One down, a life-time to go

Well, it’s over. I have finished my first, full year of teaching my own classes.

I’m sitting in the garden with the extension cord trailing out the bedroom window to my laptop because it is way too hot to be inside, just returned from a day of staff meetings and a final staff lunch at a fancy restaurant where we ate and drank and were merry until we had to say goodbye to teachers who were leaving.

And now after all the reports and marking and uploading of applications and meetings are done (almost), I can reflect on where this year has brought me.

I think back to the beginning, to January, when I faced down my classes, quickly winning over my eager Form 2s and willing L6s but battling for weeks with my Form 3s, 4s and U6s. There were rough days and sometimes weeks with all those classes. The U6s remained difficult - it’s hard to teach or learn in the final two periods on a Friday afternoon – and there’s only so much Form 4 language anyone can take and we definitely had too much; sometimes even my bright and enthusiastic little Form 2s were just a little too much to take, and my Form 3s were a constant struggle but one I threw myself into because my heart was with these unimpressed, dubious 15 year-olds from the beginning.

But there were more days when I reveled in the joy of being with them, of seeing their eyes light up with a new idea, of reading powerful stories and poems that made me laugh and cry. My Form 2s fell in love with Pride and Prejudice – well, at least Mr. Darcy – this term and despaired at the loss of vocab lessons next year. A few of my Form 3s awoke to injustice around them through a project (the majority of them pulled out their hair in frustration at the torture I was putting them through) And my L6s met me in the midst of hard questions about language and identity and power. One of them said the most important lesson she learnt this year was that an A wasn’t the goal but improving her grade from where she had started from at the beginning of the year was (this was my mantra to them all year that I thought had fallen on deaf ears).

It has been a good year. One full of learning and growing. I am excited to be where I am, at the prospect of more conversations and mind opening moments, of being allowed into the world of these girls all over again.

Two young teachers are leaving our department. It has been a hard few days for them as they have said their goodbyes to students and teachers. I think it is going to be hard to leave this place when I need to. For now, I’m loving the present.