New year, old me

Apologies for the brief hiatus in posts.  I had fully intended to write an end of term special as typically the end of term in a school brings about A LOT of great material, particularly at the end of the wilderness that is the eight week half term leading up to the Christmas break.  By the final week teachers are mostly shells of their former selves, clinging on for dear life, their only motivating factor to continue to get out of bed in the morning being the impending two glorious weeks of recovery time. But during this final week there is also a corresponding undercurrent of exhausted excitement around the school building.  I suppose it could be likened to the same behaviour that one might see in an overtired toddler whose fatigue eventually turns into a red faced hyperactive hysteria. It’s this mood that tends to bring about the good stories. And this year was no exception, especially for me. Regardless of that fact that I was near dead on my feet with barely a vocal chord left to get me through my final lessons, I still managed to have one of the best weeks of my teaching career so far.  In this final week of term alone, I hosted another great masterclass, this time with legendary UK Garage DJ, Spoony, a real professional and personal highlight (despite moonlighting as a teacher I am a true garage girl at heart). I also took my A Level class on a trip to meet the writer of their studied text and the Artistic Director of the Young Vic Theatre, Kwame Kwei Armah for a private Q+A (who also happens to be one of the most intelligent and articulate humans I have ever met - more on that to follow).   And we even managed to squeeze in an alumni reunion and networking event with our first three graduating cohorts and of course let’s not forget the highlight of every school calendar - the annual debaucherous staff Christmas party.  

But with all of the excitement described above, that end of term post just never happened.  By the time I finished school just over two weeks ago, all I could focus on was celebrating and sleeping.  So instead this post is going to take a different direction. I’m going to follow in the footsteps of every current  Instagram influencer or motivational quoter - I’m going to reflect. Because not only have we just entered a new year but also a new decade and with that comes the inevitable nostalgia of everything that has happened over the last.  Well for me, as soon as I sat down to consider what I had achieved since 2010 I realised that the last decade spans the entire length of my teaching career. Although I have worked in the UK school system since 2008, I trained and qualified as a teacher at the turn of the decade and so much of my life since then has been defined by this choice.  

 And therefore much of my day to day life is impacted by what I have to get out of bed  for everyday and do for a living. And it has challenged me on many occasions over the past ten years to put it lightly!  And it is through some of these challenges that I have realised how often I have strived to better myself as a teacher and as a person in general over the course of my career.  And as New Year tends to prompt resolutions in your average person, in teachers it tends to be chronic.  Better lessons, better work completion rates, better productivity, better results.  It’s exhausting!

 And let’s not forget the crushing disappointment of unfulfilled expectations.  We assume that we will wake up on the first of January and feel different. Motivated, inspired, enlightened even, armed with our pages of lists that we have been desperately working on in preparation for the first day of the year.  But the reality is that for most people, January the first wakes you up with a fuzzy head at best and a complete comatose state at worst. And really, hangovers aside, does it really feel any different? Would I return to work a new and better version of Miss Hall the English teacher, suddenly more knowledgeable, more efficient, more capable?  Of course not, we are all only human.

 I had prepared myself to go into school today to face the same conversations with my beloved students as I have been having with my friends of late - talks of vision boards, cosmic ordering, manifestation, “new year new me” and all the trimmings.  And don’t get me wrong, whilst I don’t mind this type of thing in moderation, sometimes these unnecessary pressures can cause you to feel like you are setting yourself up with unrealistic expectations that are just destined to fail and leave you feeling disheartened.  Because sometimes isn’t it nice to just go with the flow? Just allow things to evolve naturally and see what happens?

 And so whilst I came back to work ready to preach this same message to any of the kids who I felt might have been setting themselves up for these same anti climatic disappointing outcomes, what I found today at school was something oh so refreshing.  None of the students were talking about anything of the sort. There was no talk of goals, of dry Januarys, of weight loss or new year’s resolutions. No unrealistic promises to themselves about improved work completion or renewed optimism. Instead there was laughter and fun and music and conversation.  And it was just what I needed. Because what I realised was this. Young people are so great at just being present. Or at least my young people here are. So I’m going to take a leaf out of their book and ditch the lists for now and instead you can find me concentrating on just enjoying the job that I am so lucky to get up for everyday.   And will tomorrow feel any different?  Probably not and you know what, I’m happy with that because if something isn’t broken...