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?