On My Amount Of Moaning

As the last student filed out the door, at the end of period 5 today, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, not so much because I had an absolutely rubbish day (I didn't), but because I was, in general, quite pleased to have made it through the day at all. Increasingly, I am finding that I'm lacking the energy to come into school every day with as much enthusiasm as I used to have. I know in my last post I had lamented on the idea of becoming crotchety before my time, and I stick with that worry. In fact, I am increasingly becoming aware of the fact that my energy is being drained from me before I even get to lunch most days. And to think, last year at around this time I was an overly eager student at Lakehead University, completing my Bachelor of Education and entertaining lofty ideas of being the really energetic and 'fun' teacher at some lucky school in the fall. How naive young minds can be; even if that young mind was mine only a short year ago.

Funny how time can change things.

I was talking to Allisson today, the other Canadian teacher on staff. She's only in her late 20s, but has been teaching for a few more years than I (I think she's on her 5th of 6th, so she is much more practiced than I am). We share a special bond, in that we both feel a bit ostracized by the British teachers in the Department, and we often will hunker down together and commiserate. Well, today I went in and was my usual (or at least, my usual of late) dejected self, moaning about the system in which we work. After spewing out a few complaints, I stopped, and looked at her. She was regarding me with a mild smile playing on her lips.

"Awww, hun. I feel so bad for you, that THIS has to be your first year EVER teaching," she said. "It is NOT like this back home. I promise."

I smiled at her, absolutely relieved to at least have my suspicions confirmed (not to mention validating thoughts which I was hoping were not fraudulent).

"Yah...I know," I said, tentatively. "I loved the teaching I did back home. I mean, I came home every night and worked my ASS off, but it was worth it because the kids were engaged in my lessons. I got so much positive feedback. I knew teaching was what I was meant to do....but here...I just don't feel like my effort is appreciated, so I'm getting lazy. I don't want to put in the effort if I don't get it back, you know?"

She nodded at me, "Oh trust me, I know. I've given up on some students. I've given up really caring here, since I know I won't be staying. I don't blame you at all."
"Well. I can't give up, that's not me...but I can care a hell of a lot less, which in turn makes me a bit of a crap teacher in my own opinion. I'm still good though...just not as good as I know I can be."

She nodded at me, tilting her head to the side in that knowing and pitying way.

"I still pity you," she said. "This is not what a first year of teaching should be like."

I shrugged at her, "If I do the hard stuff first, it will make the rest that much easier..."

We talked about it a bit more, brutalizing the British system for all it's flaws and drawbacks. We then resolved to get drunk together this weekend, at a fellow Canadian staff-members 30th Birthday bash in Cambridge. We both agreed that teaching, no matter where you are in the world, is stressful. Working in a hostile environment, one in which you're made to feel sub-par, doesn't make it any better. And booze is a decent solution. So is not doing work on the weekends, which I am going to try very very hard to do from now on.

Which brings me to the real reason I started this post; only ten minutes before entering Allisson's room I had been at a meeting for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs). I'm technically not an NQT, since I didn't graduated under the British system, but they stick me into the meetings since it is my first year teaching. Its not so bad, I get to learn a lot of things that are useful to me, but sometimes the meetings get to be a bit much. I wasn't really relishing the idea of wasting an hour and a half after school attending the meeting, as a had a large stack of work that needed to be done. However, after debating it for about 10 minutes I decided to head down.

I walked into the meeting about 15 minutes late, on account of the internal debate I had with myself over attending, paired with the pressing matter of dealing with e-mails from parents. Add to that the stress of having that stack of work weighing on my conscience, I was in no real mood to sit through a boring and pointless meeting. However, as I walked into the room and saw who was joining us, I was able to let out a sigh of relief.

Returning to visit us, for the third or forth time (I can't recall exactly) was this lovely lady who does 'coaching' with us. Life coaching. Basically, her job is to train us to learn to talk and listen to each other better, so that we can be life coaches to each other. It all adds up to our being able to be shoulders for one another, to listen and provide gentle and smart solutions. The woman, I can't remember her name for the life of me, is absolutely lovely, and quite possibly the smartest woman I've ever met. She can look at you, and listen to you talk, and it feels as if she can see to your very soul. I'm of the belief that she should be a shrink, because she has this insane ability to draw things out of people without their even knowing it. Last time we all met, she set in on me in her gentle way, and eventually she made me cry. I'm not sure if I blogged about that occasion. It was quite embarrassing. She was asking everyone if we were happy, and I tried to lie and say that I was. She, however, was having non of it. She could tell something was bothering me, and kept gently prodding me to let the truth out. Eventually, I broke down into tears and sobbed that I couldn't focus properly on teaching because I missed home too much. It was like a scene out of a movie, where the tough asshole finally breaks down into tears, and everyone around has an "awww" moment.

As I walked in, 15 minutes late, she smiled at me.

"Ah, welcome Krista. Glad you could make it after all, do sit down," she said.

I pulled up a chair, and she continued on in her speech. Apparently I hadn't missed much. She was rambling on, in her soft melodic voice, about how teaching was one of the hardest professions in the world. She said that most of the teachers she worked with had one thing in common, one feeling that every teacher, regardless of age, dealt with on a daily basis; inadequacy.

I stiffened when she said the word, and tried to steal glances at the other teachers in the room. They were all nodding their heads, knowingly. I relaxed a little bit, relieved to know that at least I wasn't the only one agreeing with her. I was a bit shocked though, wondering how it was that she always seemed to know exactly what I was grappling with. It kind of hit me, in one word, that that is what I've been having issues with lately, this idea of my complete and total inadequacy as a teacher.

My crying in front of my year 10s, my feelings of insecurity when it comes to my boss and my job in general; I feel inadequate. I feel as if nothing I do matters, or is of any consequence, good or bad.

I tried to turn off my brain to listen to her, but mostly I was in and out of the conversation. I'd hear snippets of what she was saying, and then instantly my brain would hop into overdrive, analysing everything she said.

The gist of it was that teachers are made to feel inadequate by the students, by parents, and by each other. Not too many other professions deal with as much monitoring and pressure as we do. She then said that as a result we take our jobs home with us, in an attempt to be 'better'. Most people don't do that. Work ends when you walk out the building for most people. You can set it and forget it. Teachers should do that, but we don't. We don't feel there is enough time to do all we need to do, so we end up taking things home with us and doing work in our own personal space and time. As a result we neglect the most important thing in our lives; ourselves. And to make sure were weren't total selfish twats, she also added something about family and loved ones.

But it doesn't stop there. We take our work home in more ways than the physical. We take home the mental. A lot of people do that, it's kind of inevitable; You can't just turn off your brain. A bad day at work will always have repercussions at home, that's life. However, she said that teachers could go home every night and have something to complain about. And we do.

And who do we dump on? The people that we love.

Do we ASK them if they want to hear us bitch and moan? No. We just let loose a steady stream of complaints, and then wonder why our relationships start going down the tubes. If someone came and bitched to ME every day without fail, I'd start to get tired of hearing of it....so why wouldn't someone else get tired of ME doing it to THEM? Negative input piled onto negative input is only going to add up to a huge pile of negatives in the end. It's pretty standard stuff, really.

This is what I really took away from the lecture the life coach gave us today. She told us that in order to be healthier people, and therefore better teachers, we need to find someone to vent to, but that it has to be a two way street. She said we have to learn to ask people for their time, and then praise them for being there when we're done. If people feel appreciated just for allowing you to talk, even if that talk is mostly negative, then they are less likely to dwell on the negatives you've been vomiting on them for the past hour (or however long you've been ranting and raving), and instead focus on how positive you feel after being allowed to get the rant out.

I do try not to rant and rave to people in PERSON about my work woes. I kind of knew already that people get tired of listening to you bitch. Besides, it doesn't really do any good. That said, I do come onto this blog and pour out my heart and soul. My justification in doing so, however, lies in the fact that I don't make anyone read this. If you're reading this, you're making a conscious choice to do so. If you get tired of my moaning, you can easily stop and carry on doing something else. This blog constitutes my main form of 'release', when it comes to work-related stresses.

I'm not going to ask you if it's alright for me to vent here. It's really not your place to decide. I mostly do this for myself, because it feels insanely good to get some things off my chest and into print. If you choose to read this, then you do so on your own accord. Reading this blog means you've entered into a contract with me, whereby I shall bitch and moan to my hearts content, and you won't hold it against me.

I do promise, however, to try to keep the moaning to a minimum. Though you have to be aware of the fact that level of moaning increases the further into term we get. Half-terms allows me to re-energize, so the first few weeks back from breaks are always easier.

The only thing that really helps me through it all at this point is knowing that a) I can come here and rant about it, after the fact and b) that the next half-term break is only 18 days away. Having something to look forward to is almost as energizing as coming off the week itself. Getting random text messages during the day helps too.

Little things make dealing with the stresses of my job that much easier. So I suppose I should hold onto those, and keep doing what I'm doing.

I'm not mean and crotchety yet...