The article in the “I” was about a school in Northampton
proposing a four and a half day week. Yes, Friday afternoon off. The headmaster
said it was all about time for teachers to collaborate and improve the
curriculum.
The Secondary schools in my city adopted the four and a
half day week this session. Some schools had been doing it already. The Friday
afternoon was about cost cutting I think. The council could make a saving by
switching off lights and heating a few hours earlier. It wasn’t something
teachers opted for, although clawing back that Friday afternoon might now be a
challenge.
The hours we teach haven’t changed. The pupils get what
they are supposed to get. We start a little earlier in the day and finish a
little later. They’ve pinched a little of the lunch hour too. It is a rushed
four and a half day.
The argument against was presented by one woman not happy
with the idea of finding money for childcare. One man did the maths and insisted
that 9.5% of his children’s education would be cut. He went on to say that it
was all about teachers needing more chill time. He pointed out the already long
holidays and ended up with the challenge – “They should work in the real world
and then they’ll realise how lucky they are.
Is that not a man that knows no teachers? Is that not a
man that has no idea what happens in the classroom? Is that not a man that
really doesn’t know about the average 60 hours a week teachers do to keep their heads above
water? Is that not a man that has to take a holiday in school holiday time when
every travel agent on and off line increases prices significantly?
Let’s start by saying that I have worked in the “real”
world. It wasn’t all that it was hailed to be. I admit it was an office job,
filing paper and occasionally updating how-to manuals. I loved the politeness of
it all – people saying “Thank you” and opening a door for me. That’s not something
teachers get a lot of. It was also me and my own desk and any encounter with
another human being was entirely voluntary. That’s not something teachers get a
lot of either. It was, on this one occasion, mind-numbingly predictable and not
the least bit challenging. I’d been in teaching before then for a few years,
worked abroad, come home to changes in the way schools operated, had a body
clock that insisted it was time to get married. I took a break and office
temped for a while.
It might have been someone’s real world but it wasn’t
mine. Put me in front of a classroom of pupils, something to teach then – I quite
like the Martin Luther King unit some of them are doing at the moment, and I
thrive. I shine. I perform. I inspire. I laugh sometimes. I cry sometimes. I
argue. I challenge. I mark stuff. I shift known a trusted Microsoft power points
into the google drive and spend hours after school trying to make the links
work!
That’s what I do. That’s not what “my clients” do. They
play with their mobile phones on their laps and snarl at me when I tell them to
put it away. They write down a single word, maybe two or three, if pushed, to
answer a question that needs a paragraph. They flaunt the uniform rules and
wiggle gem encrusted bellies and crop tops at me. They complain about the heat,
open windows, close windows, open windows, close windows. They borrow pencils
and don’t return them and get declare “Well, I just won’t do any work then,
will I?” when you tell them there’s no more pencils left to borrow – not that
having a pencil in the first place meant they would to any work. They watch the
clock and they sigh.
And why are they so rude? Because the man who did the
maths and worked out that his child might be losing 9.5% if his family’s education
doesn’t talk about teachers with any respect in the home.
I say to that man – you couldn’t do my job that’s why you
pay me to do it.
BY all means step into my world and be me for a day or
two.
You are right of course – I am lucky. Who would not want
to be there when the penny drops and the child knows something they didn’t know
a moment before and you made it happen?
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