I used to be a Renaissance Man...Now I'm a teacher
Thanks to @HFletcherWood for choosing this article as one of the ‘Blogs of the Week’ for Schools Week Magazine
Why it’s time to reclaim teaching as an intellectual profession
As a pupil at a comprehensive school in Edinburgh now over 10 years ago, I had time to work hard for exams, take part in the debating and newspaper clubs, play in an orchestra, go to museums, read books, get midge-bitten trudging around the highlands for a Duke of Edinburgh award and have plenty of time left to catch up on E.R. and Friends (for this was the early ‘noughties).
When the time came to apply to university, the Deputy Head offered to write my reference. He was a PhD-educated eccentric who had been teaching there for so many years that he could remember the days when the school had been a prestigious all-boys private school based in a stunning neoclassical building on Calton Hill. Whilst his traditional teaching methods struck fear into many of my peers, amongst the musicians of the school he had a cult following for leading the infamous 2-3 week European music exchange. As well as turning a blind eye to various teenage indiscretions on tour, he also went so far as to create his own scholarship fund so that no pupil with musical ability would be excluded from taking part for financial reasons.
The UCAS reference he wrote for me, in characteristic florid style, categorised my academic and extra-curricular successes in detail, claiming that I was a true “Renaissance man”. To an awkwardly tall girl with unfashionably short hair and a complete ignorance of make-up or fashion (I’m still working on it), it was the ‘man’ part which drew my attention at the time. But in retrospect, I’ll take the “Renaissance” bit too, thanks.
Looking back, there is plenty to complain about my secondary education, but it’s true that I had time and the opportunity to study a broad and rich curriculum with teachers who were experts in their subjects. Even in shortage subject such as maths and the sciences, I was never taught by anyone who didn’t hold a degree in their subject and a good handful of our teachers had PhDs. But the point of this article isn’t to get all nostalgic about the good old days when I was at school. The problem is what’s happened since I started my own career as a teacher in inner-city London.
Since day one of my initial teacher training course nearly 5 years ago, my intellectual life has taken a real hit. Goodbye to the theatre, evening classes, playing music or even reading a book – teaching takes up all of your spare time and even some of that previously ring-fenced time for sleep and basic body admin. As a school pupil, I worked hard but had space to be inspired and follow a wide range of interests – I could be a ‘renaissance man’. But now I’m a teacher.
At a knowledge-based education event last week, it was agreed that teachers simply don’t have time to plan inspiring lessons across the broad primary curriculum. “We need schemes of work for the humanities curriculum in primary because primary teachers don't have the subject knowledge or time to create their own plans. They might be people who've come into teaching by starting as a TA and who spend their weekends catching up on sleep rather than reading poetry", a prominent commentator remarked. Russell group degree or not, it’s true that few of us have enough time to keep up-to-date with cutting edge research in our subjects and to follow the passions which drew us to teaching in the first place. But rather than accepting this as inevitable and arguing for more pre-packaged schemes of work, we should be arguing for more time for teachers to experiment, debate, read and get inspired.
It’s not just teachers quitting that we should be worried about - it’s also the ones who stay.
We all know teacher workload is a big issue. A record-breaking number of teachers left the profession this year, with monster accountability, the tyranny of a dull, uninspiring set of tests, low-pay, over-work and stress leading to burn-out given as key reasons for quitting. The recruitment and retention crisis is a worrying consequence of a managerial culture in education which has been further exacerbated by recent cuts. However, the consequences of data-driven education run far deeper than an increase in teachers quitting the profession.
When every aspect of school life is driven by the question 'What is the measurable impact? (i.e. on test results), there is no space left for inspiration, experimentation, real reflection and debate. And if we expect more and more from teachers in terms of data and 'measurable impact', but don't expect or give them time to read around their subject and plan exciting lessons then we are hollowing out all the intellectual aspects of being a teacher. It's not just the long hours and low pay that puts off bright young graduates from teaching.
We need to be inspired to be inspiring
Particularly in the knowledge-led education movement, we have high standards for children. We want them to have access to the best that's been thought and said across a broad curriculum. If you follow Hirsch, you aspire for pupils to be able to read and understand a national broadsheet by the time they reach the end of secondary school, to appreciate classical music and fine art and to speak another language. It seems that to have high standards for our pupils we need to model self-improvement and the pursuit of knowledge ourselves and to do this we need to reclaim teaching as an intellectual profession and give teachers time which is not accounted for in terms of ‘measureable impact’.
I’m glad I was taught by teachers who had time to stay inspired but in the current climate there’s no doubt it’s a challenge. My own way of making time has been to go part-time, at least for a period of review, enquiry and refreshment. Since resigning from my post as a class teacher and middle leader last year, I’ve had time to visit a range of different schools, to meet other teachers and to read and think more deeply about education and the subjects I love. But I can’t help feeling that if we don’t make time for full-time teachers and leaders to do this then we have little hope of nurturing a future generation of ‘Renaissance men’, let alone women.
