So I’m applying for a new job. I sent off for the job description and application form, looked up the school’s last inspection report, googled it to discover any unsavoury news stories, and solicited everyone I know for information.
I didn’t really ask myself why I wanted to apply for this new job. It’s just that I like to make life
difficult for myself. I’ve been at my present job for long enough now, so some niggling voice keeps telling
me. I’ve earned the kind of grudging respect that any longish term teacher receives when they’ve been there
longer than any of the kids. There’s not a time that any of the current pupils can recall when I wasn’t
there, nagging in the corridors, droning on about homework, and all that kind of thing.
So why not start all over again? Spend months and maybe years getting to know colleagues, pupils, new school procedures, new times for bells and new rules and local knowledge. It would definitely be a case of out of the fat and into the frying pan, and it would be so comfortable to stay where I am, but we’ve got too familiar with each other now, me and my classroom.
For years now I’ve been staring at the same stains on my ceiling, wondering how they ever got there and
if they will ever go. I know at what time of day the sun hits my classroom in summer, blinding each and
every one of us and slow roasting us alive. I’ve watched the layers of dust pile up even higher in all those
places the cleaners never reach. I’ve tried 57 varieties of wall display and not one variation covers up the
greasy ghosts of blu-tack past. Text books have crumbled in my hands, children have grown up and moved on,
my stock cupboard gets full and then tidied and then full again. Not once has my classroom been painted. The
PCs are passé. The same chair has been gay for more than a handful of years now, or so the tipp-ex claims.
I’m jaded. I’ve always had my moans of course, but now I’m just weary rather than angry.
At staff meetings I hear “new blah blah blah” and I’m almost surprised to find that this time I’m the one muttering obscenities and negativities under my breath, rolling my eyes when we’re told something new has to be in place by 2011, feeling the severe hand of dread clutching at my heart at the thought of staring at the same walls in five years’ time.
And yet paradoxically I love teaching more and more. I’m more accomplished now, in the way that only experience can enable you to be. I give lessons my all, and right now I’d say I have more lessons of inspection standard each week than ever before. No slumping at the desk for me! I try new things out all the time to keep my teaching fresh, rather than churn out the same lessons year in and year out. It wears me out but it stops me dwelling too much on the dirty walls and stained ceiling of my little 6-hours-a-day prison.
The application form arrived a few days ago. I started writing my letter, a project which took three hours the first evening and four the second. So much to cram in to a few sides of A4: philosophy of teaching, ability to perform like a seal, love of education and schools and my subject, and how much I adore giving up free time to run clubs and coach teams and take trips out…
The first draft of my letter was finished but I started to feel despondent. Why was I promising to do all
this stuff I didn’t really want to do? Why was I offering myself up on a plate, ready to be consumed by
tricksy new pupils and cliquey old staff? Why the upheaval and stress, just because I’m fed up with a battered
old classroom? But it was too late. I’d asked friends to give up their time to read my drivel and suggest
ways to make me sound saner. I’d informed my bosses that I’d be applying, so I’d feel
a fool if I didn’t.
I carried on revising my letter, thinking of choice phrases in the car and on the toilet and writing them down on scraps of paper to add to my letter as soon as I could. Half-remembered phrases came swimming into my consciousness: multiple intelligences, assessment for learning, benchmarking… Then it was time for the form itself, best black pen at the ready – another two hours to fill in. I printed off my letter, cursing myself for not getting better quality paper to make an impression. I checked it again and again, and then slid it carefully into a large white envelope ready to post.
That very act of tipping it into the post box is one fraught with nerves. What if I missed a bit out? What if something was sealed into the envelope that I never meant to go in? Will it get there in time? Will the envelope become sodden in the rain and my nice black ink smudge beyond legibility? What if they don’t even offer me an interview? WHAT IF THEY DO? What would I wear? How can I get a haircut in time? What would I say? What might they ask?
And then I get beyond myself with my thoughts: how sad would I be to leave my present school? How relieved? What would I miss and what would I be glad to never see again? How long would it take to clear my classroom? What would I keep and what would I fling away with happy abandon? How soon would I be begging for my old job back? What if I don’t get the job? Would people hate me? Would they always be looking at me out of the corner of their eyes, wondering why I wanted to leave? Wondering when I’m next going to apply for a job and potentially leave them with the expense of advertising and recruiting my replacement?
So my brain has been spinning and my sleep has been restless, and whenever something has gone wrong at school I’ve been thinking: ha! I could be out of here in a few months! And whenever something nice has happened I’ve thought, this place ain’t so bad. A new place might be far, far worse…
But that’s it for now. The powers that be at the new school will shuffle through their pile of applications,
scrutinising them to guess whose profile would fit, and it’s out of my hands for now. At least I don’t have
any further decisions to make about it for a week, or if I get a rejection letter straight away then I’ll
have to start undoing the negativity about my present job and resigning myself to the fact that I’ll be
staring at those same walls a little longer… or maybe for the rest of my working life. No… there’s no way
that’s going to happen.
added 26/11/06
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