The catalysts that got me to enter teaching were two-fold; a strong sense of social responsibility, having always found more purpose and enjoyment when what work I undertake helps others. Also, a mentor, who was excellent at challenging my behaviours and asking the difficult questions, picked up on my love for developing others and saw the potential in me before I did.
Confidence is something I have had to learn through my progression into adulthood. Life experiences and opportunities found in me a confidence teenage me would not have recognised. I have often been complimented and feedback to on my ability to never be phased, take things as they come and tackle any task or problem head-on. I have had excellent mentors throughout my working career, and they have each instilled in me, amongst other things, business acumen, planning, strategic thinking, communication, teamwork and skills in self-awareness.
As such, my work ethic has always been to strive towards excellence, constantly working on my self-development, reflecting and receiving feedback on my behaviours and skills. On entering teaching I was equipped with excellent behaviours, a positive mindset and confidence in my knowledge and skills. I aimed to be the best I can be and positively influence others through my teaching.
I started my journey by completing a PGCE, which as I was expecting, was a very intense and full-on year. I spent Monday to Wednesday on placement, Friday at University and then Saturday and Sunday working a part-time retail job. Most Thursdays I would either go to placement extra, prepare for lessons or work on assignments.
I progressed into a full-time role and spent three years teaching some inspirational young adults, they taught me so much about myself and my subject area, Photography. I had positive relationships with many, being able to find commonality with most and was proud to see the distance they had all travelled, be it in personality, in subject knowledge, behaviour or attitude. However, in the summer of 2018, I had decided I needed to leave, not that I wanted to, but that I needed to.
This decision arrived after a confrontation with my partner over a trivial change of timing to go to an event, which resulted in me leaving the house, turning my phone off and ending up a hours train ride away in Margate. I sat for five hours not being able to comprehend who I was, why I felt the way I did or what I needed to do next. The day ended with me accepting something had been going wrong and had been going wrong for some time.
It took some time to pick apart all the symptoms I had been blind to, the sense of dread every morning before starting work, an inability to find joy in any activity, being irritated by trivial and menial things, hobbies and interests lost their fascination, my opinion of myself was nonexistent. I had no energy, I managed to get three to four hours worth of sleep which was often interrupted by feelings of dread. I ate nothing for breakfast, I had no time for lunch but I was overeating the wrong food in the evening. I had become withdrawn from my extensive social circle and found every excuse to avoid socialising. Reading this back now, it is clear to me I was suffering from a mixture of depression, anxiety and stress, but this all progressed over three years which I was unable to, or unwilling to, recognise.
I have linked teaching and my decline in mental health, I have reflected as to why I believe this was the cause. The workload of teachers is always the top complaint ever mentioned and I too shall mention this but hope to provide context. My teaching contract was made up of a total amount of student contact hours, the number of hours I needed to teach in an academic year. This was calculated into hours per term and then hours per week. Eventually, a timetable would be produced of the sessions I taught throughout the week. Any other time outside of teaching hours was considered a non-contact time and as such, admin time.
This admin time was set for planning, prepping, marking, attendance motoring and responding to requests for data and the like. However, on paper this may have worked, in practical terms, this time was seldom available to me. Small timeframe gaps between lessons, pastoral support for students, team meetings, welfare interventions, one to ones, disciplinary actions all ate into this time. Most of these happening with short notice and in the moment. Meaning, the planning, preparation and marking was sidelined. These three areas are the fundamentals of teaching. If planning does not happen and the lessons are not prepared for, then the lessons are poor and the students do not have the best experience or opportunity to learn. Also, if marking is delayed then formative and summative feedback is not as effective to aid their development.
However, the pastoral side of student support is something I soon realised is a vital part of teaching. This was something though, I had never expected would be as intense and essential as it was, in some cases, it was more important to a student than the lessons themselves. This was a trial by fire, I had had very little previous experience and next to no preparation in how to communicate and effectively support those; suffering mental health problems, attempted suicide, transitioning genders, experiencing parental problems, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, alongside the breakdowns of friendships and relationships. The issues and problems the students were going through were often a barrier to their learning, but ultimately, in some cases, these experiences will define them for the rest of their lives.
Alongside this was the traumatic experiences I went through, being threatened to my face by a student, having my laptop destroyed by in a lesson, have malicious communication with a clear threat to my life and the distressing suicide of a student. These all happened at different times of my career, and each bumped me down in terms of my confidence and outlook of the profession. One positive, which did help was that on two of these incidents, two sperate managers sat with me and clearly expressed their concern for my welfare and helped me understand the situation to aid my development. But this was neither wide or deep enough across to make a real difference.
Throughout my time I would often ask for help and assistance, I was the newest teacher within my department, and I knew others around me had years of experience, skills and knowledge that they could share with me. Despite this, this was never actioned, we worked in silos, not by choice, but because our time was not our own. I formed excellent relationships with my colleagues but we often felt guilty as not being able to support one another on technical skills sharing or practical teaching advice. Despite asking for help, very loudly and very clearly during team meetings, performance reviews and in one to ones, it was never treated seriously.
My view of being a teacher is that of teaching, nurturing and developing the individual students and to move them forward in their technical skills, expand their subject knowledge and grow their personality, confidence and behaviours. Focusing on the student as a person and teaching them in a method, pace and rate suitable to both their strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately and unfortunately this was not shared, the focus was on the tangible, metric data, figures and results. The expectations, not only shifted year on year but term by term. The flavour of the week was what had to be focused on until someone unperceivably changed their mind. There was a constant juggling of meeting different managers different expectations. The unpredictable nature of an unclear plan and structure, for me, was untenable.
A piece of advice given to me years ago was that when you are in the middle of a problem you are unable to see the path out, but once you come through it, the path is obvious and clear. Since changing roles and industries, pretty much all of the symptoms mentioned previously shrank to nothing over a very short period. That is not to say there are still some areas that still require my active management and work. I feel confident in myself and abilities and I am proactively making plans and taking action on my development and aspirations. This is not only in my current role, in my Photographic practice and also in teaching. I have taken up a role teaching in the adult education sector and am again thoroughly enjoying seeing students gaining new knowledge and applying this learning. It feels very much in line with my view of what teaching is. I have had to reflect and realise that despite the negatives these were lessons in which I was able to grow and learn from, be it professionally or personally.
I have recently just finished my Masters and was surprised with at an event where all of my close friends and loved ones from over the last thirty-odd years of my life were at. I was humbled by how these people had turned up to share in my achievement and were proud of what I had accomplished, despite distancing myself over those three years.
When I now meet teachers, I can empathise with what they are experiencing and it concerns me to hear similar stories to my own. My experiences shook me to my foundations, showing me that my mental health is not to be taken for granted and to be aware of and recognising the signs in others. I lost what made me. But I have been able to build myself back up again.