The problem of professional relationships

Relationships at work are a funny thing. And I have quite a few at the moment that are having differing impacts on my life. I have 2 best friends at work; one who I regularly avoid so that it does not seem that we are spending too much time together, and another who has become my very best friend and confidante, but who is having this semester off to travel overseas. I feel as though I will be losing my best friend at work and that I will be losing a part of the reason that I enjoy getting up in the morning and coming to school – spending time with her. I guess in the last couple of months school has become more social for me, largely because what is going on in my personal life means that I need more support, and my friends at work are the ones that are there for me more than 8 hours a day, at least 5 days a week.

But relationships at work can be problematic too. Professional relationships are not always based on wanting to work together, but rather having to work together and the need to get along in order to get the job done. One of my professional relationships is causing me a lot of stress this year and I know that there are many different reasons for this. Firstly, the colleague in question is new to the school and is trying to work out her place in the grand scheme of a new school and is doing some adjusting to the different ways that things work. Secondly, we are very different in both ideology, background and attitude, and this makes it difficult to agree on how we will teach our content and on planning and designing SACs. Thirdly, the issues that I am trying to deal with at the moment at home have made me retreat somewhat at school, and I prefer to keep to myself and try to get my job done with minimal fuss and interaction. In short, a lot of the issues are coming from the fact that I just don’t have the energy at the moment left over after dealing with all the other complications in my life to deal with issues at school. Another large part of the problem is that as this subject is new for me this year, and the colleague that I am teaching with is so different to me, I am not getting the support in terms of content and teaching that I feel that I need. The subject is largely content based and it is a content that I am learning almost from scratch. And it is becoming an issue. The situation has been playing on my mind to the point that I am considering seriously what I would like to teach next year, and am considering giving up the subject that I teach with this colleague and taking up another at the same year level just to get myself out of the situation. I know that in this other subject I will get a lot more support, there are more teachers who are teaching it who I can go to for advice and support and my KLA manager tried desperately to get me to teach it this year so I know that he would support me changing next year. The problem though, if I decided to change subjects next year is that I will lose a whole year of content and planning and subject knowledge. I will lose the experience that I had this year and the ability to reflect, reshape and reform my teaching of the subject next year. It seems a shame to effectively waste a year of content and learning, but is it better to pursue the subject to the detriment of my happiness at work, or should I take the option that will be better me in terms of enjoying my school life? Although this is not a decision that I need to be making anytime soon, it is a decision that is playing on my mind, something that is worrying me and that I am thinking about now, so I thought that I would put it out there for discussion and get some ideas on what to do or that by posting about it I might gain some perspective myself. Will see which one…


Professional relationships – take 2

I guess that there is some more information that really should be added to the original relationships blog – a complication I guess. I think that some of my problems with teaching this subject with the difficult colleague is the fact that I am a perfectionist and that I don’t think that I am doing the best job that I could be. I know that I am doing the best job that I can manage at the moment, but I feel that the other teacher has a more sound subject knowledge than I do (something that comes with time, I know) and that her class is going to do better than mine at the end of the year (which may or may not be to do with the calibre of her student and not my teaching). I feel like the lack of support that I am getting and the lack of someone there to guide me and to encourage me has left me feeling a little out on a limb and a little unsure of what it is that I am doing. In some ways this year I am re-inventing the wheel with this subject as the study design has changed and so the course is different this year to last year. Is my desire to leave this subject behind and take on something different that might be more personally satisfying and that might offer me a more supportive environment really just another way of me trying to avoid dealing with issues?