Why Teach?

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”

Stephen King

I love teaching. Even on those cold, dark January days when neither you nor your kids can see the light at the end of the tunnel, or on a Sunday night when you still have lessons to plan. It is a profession, a calling, a raison d'etre; call it what you will. It keeps me guessing, makes me sweat, and keeps me up at night, but all the while I love it. That has to be part of it - it has to be a labour of love. Teachers who don't love it, or at least some part of it, don't succeed. Of course there are plenty of times when I have a moan, say to my fiancée that I really don't want to go to school tomorrow, and wish the holidays could be just a week longer. But whenever I stand in front of a class I get a rush; whenever a student who hasn't spoken for weeks pipes up with a great answer it feels amazing; whenever I see an "A" when they were predicted a "C" it makes me do literal fist-pumps. It's a great job.

So, if it's such a great job, why all the bad press? Whether it's schools purportedly failing to make the grade or a massive teacher shortage looming, it is rare that you read a positive new story about education these days. It is not my intention to get overly political here, so I will simply say that government and press interference with education is, more often than not, damaging. Teachers are trained to do their jobs and work hard for their students and the majority do just that. My advice would be to more or less ignore what you hear in the news about teaching because it has little to no bearing on what actually goes on in schools on a day to day basis.

If you are reading this now the chances are that you are already a teacher, training to be one, or considering joining the profession. You may already feel that it is the best job in the world, or you might have been doing it for decades and need a bit of inspiration to keep going with it. My intention in this blog is to provide something of a guide to life as a modern teacher, with all the good bits and the not so good bits laid bare. A lot of what I will say might be controversial or, in some people's opinions, just plain wrong, but I intend to be as honest as possible. I will also say that I do not claim to have all the answers or any magical secrets for teaching, nor have I been in this gig a very long time comparatively speaking. What I have got though are lots of practical tips and tricks, some sage advice, and, hopefully, some words to inspire and make those long days and weeks more bearable.

In answering the question "why teach?" I always thought I would start from the beginning of my story - when I originally started teaching. As I'm writing now though I actually intend to start with a conversation I had just last night. Over a pint with some friends, we started reminiscing about school - some discussing which teachers they fancied (which is odd to think about now as a teacher) - others relating specific stories about a lesson or what a teacher had once said to them. And it was then that I had one of those realisations (they come and go) that teachers really do have an effect of people's lives. As Stephen King suggests, we can never really know when that will be, who we might influence in some small way, or why, but it is almost certain that as a teacher it will happen at some stage. This is part of the magic for me and almost answers that question of "why teach?" by itself - the ability to affect and influence the lives of young people, hopefully in a positive way.

To trace my steps back a little further, the answer to the question came when I was volunteering in Uganda. I was teaching in a tiny rural school where the class sizes often had over one hundred students and each and every day I felt like I was doing something useful and worthwhile. I have done a few jobs in my life - cleaning, working in a shop, answering phones - but that was one of the first real occasions when I felt like I was really making a difference to other people's lives. That's obviously not to belittle other jobs and professions, but that sense of having a positive influence on other people was what drew me to teaching. It was after my time in Uganda that I came home and decided to train as a teacher. Since then I have been a mentor to trainees, led CPD (continuing professional development for those not in the know) sessions, been consistently judged "outstanding", and I'm now a head of department. It has been a very quick process for me and I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. I feel that the biggest reason I have succeeded in teaching so far is that I have a lot of enthusiasm for the profession and I work very hard for my students.

So, why teach? To make a difference. To do something that matters. To have a positive influence on the lives of young people. I get disheartened sometimes when I read that half of all teachers are thinking about leaving the profession, and it disheartens me further when I realise that I have on occasion thought about it too. But then I see things like this...

...and I remind myself that what I do every single day makes a difference.