So, it's been almost 2 years since I've last written.
Well, that's not strictly correct. That was the last time I macro blogged. I micro blog a lot. Thanks if you follow them, I hope they're intermittently witty and infrequently annoying.
I last wrote in long form here which compressed my quest to change careers for a 3rd time . A further two years, and alas I am still yet to qualify as a teacher. 8 years and counting.
In my last macro missive, I had been unsuccessful in securing a training position. Fast forward just a couple of months, a chance meeting during a cab journey with a couple of super friendly if, REALLY late running for a meeting "Please speed us to the office ASAP my good man!", members of the Harris Training Team and I am in receipt of an offer to train as an English teacher (I had a proper interview, not just hashed over in a cab). So far so good, hugely chuffed, I ring loved ones including my mum and give them the good news.
That was January 10th, 2018. On January 20th, my mum died. It was tough, just 11 months before my father in law died from lung cancer and we were still reeling from that to be honest. I was so pleased that mum knew I had secured a place and I took solace in that. Onwards and upwards as she would have said.
Back to the quest. I did some reading, warming up my hippocampus to receive some pedagogy, and try and prepare as much as I could for the ensuing change. I spent one day a week during the last half of the summer term in my new school to absorb as much as I could from new colleagues and to have my face be less of a surprise in the new academic year "Is that the bloke that was sitting at the back paying attention?".......
Summer school came and went and then, my last working-6-week-summer-holiday in the cab! I cherished my customers in the knowledge that I'd soon be faced with a slightly different crowd, who would not be looking over my shoulder, but facing me full on!
The summer wind, turned into the autumn wind and I was at school, experiencing an inset day from the other side of the fence, not as a parent juggling childcare, or taking the opportunity to run around and get last minute uniform accoutrements. It was fantastic, and just a little surreal to be sitting with other teachers - proper bona fide educators - and be included in the rally cries for the new year ahead. Here are our exam results, here's behaviour policy reboot, now away to your departments!
It was hallucinating in a positive way, I had finally found my way behind the elusive Oz curtain and was munching away at the contents.
The weeks rolled away, 4 days out of 5 in our schools and then a day with the cohort of almost 170 other trainees having centralised pedagogy siphoned into our very beings - SEN/Behaviour/Inclusion/Teacher Voice etc etc. I won't lie, the experience was an assault on the senses, my summer term days were as nothing to the wall of 28 individuals who care not for your planned lesson, that you have wrought from a variety of sources, be they TES, twitter, googled images and more. I was overwhelmed by it all. I am organised. I know I am. I have performed in a band in front of less than friendly audiences "I SAY YOU ARE A BIT LOUD". Yet even this reception is positively chummy in comparison with a class less interested in the language structure of a passage of Orwell than that country club crowd The Blues Brothers played Rawhide to.
My colleagues were unfalteringly supportive, my mentor was and is one of the kindest and compassionate people I've ever worked with in almost 30 years of work across now four different sectors. I was picked up countless times when I came up against a wall, with the text, the task, the student, the IT. All the while, grasping onto why I wanted to be an educator. It was hard. I could feel my resting level of anxiety rising. Oh, and then my back gave up on me - a week before half term and I ended up hobbling out of school bent double. I managed to get to an osteopath and am now regularly pummelled to keep me on the straight and narrow. So, I enter the 2nd half term ready to fight the good fight, more training days pass; more fantastic lectures/keynote speakers, more pedagogy is siphoned into us.
But. My anxiety rises steadily.
We reach Christmas. Hallelujah, ye faithful, we did it. A term is in the bag. It feels like a punch bag, but a bag nonetheless. Christmas beckons. Our second placements await us in the new year. 2019. Which will also herald a year without mum. Dad kept a check on me throughout, telling me always that "We're really proud, we knew you'd do it."
My second placement was a great experience. Contrasting. That is a prerequisite and it was. Totally. I am mentored by a wonderful teacher, mumsy in just the right way. I teach 3 different Shakespeare texts, only one of which I'm very familiar with. So it's the bard by the seat of the britches. This school is rightly proud of the culture they have cultivated over many years. I am challenged not by behaviour this time (I am shocked that all students have a pen, and heaven forfend they need to borrow one, it is returned neatly and, without requiring to test it's flight, to my desk post learning) the challenge is one of their learning, can I cut the mustard in delivering a lesson to their high standards. Well, I think I got away with it. And then, the three weeks are at an end and I am due to return to my school.
Anxiety is as gas mark 11. I think it's right to comment a little on anxiety at this point.
I have been 'anxious' before, I spent 17 years in container shipping, I controlled budgets, I travelled internationally, I negotiated. I had been married for nigh on twenty years, I had fathered two children. Births, marriages, the aforementioned deaths. Tick, tick, tick. I'd fronted a band for 15 years. Winged half rehearsed wedding songs, pulled them off with no-one noticing (Tip: start and stop in the same place, that's half the battle). I had studied for years, completed the knowledge, completed GCSEs and a BA whilst working and juggling family. But I had never experienced anxiety like this. Ever.
It grips you, it's visceral. You feel ill, you are exhausted. You have panic attacks. In addition to wanting to do a good job and be a model trainee, well, it all became too much.
I returned to my school and, argh, change had occurred - not earth shattering, ooh can you teach PE - just simple room changes and this really knocked me sideways. I had always been honest with my mentor and colleagues about how I felt and I admitted that I had to take a break. In total I was away from school for 6 weeks. I felt dreadful, "You've let them down, yourself down, is this for you? what are you doing?" It took me two weeks to even begin to relax a little. I sought help from a psychotherapist and had several visits. What I found most frustrating was how I could see objectively what was wrong, and I could articulate my state of mind. But this was futile. It didn't make me feel any better just because I could name it, as useful as a chocolate teapot. What helped was busying myself, reading for fun, not research papers or academic writings, I read lots of fiction. I stripped and painted kitchen cupboards, I listened to podcasts, The Griefcast was timely and helpful to put things into perspective. I returned to school after my period of reflection/recuperation/regrouping.
And school were amazing, I cannot overstate that. There was no pressure, only support and care for my wellbeing. I know this is not universally the case, and I feel lucky that this experience has happened now, when there is so much of a spotlight shone on the area of mental health, incidentally, Matt Haig writes so brilliantly on this, his two book Reasons to Stay Alive and Note on a Nervous Planet are simply amazing.
So I went back to school. They tweaked my timetable, I lost a tricky class, and I was paired for a large chunk with a colleague who provided me with ample support, tricks, plans and general 'you can do this kid'.
But the anxiety didn't fully subside. I now felt pressure from the post grad element of training. So frustrating. I can study, look believe me, I can essay, I know I can. But. Inertia.
So in Easter this year, I took the painful decision to put things on hold. I am lucky. I know that might sound bizarre after paragraphs detailing despair. I had a plan, things were thrown into my path that I hadn't envisaged. They derailed me, but the carriage needed to go into the siding for a while (ooh, more metaphors), again I had nothing but support from all my colleagues, Principal, HOD, Mentor, tutors, everyone.
So, I've been back in a cab since then, I'm fortunate to have that to fallback on. I have had a good break, I'm a month away from returning to school. The same school, with the same students, a vast number of the same colleagues. In my limited experience of teaching, it's what I know. And that counts for a lot. I will be an even more familiar face than last September. I have a bank of lessons, I have resources. And I have the passion to complete my training and continue to share my love of my subject with students.
Posts
