We were asked to think of a metaphor to describe the experience of teacher training so far. "Surfing" was mentioned as well as "Sex" … exhilarating at times, needs practise and it can be tricky to get it right.Taking a step back and looking at not only my experience with teaching - e.g. standing in front of a class teaching MY subject - but at the whole setting of this experience, I could not help but feel like an over packed donkey with a ridiculous load strapped on my back and an overweight rider digging his heels into my sides. To get me going a sad little carrot is dangling in front of me, trying to motivate me to walk up a path that is the fastest, not most sensible way to the top.
"Where is the positive in that metaphor?" I hear the lecturer asking the one student who compared her experience to the arena of the "Hunger Games". There was none. Actually, here is the real problem I am facing packed in one confrontation: Why trying to find the positives of swimming in a sewer?
Coming from the lecturer there was a faint, understated acknowledgement of the experience being difficult, but in the same breath a solution was offered - a positive attitude! That will carry us through the (difficult, challenging, crazy busy) time ahead. Between the lines the message was clear: "Shut up and get on with it…" followed by a tired "...we are in the same boat and cannot change any of it even if you are moaning and we understand."
Feeling like an overloaded donkey, I listen to the input telling me how I could link my lessons with other subject areas cross-curricular to make my contributions to the education of the nation even more worthwhile; so the load is getting heavier as I am listening. The carrots dangling in front of my nose come in form of grades, job prospects or merely verbal patting on the back for withstanding an ever-growing flood of targets seemingly unharmed. Keep your carrots! I don't want them.
I happily take on board ALL those fantastic suggestions, incorporate them into my plans, translate them into outstanding teaching, making the school experience of children fun and engaging. I do enjoy working with children. I still believe they are the most precious aspect in changing the world and I feel privileged to listen to their ideas, sense their wanting to do well and make something out of their lives. It's a brilliant experience.
What is not brilliant is the initiation into this process of education, neither is the process of education in itself. To offer another metaphor education (at university level as well as school level) is treating people like we do our food. We force-grow it in horrid conditions to harvest an end-product that might look like a tomato, but lacks flavour and substance. The process is defined by time-pressures, production targets and quality assurance dictates the shape of the outcome. Nothing in this is natural.
I dare to say that teaching is not all that difficult and certainly not impossible to master - it even could be exciting if the parameters were different. I know my cohort will grown naturally into fantastic teachers because they care, they want to do well, they like working with children and they feel passionate about their subject. Given time and nurture they can become ripe, plump and juicy tomatoes (or any other fruit or veg they fancy being!) as that is what they decided to be. Why beat people in the process and develop them under taxing conditions and try to sell it as "surfing" or "sex"? It is not. It's messed up and I don't want to sweet-talk it, looking for positive aspects of it to distract from the screaming faults in the system!
It's a well-established, complex and stuck process. The fact that we are asked to focused on the positives and the prospects that we can expect after years of scrutiny and endless hours of work simply shows that everybody is aware of the sickening processes going on. Yet, instead of adopting a vocal, critical French way (cultural stereotype thrown in!!) demanding a revolution, eyebrows are raised for the lack of positivity. Hence, in a "keep-calm-and-carry-on" manner we are asked to soldier on for the queen and fatherland in a battlefield of exploding targets, mine-fields of opinions and ongoing scrutiny without asking if this is a "war" worth fighting.
On purpose do I compare my journey now with a battlefield - an excessive metaphor. Our experience of teacher training was contrasted with Nelson Mandela's journey towards freedom to highlight how much worst it could be and that we should adopt some of his resilience in the months to come.
I refrain from engaging in this further as it would result in another page of blog-entry.
The bottom line is that we are creating our reality and a lot of how we experience reality is dependant upon our take on things. Thus, I decided I don't want carrots, I am no pack-donkey and I shall take from this experience what works for me and remain critical of what does not work in the hope that even more people than the 50% of teacher trainees that drop out of teaching within the first 5 years, stand up and stop perpetuating a system that is foul.
Yours,
a shook-up Urban Yogi
