Monday rave: why I love being a teacher

• I like that it's never, ever boring - and as someone who gets bored easily - that's a real bonus. It's never the same from one day to another. Or from one year to another.

• I like the energy, creativity, ideas, and  humour of the colleagues I work with.

• I like the energy, creativity, ideas and humour that I get from the students in my classroom.

•  I like that I get to (justifiably) spend money on books and movies.

•  I like it when a student or a group takes an idea and runs with it. I'm a big fan of veering off at tangents.

•  I love it when kids are racing each other to get in the door so that they can be the first to see what the "Word of the Day" is - and I really love it when so many of those words turn up in their writing.

• I love sitting on the stage at Prizegiving - with a number of tissues at the ready - and seeing the fine young people who are finishing their secondary school career.

• I love that I get paid to be passionate about books and poems and song lyrics and films and words.

• It's fantastic when a student gets so involved in something that they are really angry or upset - like when Othello is sooo blind to Iago's evil, or when Piggy dies....

• I like that I sometimes enter my classroom in the morning feeling grumpy for some reason - I'm tired, or it's raining, or some political skirmish has broken out in the staffroom - and realise 20 minutes later that I'm feeling great!

• I love it when a student points out something that I hadn't thought of.

• I love those Christmas cards which tell you how much they have come to love English.

• and I especially love being a teacher when it's the first day of the summer holidays!

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An Unexpected Hiatus

 (Warning: Rant follows)

Today I was given a gift: a day off work which I didn't ask for and didn't want.  It's actually an expensive gift for the recipient, because it's going to cost me a day's salary.  But I had no choice other than to accept it.

I could have felt annoyed and angry (I do), and harboured resentment (I am).... for one thing, I don't like being told what to do by people for whom I have no respect, but also because:
I don't believe that strikes achieve anything other than to set the strikers up for vilification from members of the public, particularly those who have only been told, thanks to the press, about the requested salary adjustment ("demand" in journalese), which at 4% is actually irrelevant and which, even if granted, would not go anywhere near even touching inflation.  What are far far more important are the negotiations around our conditions.  NZ teachers are paid far less than in any other OECD countries (see article and table in this morning's NZ Herald).  And teaching in this country is very much an aging profession.  How on earth can we hope to attract young people into teaching, AND keep them in it, if they are poorly paid and expected to work so very hard??

I love my job. On weekdays I work an average of 10 hours a day, and 5-7 hours over the weekend.  People who really think that we work from 8.30 until 3.00 5 days a week and have all of those long holidays to swan around doing nothing just..... well, they leave me speechless.

However.
There have been some good things about today.

• spring is finally making some headway, and it is possible to believe that there will eventually be a summer

Spring in my garden

• the tomatoes which I bought yesterday prove to actually have some flavour, and made a delicious lunch when sliced thickly on some warm wholemeal (Vogel's) toast which was liberally slathered with hummus
• I just picked up Paul Auster's Invisible, which I have been meaning to read for months
• if the rain holds off I should have time to take the dog for a much-needed walk (longer than the usual twice-daily blats around the block)

I've also managed to get quite a few reports done.  Yes, yes, I know, I should be showing solidarity with my colleagues by not doing any schoolwork at all today.  The opportunity to get through some of my 79 senior student reports was simply too good to let pass.

And.... I've had time to write this post.

Kia ora

Alexia

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