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Quitting teaching: my laughable attempt.

Started by Twit 2, July 22, 2021, 04:28:37 PM

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Twit 2

Those on here I know IRL know that I am (and now was) a primary school teacher. I have never mentioned it publicly on here, except to occasionally allude to working in education/for the state/on the frontline. This is mostly because the abrasive/edgier/sillier/ironic humour on here would not look good read out of context. CaB and the wholesome world of primary education do not exactly match. Didn't fancy my posting history getting into the wrong hands. Vice versa, some people on here might have occasion to go, "Hang on, aren't you a bit mental and not fit to be round kids?" Well, I can get all that stuff out online and in the holidays and be a pro when I'm standing at the whiteboard.[nb]I passed my teacher training with the grade of 'outstanding' and regularly got 'you're awesome' feedback from kids, parents, colleagues and superiors.[/nb]

I managed to last 7 years in the profession, but this last year or so has broken me and I've made it my last. I became a primary school teacher because I had two great male teachers in Year 5 and 6. They were kind, silly and played the guitar. When I think back to my shitty childhood and all the horrendous stuff I've had to endure, I often wonder what helped me get through, and certainly they were a big part of that. I am that cliche of a kid who was inspired and wanted to give back. Another reason is that my dad, despite being a socialist in principle (and influencing my position on the political spectrum, no doubt) has always been an armchair socialist: plenty of talk but little in the way of action. As I became increasingly politically aware post-2010 with all the raft of shit that the Tories have shunted at us, I wanted to actually do something. I did not enter teaching with a desperate desire to teach them about relative clauses and improper fractions. I just wanted to help some kids in need and make a genuine difference.

Starting out in some very deprived areas, on the estates, where kids' and families' lives were unbelievably shit was a massive eye opener and trial by fire for me. Since then, I've worked in a smaller school, where we got absolutely no dispensation for being a small school, and were expected to do everything one with more staff and resources did, meaning having to be multiple roles and jobs at once, a de-facto deputy head on a medium pay scale salary.

When I trained, it was amidst an ongoing recruitment and retention crisis. I was told after 5 years in the job, half of trainees will have left and that each year beyond that the percentage of those still in the profession becomes increasingly low. The days of teaching being a long term career you could do for decades  are gone. I remember thinking, "I'll be nails; I'm fortified with stoic philosophy; I got the stamina, baby." But, sure enough, I have been slowly crushed by the system. By the relentless Tory austerity fucking with the lives of the people I am trying to help; by the increased corporatisation and privatisation of eduction; by the incompetence and arrogance of the DfE; by the tyranny of uber-cunts Ofsted and everything they do to dictate the way schools are run; by having to implement Gove's awful, overstuffed, dry, irrelevant national curriculum.

This pandemic year in particular has been brutal. Cast your minds back to January, 1st day back. Government let everyone go back and then closed schools after 1 fucking day. No real support from DfE (this always came later, retroactively telling us stuff we were already doing because we had to think on our feet and figure it out ourselves at short notice). Emergency 5 hour staff meeting where we totally re-think the entire way a school is run and education is delivered. From January to Easter, I was working 60 hour weeks, every week. Sometimes working past midnight or getting up at 5am to get everything done, to plan and record lessons that had to be so clear a primary school kid could follow them without the help of parents, who either couldn't be with them all the time to help them with it, or were there but didn't know how to help them.

The workload in delivering this stuff digitally and responding to it all as it comes back cannot be underestimated. Even as someone used to working evenings, weekends and holidays, never seeing my family etc, this academic year has been a piss take. I ended up having to take time off for stress, something I've never had to in all my working life. [nb]I had been in remission from bipolar for the last 12 years, not needing doctor or meds, and the extreme pressure of this last year or so just gradually crept up and forced me out of work temporarily and back onto meds.[/nb]

I have watched children and families barely clinging on through wave after wave of Tory government-imposed nastiness. I've seen the way cuts to funding have brought schools to their knees. I have watched incredible colleagues - awe-inspiring, committed, talented, compassionate people - become stressed, exhaused, demoralised, stretched to breaking point. I have seen the reality behind the headlines. I have been a de-facto social worker, looking after children's mental health (I have had kids in my classes, 9- 11 years old, talking about killing themselves). I have been a counsellor to parents, who were phoning up in tears during lockdown, unable to cope. I have had to know details about kids' lives that would break your heart. And then look on helpless as they fail to receive the support they need from the state. I have taught the kinds of kids that will trash rooms, attack teachers and call us cunts. Kids with extreme needs who the special schools have got no places for "because their needs are too complex" and are left for us to manage in a mainstream school setting. I have seen so much injustice, had to be responsible for mitigating it, even when seemingly insurmountable, even when it's being caused so callously and unnecessarily by ideological cruelty. And it's fucking haunted me.

I have also had countless messages from children and parents of having inspired them and helped them. I have tried to pass on my love of literature and poetry. I've helped kids develop a love of reading and stories. I've slipped in as many seditious and subversive messages to them as I could without actually indoctrinating them or it coming back to me (getting them to question the government, the royal family etc). I have made damn sure to push equality and diversity and say the kind of 'woke' things that would have right wing cunts frothing. [nb]Luckily this stuff is actually possible to do in line with the curriculum. For example, in RSE (relationships and sex education), where guidelines come from county/local authority rather than nationally, I have been able to teach kids about trans people being actual human beings, that gender and sexuality can be fluid and on a spectrum, all the good humane stuff that would make someone like Glinner have a heart attack.[/nb]

When I left work on Wednesday I cried as I walked out of the door, and I cried most of the way home. Because as much as the negatives of the job have overwhelmed me, as much as I could endlessly moan about the injustices I had to sort out or look beyond, I am leaving behind some truly lovely people and all the joys that come with the job, too.

If it wasn't already obvious, any teachers who are still managing to turn up, wade through the shit and still be there, still smiling are fucking heroes. Big shout out to teaching assistants too, some of the most criminally underpaid and mistreated public sector workers out there, who do crucial work that props the country up. Can't put into words how much I hate this evil government for how they treat the workforce, for how they ruin kids' and families' lives.

I am now unemployed, with a mortgage and kids. I am having a couple of weeks downtime and then I'll be applying for other jobs (something useful, public sector, eg local gov) in earnest in August.

I know there are some teachers here and people whose partners are. I wonder if anyone would like to share if they too used to be a teacher and quit? Or if someone close to them quit. How did it go? Was life better?

Feel so fucking raw about all this.

Fambo Number Mive

I have never been a teacher, but from all the stuff I read about that they have to deal with and how they have to go well beyond the role of teacher every day and work utterly ridiculous hours while being attacked by well-paid newspaper columnist and cartoonists that have never taught a day in their lives, you should be very proud for lasting seven years. I wouldn't last an hour as a teacher, neither would many people. You have made a greater positive difference in people's lives than 99% of the people on this septic island, and deserve a virtual hug from every one of us.

I hope you find a new job soon and one that is less stressful than teaching.

madhair60

i love you twit 2 you changed my life too

Jerzy Bondov

QuoteIf it wasn't already obvious, any teachers who are still managing to turn up, wade through the shit and still be there, still smiling are fucking heroes.
You're a hero too, seven years is some stretch and you'll have helped so many kids in that time. You sound like exactly the sort of person who should be teaching and it's criminal what the Tories have done to people like you.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Teachers, as with other public sector workers too often don't realise how much power they have as a collective and let their better natures and professional pride become guilt tripped into performing to an unsustainable standard. Those who have developed robust survival mechanisms to stick it out will never be the median average 'teaching stock' nor are they proof that the education reforms work and other teachers are just moaning.

As I mentioned when we spoke, that now leaves literally every new teacher I know (7) that has left teaching permanently or left the country to do it elsewhere.

Look after yourself, and even if your next job isn't as directly worthy, your mental health is the most important thing, without that we can't even do the basics.

popcorn

Sounds like you can pack it in without guilt or regret mate. Have a cup of tea and an ice cream. Hope you find something that treats you right soon.

Jerzy Bondov

My wife's a secondary school teacher. She quit teaching once, about seven years ago I think. Her school had been dropped into special measures by Ofsted and the new leadership team that got parachuted in was interested only in giving early, unjustified promotions to bootlickers and hounding experienced teachers out of their jobs. She had five or six months off with stress and nearly didn't go back, but managed to drag herself in and finish up the year. Partway through the last term, she got an interview for a job at her dream school - her own old school actually. She didn't get the job. That was enough. No more fucking teaching. We were nervous about losing the money but you cannot put a price on not going bananas.

Then a few weeks later her dream school called back and offered her the job. Someone dropped out or something. She's still there now, and while it hasn't lived up to her dreams in a lot of ways, it's a completely different job to her old one. If she hadn't got that job though, I've no doubt she wouldn't still be teaching.

The other day I was looking through all the cards and notes she'd got from students at the end of the year (secretly, as she's shy about them) and fuck me. I'm a lazy stupid dosser and my wife gets up every day and changes lives. Some of these kids will never forget her. They've had a painfully shit couple of years, and she's been there for them. She is fucking magic she really is and I'm lucky to share her with her students.

Good teachers are the best people.

Retinend

Had you never considered teaching specifically literature, and at a higher age level, since you love it so much? I

M-CORP

I found out recently someone I know (a neighbour who lives down the road and went to the same amateur dramatics society as me) is quitting the teaching profession. Decided to chase their dream job as a celebrant apparently. From what little I'd heard about the logistical nightmare of the past year it didn't surprise me. So if it's any comfort, I think at least a few people are in the same boat.

Can only echo everyone here, I wouldn't be able to do a job as all-consuming as teaching at the best of times, and the impact teachers have on our development is often horribly under-appreciated.
Sending a virtual hug to you - sorry to hear it's come to this and that you feel raw about it, but from your description I think it's for the best. Mental health comes first, and with so many of your students praising you, I think you have given back, made a difference, and hence done what you set out to do.

steve98

Get yourself into hedge-trimming (Which in many ways is similar to teaching.) What I wouldn't give for a hedge-trimmer-person right now.

Endicott

What a beautifully written heart rending post. Good luck in the future twit 2.

bgmnts

You did your duty and then some. If only most people were as kind and giving like.


Chedney Honks

You are a hero for the time you've given. X

I'm looking at the cards on the mantelpiece my wife got from these kids who can barely write their letters the write way round and I'm welling up. At the start of the year some of these poor bastards couldn't write one letter. She's literally giving them a chance in life and they love her, even the ones who don't know how to show it besides attacking her and screaming at her.

All the best with the job search mate, and I hope you find something soon.

Sebastian Cobb

I graduated uni in 2009 and knew some people who went on to be teachers both primary and secondary and nearly every one of them binned it due to the administrative bullshit. The only one that remains ended up moving to a private school to get away from ofsted nonsense despite hating the entire concept of private schools and said it did their mental health wonders. Horrid really.

Bernice

I spent two years as a teaching assistant at a secondary school in an incredibly deprived part of the country when I didn't know what to do with my life and was considering teaching. Was soon disabused of that notion. Really liked the kids (for the most part, some I genuinely hated with a petty ferocity that I kept to myself), but everything you've described above rings true. My heart used to sink as the school came into view on the drive in - and this is without 90% of the extra work teachers have to do outside the classroom (admittedly, my pay was an absolute pittance, but living with my folks at the time I didn't really give a shit). 

Family full of teachers and I've nothing but respect for them. But I'll take my low-stakes, low-stress job over theirs every fucking time.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 22, 2021, 05:08:10 PM
I graduated uni in 2009 and knew some people who went on to be teachers both primary and secondary and nearly every one of them binned it due to the administrative bullshit. The only one that remains ended up moving to a private school to get away from ofsted nonsense despite hating the entire concept of private schools and said it did their mental health wonders. Horrid really.

Of the three teachers I know who really like their job, two are in private schools. The other just has the vocation etched into her DNA - born a maths teacher, basically unimaginable that she'd ever be anything else.

Captain Z

Should of quit at the end of the summer hols, you missed out on your 6 weeks of pay for doing nothing!

Twit 2

Paid till August 31st. The yearly salary is divided by 12 and paid September - August.

Shit Good Nose

#17
Amazing post Twit 2, and regardless of how run down you feel about it all, I GUARANTEE that you would have helped a significant number of kids in that seven years, which these days is indeed quite a stretch.

Except for a year when I needed an emergency job and worked in a private sector call centre at the end of the 90s, I've been a public sector worker all of my working life (approaching 25 years), starting in the civil service and then into local government (which is where I still am now).  Whilst I've not had any direct experience of working in education, part of my job now is to visit schools in the region on a fairly regular basis, which I've been doing for about 11/12 years.  In that time I've got to know a lot of heads, deputy heads, business managers, site managers, receptionists, caretakers, and teachers who get involved with a lot more than just teaching the kids because there is no one else to do it, so I've had plenty of time to hear about the ongoing struggles and fuckups because of the tories.  Prior to that I will freely admit that I was one of those people that thought "oh yeah, teacher only working 9 to 3 for about thirty weeks a year and only have to learn one syllabus every five years or whatever", but even just being on the periphery and hearing the realities of it really put it into perspective for me.  This was further solidified a few years ago when Mrs Nose volunteered at little Nose's primary school two afternoons a week to help the struggling kids with their reading, writing and spelling, and some of the stuff she told me (names always withheld to protect the innocent) was heartbreaking.  And that was just from a few hours a week with one set of kids.  I can only imagine what things are like in the wider world.

When lockdown happened last year we (although I will quickly say Mrs Nose did 95% of it as she was furloughed and I was about to have the busiest year I've ever had in my job) became teachers, and that was a full-time (full school time) five days a week job because little Nose's school continued with the normal curriculum, so they had all their work for the week set for them (for which the parents were told about on the Saturday or Sunday morning to prepare) which had to be done online and completed by the set deadline (there were daily deadlines for "normal" work and also weekly and weekend tasks).  I had to basically re-learn maths again (never my strongest subject, and primary age kids are learning stuff at 9/10/11 that I wasn't learning until WELL into secondary school) whilst Mrs Nose learnt "on the job" to become a teacher.  Stressful is an enormous understatement.  But compare that with a mate who lives in a neighbouring authority with similar aged kids and a typical school work task FOR THE WEEK was to clean the bathroom.  I would not have believed that had I not seen the email with my own eyes.  Sure, it was flowered up a lot and sold as learning about responsibility and building character, but at the end of the day it was just clean the bathroom.  On the plus side, little Nose - along with all other kids her age in our region - is going to secondary school in September bang on target with where she should be, whilst millions of kids will have to effectively do an extra year in their own time and, presumably, through the summer holidays.  I'm sure the teachers working through all that will get extra pay/time off (/sarcasm).


Sorry, I rather ran away with it there and hijacked your thread a little bit, but it's testament to the power of the words wot you wrote being very emotive and touching a simpatico nerve.


EDIT - also interesting use of words in the thread title, "my laughable attempt".  Does that mean you haven't discounted the possibility of returning to it in future?  And is that return based on the matter-of-fact fact that you need a job to support your family so you'd consider going back if nothing else comes up, or is there the possibility that you'll get a..."moral hunger" (for want of a better phrase) to go back?  Also, how common is it for people who have left/quit the system to return many years later?  As you alluded to yourself, the teaching business is unrecognisable now compared with when I was at school.

Small Man Big Horse

Just wanted to echo everyone's comments about how managing to stay with it for seven years is pretty amazing and you shouldn't feel bad for leaving in the slightest.

Quote from: Retinend on July 22, 2021, 04:52:44 PM
Had you never considered teaching specifically literature, and at a higher age level, since you love it so much? I

Like many I've known a fair few teachers and the only ones to make it past three or four years either worked with very young children or at college / university level, it's still difficult and a fuckton of hours but not quite as bleak apparently. I've also one relative who left teaching to work for Ofstead, I know you hate the organisation but they do too, and hope to make a difference from within all the while not having to deal with the insane workload they previously did. Either way I so hope things work out for you.

Ferris

Coincidentally, my mum is a school librarian and she resigned last week after 12 years. Just couldn't take it any more.

She ran the library initially (which she liked, she got to buy all the kids' books for the LEA) and it was great. Then they asked her to run a reading circle thing for hard up kids. My mum's great so "yeah no problem". Then she helped them with their UCAS applications and was genuinely delighted at the people she helped further their own education. Then that became her formal role for the whole school (no extra pay). Then she was so good at teaching kids to read, can she do maths for them as well? Great, cheers for that, but if you can teach maths, can you handle this class of 15 your olds and make sure they learn science ok? And the continual piling of extra jobs and pressure and stress started there and has gotten worse and worse.

She doesn't really drive, but they convinced her to get a minibus license to drive kids around. If she doesn't do it, those kids don't get to go on field trips. Then she became an informal counsellor for some kids, now she's a formal psych counsellor for the school despite having zero training (and of course, no extra pay). And on and on and on it goes.

About two weeks ago, some coppers came round and said one of her kids nearly got nonced up, oh by the way here's the details so can you call the parents in and let them know? She did, but I think that was the end of it. She feels tremendously guilty about going but really shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place. I know her salary, and it's about what I was paid as a trainee accountant 10+ years ago. It's complete madness - I don't know how the system keeps running, and eventually it will collapse because it will run out of people who are willing to, as a career, hold entire cohorts of kids together (and my mum works/worked in a rough area because that's where she felt she could do the most good) and get shit on as a reward.

If you've done 7 years, you have nothing to feel guilty about. It is a failing system and you did your part holding it together for as long as you could.

Catalogue of ills

A lovely post, also very sad / criminal that good people are driven out of jobs by these witless posh cunts in government. Going to work shouldn't be traumatic, but giving a shit in the face of a system that is designed to grind people into dust is unlikely to be anything other than temporary. Well done for the good you've done, and look after yourself for a bit.

Ferris

Here's an anecdote that rankles - she convinced a children's author to do a talk at her school because she'd noticed lots of her kids loved that persons books. She reached out to them but they usually charge £2k to do the talk. My mum talked them down to £0 because she explained what she was doing and why.

Her reward was having to organize all the admin, additional services, transport for kids (it was after hours), lighting/sound stuff, and when all said and done not a single person in the management side said thanks. She thinks quite a few of them didn't know it was happening.

How long can one person deal with that kind of thing? Don't do it, and the kids miss out. Do it, but it is very much at your own expense. It's a giant MLM built on guilt tripping good people.

Sorry, I don't mean to rant but this stuff really pisses me off. It's taking advantage of people's good nature as a substitute for having a functioning budget.

Sebastian Cobb

Sounds like they were taking the piss Ferris.

I'd see school librarian similar to lab assistant in school staff, these are important valuable supporting roles that often require similar qualifications to teachers but also delineate you from being actual teachers sounds like they were just pushing her to be a teacher sideways, which is bollocks.

My mum was a practice nurse who I think might have been a bit difficult at times but also regularly got fuck all for going above the call of duty.

bgmnts

Yeah that sounds like an incredible level of scope creep where she is doing a few very different jobs.

Shite stuff.

Catalogue of ills

Sorry to go on about this, but like Ferris it really infuriates me. Imagine telling a teacher back when it was a respected profession "by 2010 it will be about rescuing as many kids as you can from the government and their policies before you can't face going in one more day". Social work's the same. I worked for Shelter from 2013-2019, and it was brutal. Very rewarding to an extent, and amazing colleagues, but when you realise your job is to try protect people from the state for as long as possible with the limited resources your have before they break, it's just a matter of time before you have to jack it in for your own sanity and let someone else do their stint in the trenches.

BlodwynPig

Sheds are burning across the land in your honour tonight. I can see them for miles...stretched way down the coastline, little baubles that tell of loss and of rebirth.

Beagle 2

Best of luck Twit 2, incredible and humbling post.

Ferris

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 22, 2021, 08:07:30 PM
Sounds like they were taking the piss Ferris.

I'd see school librarian similar to lab assistant in school staff, these are important valuable supporting roles that often require similar qualifications to teachers but also delineate you from being actual teachers sounds like they were just pushing her to be a teacher sideways, which is bollocks.

My mum was a practice nurse who I think might have been a bit difficult at times but also regularly got fuck all for going above the call of duty.

She has a BA and a specific MA to do library and literacy stuff because it's what she really wanted to do after getting shot of the kids, but 12 years later she's getting deprived 15 year olds spitting at her because they don't want to do physics? It's madness. She's not elderly exactly, but she's absolutely too old for that shit.

I'm quite proud that my decision to resign from my career and tell them to get fucked has inspired her to do the same but not everybody can have such a work-shy son so how will it all work on a larger level?

Anyway - from what I know of Twit2 he's a solid guy (apart from odd arson) and this struck a nerve with me. Will stop ranting now.

Ferris

Quote from: Catalogue of ills on July 22, 2021, 08:25:20 PM
Sorry to go on about this, but like Ferris it really infuriates me. Imagine telling a teacher back when it was a respected profession "by 2010 it will be about rescuing as many kids as you can from the government and their policies before you can't face going in one more day". Social work's the same. I worked for Shelter from 2013-2019, and it was brutal. Very rewarding to an extent, and amazing colleagues, but when you realise your job is to try protect people from the state for as long as possible with the limited resources your have before they break, it's just a matter of time before you have to jack it in for your own sanity and let someone else do their stint in the trenches.

Reminds me of running my old department. "How many of these people can I save from the doldrums of low pay and burnout and shit bonuses?" but for years on end. Miserable. Hated it.

Used to go on and on to my mum about how much I hated my job years and years ago and she'd say "oh become a teacher! You'd walk into a job here!"

I realize now she's not said that for 6 or 7 years so it's probably been bad for a while.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on July 22, 2021, 10:33:34 PM
She has a BA and a specific MA to do library and literacy stuff because it's what she really wanted to do after getting shot of the kids, but 12 years later she's getting deprived 15 year olds spitting at her because they don't want to do physics? It's madness. She's not elderly exactly, but she's absolutely too old for that shit.

I'm quite proud that my decision to resign from my career and tell them to get fucked has inspired her to do the same but not everybody can have such a work-shy son so how will it all work on a larger level?

Anyway - from what I know of Twit2 he's a solid guy (apart from odd arson) and this struck a nerve with me. Will stop ranting now.

My dad genuinely loved his job but in his early 60's through an eye test got discovered to have a possibly life-threatening AVM, this resulted in several years of being signed of sick, neurology appointments, a bit of surgery and then after about 2 years got a 'graduated' return to work, in all fairness his work were very accommodating. But then when they offered another round of routine VR he did the maths and thought 'fuck this!'.

Not long after, my mum who had scope creep problems with her work, and typically has had in different jobs as well started asking herself similar questions, started doing the maths, and realised she could also say 'bollocks to this'.

They've never been happier.

Cunts are practically nomadic and will be happier than I ever will.

Wish I'd never been born, etc.