Learning is delightful and delicious …

Although I can usually find someting about my job to moan about, I make no secret of the fact that generally I enjoy it. I teach at a tough school, and the department I’m running has been neglected for a number of years due to staffing problems – but I made huge progress last year, which I know was greatly appreciated by the head and the other senior staff at the school. I know I’m doing a damn good job, and I feel that I’m at last working somewhere where my contribution is valued and where I’m pretty sure there are good promotion prospects for me as and when.

BUT…

I’ve just sat and spent an hour marking some year 9 books, and I wonder what the hell I’m doing? The majority of this class can’t follow a simple instruction and rarely finish a piece of work. Some of them just open their book and write wherever it opens, so the work (when there is any!) is all over the place. Sadly, this isn’t unusual.

I’m sure their maths books don’t look like this. Yet another depressing reminder of how my subject is perceived by pupils.

I’ve been meaning to post something about this for ages – but I either forget or I’ve been too tired.

Very soon, the GTC will introduce a new Code of Conduct for teachers, about which there has been a fair amount of debate.

Anyone who can be bothered to read the thing might just shrug and think, “well, that makes sense” – and most of it does – but the sentence that’s causing the debate is one right at the end of the list of eight “principles” that the code enshrines. The one that says (on page 14) that teachers should -

Maintain reasonable standards in their own behaviour that enable them to maintain an effective learning environment and also to uphold public trust and confidence in the profession.

Again, that sounds sort of okay – until you start to think about it.  What exactly does that mean? If, for example, I decided to go out for a night on the town on a Saturday night, get plastered and am seen by the parents of one of my pupils whilst I’m a bit worse for wear – and they report me for some reason – would that mean I’ve brought the profession into disrepute?

I’m not saying in any way that teachers shouldn’t maintain reasonable standards in their behaviour – but surely that should apply to everyone? We should all aim to behave in such a fashion, but if a teacher wants to go out at the weekend and blow off a bit of steam, shouldn’t they be able to do that without fear of losing their job?  And why should we be held to a higher standard of behaviour than everyone else? Because let’s face it, chances are that a lot of our pupils are far more likely to get drunk or stoned than we are, yet they don’t have a professional body breathing down their necks!

Why the hell do the-powers-that-be do this to teachers? Well, I suppose that’s a rhetorical question, because I know why.

Kids today are generally not so well educated as they used to be, although I’d argue that teachers are better trained than ever. Yet it’s easier to blame poor teaching than it is to blame poor parenting, or a lack of stability in kids’ lives, or a hundred other things over which we, as teachers can have no control – than it is to try to find solutions to those, more serious and deep-rooted problems. It’s easier to blame a teacher for not being able to control a class than it is to do anything about the poorly behaved kids who cause the problem, because they know – as so many of them proudly proclaim – “you can’t doo nuffink to me; you touch me, and it’s child abuse, innit?” (And don’t even get me started on just how infuriated that statement makes me – that these little toe-rags whose problems stem mostly from the fact that they’ve never been made to understand the word “NO” can dare to talk about real abuse in such a casual manner).

This recent post on the Times School Gate blog contains a paragraph in particular about something that always bugs me when I read comments there and on other, similar blogs from people who aren’t teachers –

Teachers often get a raw deal, as some of those who read this blog will testify. I like to think that School Gate visitors are sane and sensible, but one teacher recently contacted me to say that she has found the torrent of abuse on here difficult to take (unfortunately she’s taken it personally, which is all to easy to do in the scary world of anonymity and cyberspace). When I look back at the comments, there certainly are a huge number critical of teachers, along with an assumption that teachers are not clever, not hard working, unable to spell properly, and only doing the job because they didn’t know what else to do. Some of this is obviously my fault – after all I ask the questions – but I still think that teachers get a very hard deal, probably harder than many other professionals. It’s not an easy job, and yet people are always ready to jump in with criticisms.

I’ve veered from my point (as usual!) but these are some of the things that have been on my mind lately.

On the plus side though – I had a new TA in a class today. Well, I say new, she’s been in that lesson since the start of term, and today, she told me how much she enjoyed coming into my lesson because the kids always enjoyed it, I made it interesting for them, and that she was impressed with the ways I found to explain things to them. It’s things like that that bring things into focus sometimes, and remind me that I’m bloody good at my job.

I’ve been trying, over the last few days, to think of something to say about the horrific crime committed by the two brothers in Edlington. Or rather to think of something to say that hasn’t already been said.

Well, I’d given up – until this morning, when I was talking to my husband about it and he said to me “are you surprised? As a teacher, are you really surprised about what some kids are capable of?”

Sadly – the answer has to be “no”. Yes, I’m shocked, as I’m sure everyone who’s heard about this is. But surprised? No. And how awful is that?

I suppose we’re lucky that something of this nature doesn’t happen more often, given the number of children and young people out there that come from so-called “broken homes – who are growing up with no guidance, no discipline, no role models and, probably, no love or affection. I’ve not read all the articles that have been published since the story about the trial hit the media, but this comment, from The Times has stuck with me -

Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, said last night that many more children need to be taken into care at birth to stop them being damaged beyond repair by bad parenting.

There is an overriding assumption these days that children are better off with their parents, seemingly regardless of what those parents are doing to their offspring. But surely, neglecting them and allowing them to do whatever the hell they want is just as bad as beating the crap out of them each night.

The answers are complex – and politicians think they would be unpopular, which is why they’re all too scared to do anything that would make a difference.

Again, from The Times -

This horror occurred because the system for intervention in the lives of neglected children is woefully inadequate and intellectually and economically flawed. Too late, too short-term, too wishy-washy, too cheapskate.
Dozens of people will have seen this particular horror coming for years. The police said yesterday that all the agencies had been involved with these children since an early age. Teachers, neighbours, social workers, police officers, health workers, parents — everyone who has had contact with the brothers since birth, probably — will have known trouble was looming. Since they were toddlers, in effect, they have been wearing labels screaming “Help me! lost child!” 5ft wide.

You can put money on it that they have a record of exclusions from school. Equally, you can be sure they have grown up in a spectacularly dysfunctional family. You can speculate whether, as well as suffering from complex emotional and behavioural problems born of poor parenting, the boys are on the autistic spectrum and have poor speech and language skills.These boys had their fate written for them: perhaps from birth.

So there are no surprises, but that’s precisely my point. Everybody knew this, but nobody did anything. The authorities stayed in their silos, guarded their threadbare budgets, watched their backs and let the slow motion tragedy unfold. Why? Because that’s what the system decrees that they do.

And that’s what we, as a society, are up against. When I was listening to a report on the radio this week, the senior police officer being interviewed said that although these two boys had been on their radar for some time, there was nothing they could have done to prevent this crime, despite their having been questioned about a similar offence shortly before. Sure, none of us wants to live in a society where we could be detained because of something we might do – but none of us wants to live in a society where a crime like this can be perpetrated by two children, even when a number of adults – police, doctors, teachers, social workers - saw it coming a mile off.

I suppose the thing that sickens me more than anything is the fact that two boys – children – could actually contemplate doing such terrible things. That they did them is bad enough, but that they had, somewhere in their minds, the ability to actually think up and plan to do the things they did is even more appalling. My eldest daughter is ten now, and she would no more dream of hurting another child than she would of robbing a bank. What sort of life have those boys had that has equipped them with the – for want of a better word – imagination - to come up with the idea of torturing their victims in the way that they did?

I fully understand why the CPS has taken the decision to avoid a trial. I have no strong opinion on that either way; if the sentence is the same for GBH as for attempted murder, then as long as the sentence is carried out appropriately I think that justice has been served.

Although of course we all know that chances are, the boys will be out in ten years or so, complete with new identities and police protection.