A few years ago I did the PGCE. By the end of it, I was burnt out (I very nearly failed the course) and due to policy changes was unable to find a suitable role after completion. I was only offered a maternity cover on the starting graduate salary (despite having 10 years experience in industry and with a young family to support) meaning I couldn’t pursue teaching, and went back into industry.
I was emailed recently by a fellow classmate and reminded that I was going to write about it. So I figured I’ll put some thoughts together before it completely dissappears from my memory.
As you’ll notice the notes go from good to bad – basically a descent.
- I was initially very excited about the prospect
- I always enjoyed the informal teaching experiences that I had had, and enjoy the pursuit of learning together with others
- Some people were surprised by my decision: ‘didn’t think you would go into teaching’, others were supportive and a few quite cautioning (typically teachers)
- I really enjoyed learning about teaching, pedagogical approaches,
- The first three months were at university. I enjoyed being back at uni and was able to train with the univerisity swimming team.
- My first placement was at an excellent grammar school. The pupils were well behaved and courteous, the teachers around me were supportive and competent.
- In terms of support, some teachers focus heavily on the pedagocial side and helping you get the best out of the students. There are others that focus almost purely on mechanics (punctual, discipling students immediately, ensuring pupils have written down homework).
- I started off mainly observing, then taking parts of the lesson, then full lessons.
- I remember one teacher was particularly critical of me. I think it was based on one event and she had ‘categorized’ me based on that, like you might do after hearing about a naughty pupil. She started checking up on everything I did which was tiring because you make countless mistakes and have countless things to remember such that you are bound to make mistakes. I tried my very best to keep on top of things and in the end she did compliment my efforts, clearly somewhat surprised by her own first impression being untrue.
- The food at the good school was good.
- The sound of the school bell was horrifying
- I really enjoyed the A level classes and some of the lower classes.
- It was becoming very demanding. I was expected to prepare the class, the content and handouts. My father, who had worked both in teaching and publishing was aghast – learning materials are created precisely so that teachers don’t have to create their own. Nevertheless I enjoyed doing some of the content too.
- One teacher thought it would be fun if she sets me up. All the students were allowed to misbehave and cause havoc. I lost my temper in the end. And the teacher came in laughing. I didn’t find it very funny – it was quite undermining.
- I then had to do a short dissertation. The question was extremely broad and I found it difficult to narrow it. My academic writing is not the best. I received a poor grade.
- Balancing writing and teaching was becoming demanding. Another trainee started becoming stressed and needed to take time out.
- I then changed schools and went to a ‘good’ school. It all went downhill from here.
- It was quite clear that this school was no longer ‘good’ – it was a shambles.
- In fact Ofsted came about half way through and rated it ‘requiring improvement’ across the board.
- There were ten trainee teachers there – all said this was the worst school.
- The whole place was just a draining vortex of negativity and scruffiness.
- The staff room was a mess. CAnteen food wasn’t great.
- Behaviour was poor, teachers had given up. I remember thinking that there are 3,000 people in this building and not one of us wants to be here.
- I had an hour commute – and I had a gutwrenching feeling in my stomach almost every day en route. Drinking tea and listening to calming music in the car didn’t help. I just knew it was going to be awful.
- I was constanlty under time pressure to either be somewhere or be doing something.
- I had a mentor who was the worst mentor I could imagine: critical, patronizing and quick to report concerns back to the university. She told me off in lessons, interrupted me to take control, critized every lesson and consistently marked down every lesson as ‘beginner’ oftern weaker than every other observer.
- I was on the ‘back foot’ for everything.
- In the end she got the unversity involved and I was put on a ’cause for concern’ – i.e. that I needed remidation otherwise I’ll fail.
- I was working everyday from 6am till usually 11pm at night but this was not enough.
- My daughter was then born and I started missing things or some things were incomplete. It certainly wasn’t an easy time. Still, no sympathy from my mentor who simply remarked that having a newborn is probably easier than her situation (having 12 year old daughter) which I find incredible to believe.
- I couldn’t bear to stay one day longer at the school – it started eating me up. I can even remember rushing around in a panic to try and get stuff finished in time but it simply wasn’t possible. I knew I was constantly going to be ‘told off’. It was worse than being back at school.
- Everyone patronizes each other in a school. Teachers to trainees, to pupils. Leaders to teachers. There was a lot pettiness.
- I watched The misadventures of Mr Wilt: the trouble with teachers is that they go to school, go to university then go back to school to piss off the next generation.
- The university came to check whether I was a failing training teacher and concluded that I wasn’t.
- Then came the dissertation (5.000 words). I tried my best on that but I think I scraped a 51%.
- You figure out at the end that a key part of teaching is ‘differentiation’. In fact, the PGCE is simply differentiation by task: there is so many demands, enough for the most ambitious that it cannot actually be completed.
- I then also needed to apply for teaching roles. I got rejected from everywhere.
- Teaching interviews are typically a full day event including plenty of lesson preparation.
- I travelled to all sorts of schools around the South West and had no luck.
- I think my mentor suspected that I was only doing the PGCE because I could get a grant and that I wasn’t going to continue it anyway. Again pettiness.
- I had never failed anything before in retrospect it probably would’ve been better to have failed.
- I burned out completely after completing the course and became actually quite resentful about the whole thing.
- When I started the PGCE, the average teacher stayed for 5 years before quitting. When I left that average had dropped down to about 2 years.
Having said: There are a lot of transferrable skills that can be taken from teaching.
I think any leadership (especially servant-leadership) can gain massively from teaching. The companies that are thriving at the moment are those that can adapt the fastest (essentially learn the quickest). Being able to learn together and promote learning in others is a key skill. Also, being able to handle a class of 30 16-year olds is good practice for handling any sort of meeting. One of the key skills is how you communicate information (instructions or messages) very succintly and clearly to others. That is also a skill that very few possess in the knowledge economy.