What do you teach?

Understanding what it mean to be a teacher and why that question isn't so simple to answer. It's about the student not the subject.

We’ve all been in that situation when people ask you what you do for a living.  I’ve come to learn that there are usually two reasons why people ask; to get a general sense of something about you and what your perspective might be or to find out something that could generate a conversation.  The starting point is usually a generalisation. (When I started teaching and answered, “RE teacher”, 9 times out of 10, their response would be “Are you religious?”. I often wondered if History teachers were ever asked “Are you old?”.)  People’s job titles are often not that helpful and the context of the profession and organisation often needs explaining. 

My go-to answer is “Teacher” as this is fundamentally what my profession is, and a bit more personable and relatable that saying “I work in Education”. The understandable follow up question of “Primary or Secondary?”. However, for those who do not work in Education or whose experience of education is going to school, the answer “Secondary” invariably leads to the question, “What do you teach?”.  I could easily reduce what I do to “RE” but that isn’t exactly true as I teach a couple of other subjects too and RE teaching only makes up 25% of my timetable, and it doesn’t tell them what my job really is. The glib, witty and accurate response (though coming across as a sarcastic put down) would be “Young people”.  My role as a School Leader means that my interactions and impact as a teacher extends beyond the time that I teach (not just one subject) in the classroom. 

Regardless of whether I’m a classroom teacher or Subject Leader or a member of the Senior Leadership Team, my focus has not really changed; it’s about the kids. I went into teaching because I wanted to make a difference in young people’s lives. I wanted to have a positive impact, however big or small, directly or indirectly. I regularly think of the words of my teachers and what they taught me. Not always the subject matter but the lessons in life.  

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A story about a legendary teacher and a replacement pen

This looks more like my primary school than my secondary school but let me take you back in time to the mid 1980s.

I had one teacher, for whom I have many stories, such was his character. His name was John Geog. (I went to a school where nicknames for teachers were the norm and not for exclusive to students but used by their colleagues too.) If explanation is needed, his name was John Evans and he taught Geography. He was also Deputy Headteacher but that was incidental for this story.

I was doing a test in his lesson and I can’t really remember the test, so I don’t think I learnt any specific Geography content from it. I say this because I’d finished early having not answered all the questions and left lots of gaps. I spent the remainder of the test playing with my pen which snapped and flew across the room towards him. After being berated in a way that belonged to that time, he asked me why I’d finished already. He then proceeded to give me a different pen and told me to write something in every gap in my test paper. When John Geog gave me back my test, he gave me two different scores. One for what I’d written with my original pen and another that had my additional answers with the replacement pen added. Those additional answers had been enough for me to pass. My original efforts on their own would've meant fail and that meant a detention.

We all learn about oxbow lakes in Geography but he taught me that it’s always worthwhile to go back to something and give it a second look; that little things all add up and help to improve things; that things we think might be stupid or incorrect may be the answer that someone else is looking for.  

I often think about John Geog (there are plenty of great stories and my school friends have more) but he doesn’t get to see the impact that he has and has had in shaping how I see things as a teacher and the advice I give to students who think they have finished and can’t think of anything else to write.  

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit” (Greek proverb). 

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So I teach young people. Whether what I teach them is subject-specific and they remember the names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in a pub quiz one day or they made a bold decision and tell themselves that ‘outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens’, I want to make a difference. When I think about where I can make most difference, it’s a no-brainer that students from disadvantage backgrounds should rank high on that list. 

My Year 13s once gave me this on a T-shirt as their leaving present. I'd said it so often, it had become my catchphrase.

The value of education is beyond the immediate. I don’t teach so that students can pass the next test. I want to help equip them for the challenges that they will face in life and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to face more challenges.  I keep referring back to my first  featured post in which I speak about advantaging the disadvantaged. There are a number of areas in which disadvantaged students face barriers upon leaving education. At the start of this academic year, when I spoke to our staff to outline our Pupil Premium Strategy, I decided to focus not on what we were doing but why we needed to do it. I went for hearts and minds. 

The Sutton Trust has published a number of reports highlighting the problem or access to high quality schools and teaching to support academic performance where ‘social selection’ is occurring. This is why I have developed our Widening Access programme. I work at an Outstanding, high performing school, and if we want to wear that ‘badge’, we should make that available to people, so we take teachers and students into our local primary schools with a high proportion of Free School Meals students to work with their students. 

Add to this the level of aspiration and encouragement young people get from their parents. The circumstances of disadvantage are different but there is a higher likelihood that the disadvantage could come from having significant contact with only one parent. Every family is different and the aspiration may be deliberately low out of necessity or experience. When it comes to social mobility, it isn’t just accepting your lot but not know what the alternative could be. 

You can’t talk about social and economic disadvantage without addressing the cost of material resources, including equipment and the cost of enriching experiences. I had an argument with a colleague who questioned the educational benefit of some of the trips that we offered students. I was quite persistent in pointing out that while many families could contemplate a family day out somewhere or have an itinerary of holiday activities, were it not for school trip, some young people wouldn't get to do or go to places that others see a just a day out. This leads on to the importance of cultural capital and understanding of how to approach new experiences. It’s all very well taking a group of students to the theatre or to visit a historic site or attend an event but they need to understand those things that others may take for granted, such as what to wear, how you speak, if it’s ok to stand in certain places and ultimately how to behave in the way that people do. Having been in this position myself, it isn’t often the cost of something that is off-putting but the feeling that it’s ‘for other people, not people like me’. A diminished social confidence and self-esteem in comparison to their peers. 

I have made a commitment, that I asked the staff at my school to share in. The difference I want to make is that I want to provide young people with advantages: having the chance to experience something that the family would not be able to afford; experiencing something that would broaden their perspective beyond the day-to-day; not having to think about whether they can justify buying a textbook or resource; having confidence and self-assurance while attending events; being shown what is possible and how to achieve it; and turning one-off experiences into sustained experiences.

If people ask me what I do for a living, this is what I do. I try and make a difference.