It's a sad state of affairs. I'm literally counting down the days to the end of teaching pracitce. I know it's 60 days, broken up with weekends and the Easter holiday, in which time I will teach at least 120 lessons.
That's 120 lesson plans, each taking about 40 mins-hour each, 120 equipment requests, 10 or 12 different topics and hence 10-12 schemes of work, I'll have to learn at least 150 different names of kids (which I'll forget the minute I walk out the door in june) and what makes them tick, do at least 200 hours of marking, 300 hours of lesson observation, and no doubt about 30 hours of detention. After lessons, I'm expected to pack away and write reflections on each lesson to inform my planning and I probably have to kick some small childs arse as well for 5 minutes at the end of each lesson.
Oh yeah and there's about 120 hours of teachin in there somewhere.
So in one term (well two half terms), which is about 12 weeks I'll have been expected to do about 700 hours. I figure that to be a 60 hour week, 10 hours a day and my timetable is pretty slim compared to real teachers. Add to that the work I have to do for college to secure my PGCE, the essays and the portfolio, the background study I have to do to keep up to date with my subject knowledge, the masses of educational literature I'm tryin to get through.
I dread to think how many hours I'm gonna be doing by the end of this but fuck me it will be a relief when they're all over. I can really only see myself teaching part time if anything but it's little wonder that teacher retention is so poor. How the bloody hell can we expect any human being to work under that sort of strain day in day out? Apparently the first year after graduating is the hardest and actually harder than this year. I've already buckled once under this strain.
I can't think about what's on the other side just yet. I really HAVE to get this fucking qualification even if it fucking kills me, cos I can't let some fucking 12 year olds have me this time. But now the focus is less about pulling through and getting the skiills to do a job than it is on simply getting through for my own pride. It shouldn't be like that I know, but this course gives you the insight to see that teaching is really a job for the ultra-dedicated, those angels with hearts of gold and nerves of steel. i think I've got one of those but the nerves are just not there.
Keep soldiering on and come the first week of June I will be sitting in the sun of Roehampton wondering what the hell that was all about and looking for my next adventure. It's been an adventire here, hell the adventure is really just beginning but is it the adventure of my choice? I guess hindsight is a wonderful thing and i'll only really be able to tell you that in June.
