Teachers: Being a Martyr Doesn’t Help Anyone
Constantly taking on more and more work won’t make you a better teacher
Teaching is a really tough job, wherever you are in the world. It takes a lot of energy, enthusiasm, skill and knowledge to educate young people.
On top of the daily work of being in the classroom there is the marking, the assessments, the form filling in, the parent meetings, the staff meetings, the planning, the putting up displays, the politics.
It is absolutely no surprise to me whatsoever that there is a recruitment crisis in the UK. Too many teachers are leaving and not enough are being trained to replace them because the job is too hard and the pay too little.
To some extent though, I think we (as teachers) have brought it on ourselves. The job often attracts a particular type of person that wants to help others. An empathetic, caring person. While these traits would usually be considered positive, they are often exploited in a school. A headteacher will ask more and more from you because it’s “for the children” and you will find it impossible to say no because it’s “for the children”.
I remember going on a course once with about forty other teachers a few years ago. At some point during the day, we were all asked to say how many hours we worked per week. A competition ensued where everyone there was trying to outdo each other. Fifty hours a week was considered nothing. Most people worked more than sixty per week. Someone even claimed to work seventy hours per week. They were shocked when I declared that I only worked forty-five hours (which was still a ridiculous amount and certainly much more than I was being paid for). How do you do it, they asked me. The answer was simple: I didn’t waste my time on the bullshit.
My headteacher knew that I got good results, so he largely left me to my own devices. I knew what was important in the job and what was just fluff. I concentrated on building good relationships with my pupils, getting to know them and their interests, and planning lessons based on them. I did as much self-assessment and peer marking as possible during lesson time to cut down on the amount of marking I had to do at the end of each day. I used lots of drama activities that required zero resources but which were fun, engaging and language rich. I took care of my resources so that I only had to make things once. I wasn’t going to win any awards for best teacher, but I think I did the best that I could within reasonable hours.
In another school that I worked in, the Special Educational Needs Coordinator was one of those people who became a martyr. She was forever working in the evenings and at the weekends. Her caseload was huge, but instead of asking for help, or putting her foot down to get rid of other commitments that she had been landed with, she just kept taking on more and more and then spent her time complaining about how overworked she was.
Secretly, I think she enjoyed the feeling of being indispensable.
But here was the thing. She was in charge of coordinating the needs of children who had learning difficulties. As she had so much on her plate, and she refused to delegate, children’s needs started to be neglected. If a child had a particular need, she said that she would take care of it, instead of helping other colleagues to find their own solutions, or seeking external professional support.
She became manic, jumping from one issue to another to another, never committing to thorough, well-thought-out programmes. She thought that she was a great professional because of how much she was taking on, but in reality, she was letting the children down.
In my opinion, being a good teacher means knowing when to say no. It means always asking, “and how will this help children’s learning?” of your superiors. It means leaving school before 5 pm and having your own life so that the next morning you can return to the classroom with energy.
