A sense of humour

‘You have to have a sense of humour,’ she said. ‘Otherwise…’

‘You’ll cry,’ I interrupted.

‘Yes, exactly,’ she replied, laughing. ‘It can be a really soul destroying job.’

I agreed. We had been talking about a meeting she had recently attended, ostensibly called to give her a voice in a decision making process that had already been decided upon. Another wasted hour. And we both sat there in silence, sharing the table with two other teachers, eating our lunch. It was a freebie, part of the course we were all on, learning another way to try and motivate the under-achieving. It made a change from patrolling lunch lines and keeping kids from going too wild while they snapped up cheap little pizzas and coloured drinks. But somehow, the idea that we were going to be delighted with our over-cooked vegetables and salmon in tomato sauce, while we chatted over a table decoration limited to an aging pepper pot plant, and a water jug with a slice of lemon was almost as grim. In many ways, our relative contentment was more a sign of our meagre expectations than an actual delight. Yet we were happy, in a way. It was relatively peaceful; there was no screaming; and if some of us were wondering why teachers as a group were so miserable and badly dressed, it was at the same time acknowledgement of our middle management state that we were part of the polyester and matching floral soap and hand cream universe of the business hotel. ‘It’s a treat,’ said one red sweatered teacher, as she slathered on rose hand cream from the dispenser by the side of the sink. Real towels too, not meaningless air dryers, or scratchy paper towels that came out in a burst when you managed to get them unstuck. It was luxury.

Ironically enough, when the word ‘business’ did come up during the session, it was spoken with reverence. ‘He comes from business’, the trainer said breathily when describing her colleague who specialised in interpersonal leadership or something like that. It didn’t sound much like something you would have in business, but the hush that fell over the room at the mention of experience in the real world was as humbling as the entrance into the room of a Mother Superior. A person in business was a person in charge, someone who had managed to succeed in the real world, while we were stuck in school. It didn’t really make sense, but there was the curiosity of the cloister for what was beyond the gates. Teachers have managed to imbibe the idea that they are somehow ill equipped to teach children about life, how to deal with the day to day. From this policy comes the notion of the ‘academy’, that businessmen will know how to run a school and manage people successfully, in a way that the nuns and monks of the teaching profession cannot. Perhaps it is our childlike delight when we are freed from school that gives people this impression, or the necessary idealism of those who try to believe they are making a difference. Or perhaps it is just easier to blame teachers as a group, certain that at least 50 percent of your constituency is going to be able to look back at a bad memory of school, and say yes, teachers are responsible for everything that doesn’t work.

It’s disheartening to see this attitude, especially when these days out from school are the only time for many of us that we are able to meet other teachers while not dealing with the school politics we have all escaped for the day. Our words are liberated from caution, to a certain extent, and therefore, so are we. We bond during these moments and come together as a group, linked by a similar world view. Teachers desperately want to feel that their jobs are worthwhile – having put so much energy into them. Yet we receive very little in return, except for these professional courses and the chance to hear that, yes, life at other schools is much the same as at ours, even though we had hoped that there was greener grass somewhere. And over-cooked salmon on a china plate.

The next day, back at school, the hush of neatly folded towels and white tablecloths is a distant memory, buried under the routine of discovering that the supply teacher could not find the work, or more likely, that the children, faced with a supply, did not bother to do anything. All the good ideas, neatly copied down, ready to be tried out, take second place to re-establishing order and reminding everyone in the staff room that it wasn’t just a day out, you were actually listening to someone drone on in a windowless room all day. A real day out would have been one without worry, on the beach somewhere. A real day out wouldn’t have involved the return to student passivity, sneaking a cigarette in the bar, moaning about the lecturer, leaving just before the end of the course. Back in the classroom, it is pulling together the children, praising them for their work, punishing them for their lack of attention. The day to day. It is humanity you are dealing with; moods, frustrations, relationships, anger. It takes real presence of mind and courage to pull those new ideas from the back of your mind and try them out, in the real world of the classroom.

Teachers are expected to be the ultimate adults: inflexible, all knowing, slightly dull, on time. Even the police get to drive fast. We get pads of paper and grey hair. It’s little wonder that even as any link between teachers and sex is greeted with horror and dismay, those in charge try to ‘sex-up’ the profession by bringing in consultants, academies, consortiums. In their suits, bristling with authority, they are expected to sweep out the maiden aunt quality that apparently is the sole cause of underachievement, particularly in boys. Treated as petty bureaucrats, pencil pushers, weighed down by mountains of filing, reports and repetitive paperwork, even the most poetic English graduate begins to fall into line, dully copying down the latest directive. Ideas are traded for neat penmanship, energy for punctuality. Why do we do it?

‘Miss, where were you?’ ‘Where did you find that supply teacher? He was awful.’ ‘I didn’t do anything without you here.’ ‘I hurt my arm, look Miss.’ ‘I drew this for you.’

The children don’t know we are seen as boring, sexless, cloistered, insignificant bureaucrats, in need of a major overhaul. They just know we are there, listening to them, every day. Should we change that?