Can you hear the cogs turning?

I think at the moment maybe I have a little too much time to think. Although time to think is a new and exciting experience for me, it is also a dangerous one because I have a tendancy to over-analyse. So here I go…
I think that I used to be a person who was a little bit judgemental. I had certain views on certain things and used to get caught up in discussing the “scandalous behaviour” of different family members or friends who were doing things that I deemed gossip worthy. Not that I was an awful gossip or anything, and I never said anything bad about the person, but I took a certain pleasure from another person’s misfortunes, safe in the knowledge that my life was perfect. These days for me, however, nothing is certain, and my own experiences have taught me that things aren’t always what they seem. I realise now that nobody is perfect and that everyone needs to make decisions in life to make themselves happy, rather than acting to please other people.
However having said that, this is still not an easy premise for me to adhere to. I still worry about what people think of me and what they think of what I am doing and the decisions I am making. I am trying to find out who I am, experience life a little, and make myself happy. And I thought that I was doing a good job at being true to myself, actually I still do, but a conversation with a couple of friends earlier tonight made me second guess myself enough to still be thinking about it now and needing to get it off my chest.
Ridiculous conversations are often had at the pub with my group of friends, without the need for alcoholic intervention! Tonight a conversation started, on a general topic that began as a bit of fun, but carried on too long to just be a random conversation, and seemed to end up pointedly directed at me and one of my recent decisions. I felt that instead of making a general statement, the friend ended up sermonising, and I started wondering exactly why it was that he was pursuing the conversation. Don’t get me wrong- everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I ended up feeling as though this opinion was being foisted onto me in an effort to somehow make me feel bad and it left me wondering how I should feel and questioning myself. I felt as though my own ability to look after myself and to make educated decisions and act on them in a mature way was being questioned, although I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. I felt as though I was being judged and that his values were being used to read my actions when his values really don’t matter.
So after I left the pub, one of the other friends who was there rang to make sure that I was okay and that the conversation hadn’t upset me. The conversation didn’t really upset me, I just was unsure really of how to read it or why the conversation happened in the first place and so I am still a little perplexed at what to take out of the whole experience. I guess that I just need to remember that it is my life and that I am making decisions for me for the first time in a long time, that don’t involve considering somebody else. I know that I need to focus only on myself and what I know will make me happy (without having a detrimental impact on anyone else) but breaking that old mindset, the one that says “everyone is watching you” and “you need to be perfect” is difficult. It is something that I constantly deal with now that I have done “imperfect” things like breaking up my engagement. Can someone so used to being judgmental learn not to judge herself so harshly? Stay tuned…

Teaching - life in a fishbowl

I will admit that I watch Big Brother. And I kind of enjoy it too. Sad perhaps, but true. However I bet you will never see a teacher on Big Brother. Too much of your personal credibility is at stake as a teacher to subject yourself to Big Brother scrutiny. And personal credibility is an important part of a teacher’s credibility with students, parents and colleagues alike. Imagine having past, present and prospective students seeing you naked, watching you in the shower, hearing all of your personal conversations, seeing you kiss people, watching you get drunk, seeing you in your underwear. You would never have credibility again in the classroom, or among your colleagues, or at conferences you might attend or at university if you went back to study. People would feel that they knew everything about you, including your values, your likes, dislikes, what type of teacher you would be. I wonder how any Big Brother contestant would fit back into the real world. Who would respect you in any walk of life? What would your friends, relatives and colleagues think of you? What parent would want you teaching their child? Can anyone act in an endearing manner in the Big Brother house and maintain their dignity?

But it also makes me think about the fact that a teacher’s everyday life is lived in some sort of a fish-bowl. Everywhere you go, particularly if you live near the school, there is someone who knows you or who knows who you are, a student, a parent, someone who knows someone whose kids go to your school. I used to live 30 minutes from school. Even then I was not safe. I saw students in the bakery, students walking through my suburb, students at my shopping centre. But at least it was very rarely so I did have some sort of anonymity. Now that I have moved closer to school (I am five minutes away) I see students everywhere I go. I went for a walk last week up a main road near my home and before I had walked even 5 minutes, I had seen 4 students and one teacher. There are students in my supermarket now, working and shopping, there are students at my local shops, students walking down my street, students in the pub with their parents when I am having a drink with people from work on a Friday night. I feel a little bit like I am under surveillance, like Big Brother (George Orwell style) and that everywhere I go there is someone watching and waiting for me to act inappropriately and call me in to some austere office for rebuke.

But I guess that it is a small world in general. I went to a party on the weekend and a guy that I met went to uni with my cousin, so any ridiculous drunken behaviour on my behalf has the ability to go straight back to my family. Some of the young staff from work often go out together, either to house parties or out to clubs or pubs, and sometimes we are seen. One of the year 9 students asked me in front of the whole class if I had a good time at the pub on Friday night. One of my year 11 students came to school one Monday and told me that he saw me on Chapel Street on Friday night, walking with some people from work past his parents gelati shop.

In a way it isn’t a problem because the students know that you are only human and that you have a life (although sometimes it takes them a while to believe that you do have a life despite the fact that you are a teacher!). Although after our last house party, one of the AP’s saw some photos (none of which were at all incriminating) and jokingly warned me that I needed to be careful now that I was a teacher about how I behaved because there are people everywhere that might see you. Is this an appropriate warning? Should teachers have to exercise more discretion than people in other professions? Should we have to stay home, or shroud our personal lives in secrecy just so that there is no possible way that anyone connected with school sees us out in public and decides to talk about us? Are we not allowed to have a life out in public because other people might recognise us? How does a teacher split the notoriety of being a teacher inside the school, with the need for anonymity in life outside of school?

At the risk of sounding like I'm whingeing...

This year for me so far has been filled with difficult moments. Despite the most obvious difficulty, I have also been dealing with problems at work that I did not come across last year. Was last year some honeymoon period where I was kept in the dark and fed crap? Or am I just a little more wary this year? Has something changed in my work environment that is affecting changes on my sense of enjoyment this year?

Last year was a totally positive experience. I am not saying that I did not go through the problems of planning, classroom management, correction, meetings and all of the other million-and-one things that are all new in your first year, however, I just feel like last year was somehow easier than this year, like I enjoyed it more. I feel like everyone was happier last year – this year there is more whingeing and less satisfaction in general. At the moment I am grappling with why.

It seems that because I am no longer a first year teacher, I am no longer getting the support and encouragement that I was afforded last year from the Principal class. It seems like last year I spent heaps of time with one of the AP’s who encouraged me and gave me the positive feedback that reassured me that I was doing a good job. This year, despite having a considerably heavier workload, I am not getting any of the encouragement or feedback that might give me some indication of how I am going, or at least how the school admin perceives me to be going.

But there may be any number of reasons for this lack of support. Perhaps the school feels that I have ‘been there and done that’ and that I don’t need the sort of support that I had last year. Perhaps the focus has shifted to the new first year teachers and there is no more time for me. Perhaps the reason is that the AP who I spent a lot of time with lost a good friend (one of our colleagues) to cancer only a couple of months ago and is still not back to being herself. Or maybe she is feeling more pressure this year due to changes in the AP positions. Maybe the school environment has changed. Maybe it is busier. There seem to be more interruptions. There are curriculum changes and new building programs and funding for learning centres that are adding pressure to people’s roles. Certainly I am hearing more complaining and it is getting me down.

Or maybe the person who has changed is me. Maybe I am so busy that I am burying my head in the proverbial sand trying to get on with my work and avoid dealing with unnecessary drivel. Maybe the other stuff that is going on in my life at the moment is taking up a lot of my energy and this is the reason why I often feel flat this year. Maybe I am not talking as much as I did and sharing my thoughts and seeking out support and that is why I feel unsupported.

I think that the question remains though. When has a teacher been teaching long enough to not need support? Does the system only support beginning teachers through their first year? When something like 40% of new teachers do not even make it through their first 5 years of teaching, (does anyone have actual stats on this stuff
‘cause I would be interested to know) does something in the system need to change to stop young teachers from feeling like they have been left to fend for themselves in a sometimes hostile environment?

Insecurity is not a dirty word

Well it is 11.08 on Sunday night and because I don’t have the internet at my new place ( I don’t even have a home phone actually!) I am blogging into a word document and will post this blog at school on Tuesday. I am sitting here tonight thinking about the possibility of starting a blog about my life outside school and I have realised that my life outside of school is inextricably linked with my life inside school and the issues and problems that I talk about in this blog are generally common to both anyway. So I guess that this blog with now attempt to bridge the gap between both. You will now get the whole me, and not just the “trying to be academic” me!

One thing that has been playing on my mind recently is the issue of insecurity. I guess that ending a 7 1/2 year relationship has brought the issue of insecurity to the fore in my life at the moment. I have always been a confident person. I have always had a healthy ego (that I don’t think gets away from me too often!) and I guess that I have always felt secure in myself. Now, although nothing about me has changed but my personal status, I am feeling a little insecure. I am questioning myself a little more than usual. I am more conscious of the way that I act and the things that I do and who I am friends with because I am a little more worried about what people think about me. It is funny in a way, because being single for the first time in my adult life has made me worry about what people think about me and it is making me a little paranoid.

Strange huh? I am worried about my friends getting sick of me now that I spend more time with them. In my rational mind I know that they would just tell me if they were sick of me and that they wouldn’t invite me over if they didn’t want to see me, but in my paranoid mind, I feel like I am becoming a burden. I have taken to avoiding my best friend at school because he is male and I am worried about what people might think about the amount of time we spend together. When really this is the time in my life when I need more support than ever before, I am concerned about what people think, and so I am worried about spending too much time with any one person. It is a strange and new phenomenon for me, dealing with my own little insecurities and I find myself psychoanalysing myself! But it also makes me think about the universal issues with insecurity at work.

At our school at the moment are 3 first year teachers who are dealing with the sort of professional insecurities that I dealt with last year, and that every teacher deals with all the time. Teaching is a notoriously lonely profession. No matter what is said or done outside of the classroom, when the door of that classroom shuts, it is you and your class and often you feel as though the things that you are experiencing are only happening to you. You can feel as though you are out on the edge of a cliff that no one has ever stood on before and that there is no where to turn for advice on whether or not the cliff is too high to jump off, or if there is water below to break your fall.

Exams have caused a stir amongst the first years this last week, as they have been dealing with marking exams for the first time, and cross-marking with other teachers, and finding out that their students have done better or worse than they expected. And I guess in a lot of ways I am in the same situation with my Year 12 Sacs. I have to cross mark with another teacher, I felt that my students didn’t do as well on this sac as I would have liked and I find myself questioning myself and my methods.

Perfectionism seems to be a quality found in a lot of teachers, none more so than myself, and I am also speaking for a couple of the first year teachers as well. Perfectionism has both an upside and a downside. The upside is that as perfectionists we are constantly striving to do better and to be better at our jobs and to do the best for our students, and we are never happy to rest on our laurels. However the downside to this is that you find yourself questioning yourself constantly and thinking over what you have done and said and what you could have done differently. I find myself constantly questioning myself and whether or not I am good enough to be teaching year 12s. Sometimes I feel like a fraud- like I am playing the part of a teacher and that pretty soon someone who is actually qualified for the job will come and relieve me.

Teaching is a profession that can play on your insecurities. There is no other career where you are scrutinised every day by over 100 different people, each of whom spend at least 45 minutes noting your every move, listening to every word, noticing that you dried your hair with a hair-dryer and not a straightener, or that you are wearing the same pants for the second time in the week, or that you have worn the same top two Tuesdays in a row. How does one survive such insecurity and personal uncertainty? You tell me.

Report Time again!

Can I begin my blog by saying "I have not started my reports!!" and am I worried? No! But is everyone else? It seems so!
This time of the year at my school is an interesting one. It seems that when the pressure is on there are those who just get on with it and then there are those who let everyone else know exactly what they are up to and why their lot is worse than anyone elses.
And then there is me! Instead of writing my reports in this, my first free period all week with no correction, I am sitting here blogging instead! (well I do have lost time to make up for!)
It is interesting to watch how different people deal with the stress of this time of the year though.
There are the "oh woe is me" bunch, who waste time that they could be using, complaining that they possibly cannot do the exam supervision that is scheduled in a period that they normally teach in, because they have "too much to do."
Then there is the "this report writing system is ridiculous" group, who have limited computer skills and find the 'tick-box' system of report writing all too hard.
Then there are the "where the hell did my reports go" group, who somehow save one report pad over another and lose a whole class worth of reports. This group inevitably surface on the day that reports are to be printed off and run crying down the corridoors mourning their lost reports.
Then there are the "I have finished my reports already" group who only add to the tension and the apprehension of the "oh woe is me" bunch by making them feel that they must be dismally behind the 8 ball.
At this time of the year I try to keep my head in my i-pod, not only so that I do not have to listen to the complaints, but also so that no-one tries to get me to help them with any computer problems! So maybe I fit into the "anti-social" group who keeps to themselves and doesn't get involved in the staffroom dramas. Or is the "anti-social" group anyone under 25? Or even 30? Or anyone who doesn't complain at least 4 times a day?
Maybe the administration have the answer to everyone's problems: lollies and chocolate biscuits provided for free in the staffrooms.
Maybe one day it will be free relaxation MP3's for i-pods at this time of the year.
Maybe one day they will have a cone of silence Maxwell Smart style that I can stick my head in at this time of the year.
...maybe i really am anti-social...