Miss M

I am officially a teacher!

But as I said to Tim earlier, learning to teach is a little like learning to drive. You learn enough to pass your test and then you really start to learn how to drive. The same goes for teaching. And that is an exciting thought.

Milestones passed, boxes ticked

It is my last day at school today. The remainder of my time as a 'student' is really just admin, a few days at university, a week in a primary school. I'll hear whether I have 'passed' on the 29th June, but I am not expecting to fail.

As I wandered over to Pret for my morning tea (and today, an almond croissant as a treat) I suddenly felt very proud of what I have achieved and really glad that I can now (almost) say, 'I am a teacher'.

It's essay writing day

Well actually, that was yesterday, but I am still at it today. I wrote half a blog post yesterday, then realised I was procrastinating. But here I am, procrastinating again. Actually, I feel hopeful that the essay is coming together after a million revisions. I am 500 words over the limit and I haven't even written my conclusion yet, but it is easier to edit down than write new material.

I chose the subject myself (Talk in the English classroom) and I am finding it strangely fascinating. I guess I have never really thought about how important speaking is as a tool for learning. It is through speech that children first start to understand the world for themselves and we all speak before we can read and write. But once a child reaches school, it is reading and writing that are deemed the most important skills (well, in this country anyway). Speaking gets overlooked. But children need opportunities to talk about their learning and assimilate new knowledge by expressing it in their own words. They also need to develop oral competence for later life. If you can't string a sentence together with confidence, how will you negotiate adulthood, when you will be required to interpret speech in all sorts of different contexts all the time? It is interesting stuff.

This is where I am going to be spending the next 8 months

One of last weekend's tasks was to create a space for my study. We are bursting at the seams in our flat, but with some clever moving around and a lot of decluttering, we managed to squeeze my new 'space-saver' desk from John Lewis into the spare room. Tim's role on Saturday morning was as chief desk-assembler, and the results are impressive, as you can see for yourself.

I couldn't be happier in my new spot. My desk folds away neatly when I have finished working and takes up even less room. And I have a lovely new office chair which is extremely comfortable and very supportive so even when my mind is feeling the strain, my posture won't be. Now you can picture where I am writing to you from and where I will be spending a lot of my evenings and weekends over the next eight months...

Miss Idealistically Optimistic

Today we looked at the type of English teacher we want to become. An interesting thought, and one that I have to admit I hadn't given much thought before I started my course. I mean, I have felt this thing within me for a long time, a nagging feeling that I should not be writing memos and creating spreadsheets but standing in front of a class of 30 unruly teenagers. But as for thinking about what kind of teacher, well that thought never really entered my head. Obviously I want to be a good teacher and I have some random and nascent ideas about how I might become one, but I couldn't articulate them, let alone set out my 'personal educational philosophy'. So today's exercise was just what I needed.

It was based on work one of my tutors did as part of her PhD research where she conducted interviews with hundreds of English teachers and boiled them down into broad 'types'. In groups, we each had to look at the description of a 'type' and translate what was quite a dense text into simplified language and report back to the rest of the class.

We had the 'Reluctant Conformist', the 'Traditionalist', the 'Politically active, free-thinker' and our type, which I will name the 'Individualist'. The Individualist promotes 'child-centered' learning, exploring issues from the pupil's point of view and valuing an individual's cultural and linguistic identity above all. Parts of this type resonated with me, but so did parts of the others. In some areas I am a traditionalist, believing in the value of exams, for instance. Something that seems to vex a lot of people on the course is the idea of 'setting' children (as opposed to having children of all abilities in one class). Like the Individualist, this does not excite me at all.

As I progress in my training I know my personal philosophy will develop, and it will probably be a patchwork quilt of a philosophy - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Because I don't think I want to conform neatly to a type. Or maybe I will start out as one type, Miss Idealistically Optimistic perhaps, and turn into something quite different when the reality of the classroom hits me. I'll keep you posted.

Hope vs. Reality

Boy does my brain hurt. I don't think I have used it this much for at least a decade. I feel it might take a little time for those cogs to start moving again. Today was the first 'proper' day after all the introductions and our primary school observation last week. There are about twenty people studying for an English PGCE and we had a good discussion this morning which revealed we all have very different views about what makes a good English teacher and the role that English should play in the curriculum. This afternoon we covered the history of educational reform and the interplay between the state and education professionals. Historically there has been a lot of mistrust between them, but where teachers and government can work together (like they do in Finland and South Korea) then successful educational policies can be implemented that really make a difference. Finland and South Korea have the best educational systems in the world, by the way.

I am not sure we have hit on the right balance in Britain. Although I found my primary school observation really fascinating, it was also pretty depressing. The school was near where I live - about a seven minute cycle - but the world that those kids inhabit couldn't be more different to mine. Half of the kids in my class came from fractured, chaotic backgrounds and the lack of structure in their lives played out in the form of really disruptive behaviour in the classroom. These are the kids who need good teachers the most but they make themselves difficult to teach.

There was one little boy who caught my eye, not because he was disruptive but because he was in a world of his own. One of the teaching assistants told me that his mother fed him and kept him clean but was not concerned about his well-being in any other way. He loved school, probably because the teachers and teaching assistants cared for him more than his mother, but I thought he was like a little ghost floating about, completely disinterested in learning and almost certainly emotionally damaged. What sort of life is he going to grow up to have? The staff at the school were incredibly well-meaning but if there is no parental support, and there could be any number of reasons why parents can't/won't support their kids, then I am not sure how much difference education can make.

I have made this career change because I am idealistic - I want to share my own passion for literature and language with the children I teach so that they will (hopefully) go on to become articulate, questioning adults with a life-long love and appreciation of the written word. I am discovering that the reality may be very different.

Quote of the day

I started a four-day observation in a local primary school today. Quote from one of the students to the teacher (about me):

"Miss, the new teacher is really bad because she has an American accent."

Ha ha. It does have an uncanny knack of surfacing when I am under pressure...

Day 1

'A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence ends.' - Henry Adams

My first day coincided with the announcement that The Sunday Times has named King's College the best university in the UK. That was reassuring to hear. But I think I would have been impressed even without knowing that. Everything is slick and modern - they are taking full advantage of the wonders of modern technology. Now, the only time I will need to go to the library is if I want to actually look at a physical copy of a book - how old-fashioned!

As for my course itself, well the good news is that I am not the oldest person in my class, I am the third oldest person...And I have a new friend in the second oldest person who also happens to be a film buff. During one of our breaks yesterday, we went for a cup of tea in the British Film Institute (the Southbank is my new stomping ground) and whiled away a happy hour discussing our favourite films and box sets (I am currently addicted to Mad Men; he is too). Film chats are now considered 'work'!

So, although it was quite strange being back at university again, I am feeling upbeat.