Dear oh dear oh dear! I've had such a terrible week at both poker and in real life that it just ain't funny!! Let's start with work...(Brace yourself, it's a high twaddle factor on this one.)
Well, as regular readers will no doubt already know, I've been in the teaching trade now for well over 15 years. It isn't the easiest job in the world and in fact ranks as one of the most stressful so I count just being able to survive in the teaching profession for such a length of time as an achievement! Yes, the holidays are good but these holidays nowhere near alleviate the stress and pressure that teachers face day in, day out when they're in the workplace.
In most state schools you get your Senior Leadership Team (SLT) who, although are usually more experienced than other teachers, have a vastly reduced timetable in order to carry out their other "necessary tasks." Of the timetable they DO have, most of their lessons involve teaching the older kids and those in the 6th form - who are far easier to manage and who pose far less hassle to the teacher than the younger kids. (So it's no wonder they give themselves those classes to teach rather than the more challenging ones which, I might add, have 30 kids in them rather than the 10-24 students you get in those other classes.)
Anyway, one of those "necessary tasks" - apart from parading around the place and looking important from time to time - is to observe lessons and make judgements on the teaching and learning that is taking place in the classroom. To cut a long story short, my lesson was deemed not to have reached the standard that I myself felt it reached. I won't go into the technicalities as I felt their decision was based on petty and twisted interpretations and it would probably just make me angry all over again but needless to say, after slaving away and working my guts out in this job, this is not something I particularly wanted to listen to or accept.
The main problem with all of this is that if you work hard and feel like you're doing a good job during your day to day routine, being told by SLT that you're not up to scratch can only lead to one result: I'm left feeling resentful, undervalued and with my morale shot to pieces! But the REAL problem they have when they do things like this is that if positive contributions are not ever really officially recognised, I'm now left to wonder if it's worth putting in any extra effort into my work at all!! The fact that I am still in this job after a colleague in my department was recently made redundant makes this all the more awkward. Fortunately, I DO have a sense of responsibilty towards the students that I teach so the only thing I CAN do, as always in these matters, is to keep calm and carry on.
---- A disastrous cash game session yesterday added to my woes which means that at the moment I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps, as they say. I'm off now to buy a new printer/scanner for my computer this afternoon but will blog about the hapless event later on when I feel up to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment