taking a lot - my wick is burning very quickly at the moment. I have high achievers who need to do better in their A-level Biology exams than I ever did (I scraped a B, which made my decision to do Natural Sciences (Physical) a stroke of genius), because they have a realistic punt at Oxbridge or medical school. I have some at the opposite end of the spectrum who I feel like I'm hauling up from a D or E to a C using the world's most inefficient pulley. I have some coasting in the middle, who I want to grab by the shoulders, shake and scream "Why won't you work? You could do so well!" And I have my fair share of utterly heartbreaking situations.

They're all under my skin, despite half the class asking me in my first lesson when their other teacher was coming back from maternity leave (honest answer? I hope never, because I don't like sharing). I know if I let every year continue like this, if I come home every Wednesday and Friday and cry my eyes out for what they're going through, then I'll burn out way before I'm too old for them to want to go down the pub with me after their final exam.

On the other hand, I can't make myself put up an emotional barrier to them. Some of them won't talk to their tutor or the counselling service, and I'm fighting a losing battle trying to get some to see their doctors about depression. I'm all they've got. And I can't separate the caring and support from the emotional involvement. I don't know how other teachers do it.

I'm consuming myself trying to light the way for my students. It will be the end of me. But like the candle, it's my sole purpose in life. So I'd better keep burning.