It's half term and there's a million things I need and should be doing, being an adult is like that: your world is full of a multitude of chores that have you dashing from one moment to the next, thoughts whirling, toes tapping impatiently, smiles given in a hurry because you don't have the time to let them reach your eyes...
My life is like that - I rush from one moment to the next, my mind a maelstrom of to do lists, crazy ideas and ironic musings. It's like that because modern life is like that: busy, chaotic, fast paced and .....transient.
We live in the moment without truly being in it, our heads are there but are hearts aren't. The here and now demands our attention, the need to get the washing done, that report for work, the bills to pay, the letters to post, the car to fill up and the food to buy. They are the small details that block the view of the bigger picture.
I want to slow down so the things that I do are more meaningful and mean I take the time to think about what I say that I may 'feel' what I say too. Yet it's the one thing I'm incapable of, the times I try are out of sync with the times others try.
It occurred to me that really living in the moment requires you to feel in the moment, not prospone your processing of it to just before you fall asleep or even during your dreams. It's more than saying what you mean and meaning what you say, but how much more I've no idea.
All I can say is that I've just noticed that as a modern society we are selfish and incapable of communicating with each other when it really means something. There's a dozen ways to say how you'd like your coffee but when it comes to emotion or feelings, words fail us.
Monday, 27 October 2014
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Women Understand Women and They Hate Each Other
That statement has been ringing in my ears for some time now. The rest of goes, so what chance do men stand and right now I'd place myself with the men.
I'm an NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) at a special school for children who have experienced sexual trauma, obviously it's tough. On any given day the children are always verbally aggressive and abusive, often violent and rarely remain in their seats for a whole lesson. Despite being sick of being someone else's punch and kick bag, I'm not too put out by it - they are children with deep rooted issues and no access to emotional literacy to express their trauma.
What I'm really struggling with is the toxic environment created by my colleagues. There's a power struggle going on between the current head and a teacher who wants her job (and is making it personal.) It's exhausting and a horrible place to be.
I made the decision to distance myself from it, after all I'm there to teach and nothing else, but in doing so I'm now very isolated. I'm floating in no man's land like a ephemeral ghost, searching for souls to guide me but having no light to gravitate to.
Recent changes aren't going to impact me too greatly, I've already been doing the lion's share of the work, teaching, planning and marking that another teacher has managed to shirk. What angers me is sitting on this knowledge, quietly, silently, being the woman that does that, but then being told that I'm most definitely flapping about it. No, no I'm not because nothing really changes for me.
I want out. These people are not my friends and they are not nice people. So now I sit and pray with fingers crossed for Friday to come, bringing with it the list of teaching vacancies.
I'm an NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) at a special school for children who have experienced sexual trauma, obviously it's tough. On any given day the children are always verbally aggressive and abusive, often violent and rarely remain in their seats for a whole lesson. Despite being sick of being someone else's punch and kick bag, I'm not too put out by it - they are children with deep rooted issues and no access to emotional literacy to express their trauma.
What I'm really struggling with is the toxic environment created by my colleagues. There's a power struggle going on between the current head and a teacher who wants her job (and is making it personal.) It's exhausting and a horrible place to be.
I made the decision to distance myself from it, after all I'm there to teach and nothing else, but in doing so I'm now very isolated. I'm floating in no man's land like a ephemeral ghost, searching for souls to guide me but having no light to gravitate to.
Recent changes aren't going to impact me too greatly, I've already been doing the lion's share of the work, teaching, planning and marking that another teacher has managed to shirk. What angers me is sitting on this knowledge, quietly, silently, being the woman that does that, but then being told that I'm most definitely flapping about it. No, no I'm not because nothing really changes for me.
I want out. These people are not my friends and they are not nice people. So now I sit and pray with fingers crossed for Friday to come, bringing with it the list of teaching vacancies.
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Temporary
I have spent at least one day a week, usually 2 or 3, preparing work and things for the next school year. I even enlisted the help of my mum on one of her days visiting me and all of this I did willingly. Unpaid because I am agency but willing. I have worried that a pre-job offer booked holiday meant I wasn't going to be around to pull my weight work wise, that I wouldn't be ready come September for my class, that I would be letting people down. I have snuck in moments of work on my holiday, checked emails and replied, tweaked lesson plans, booked trips, drafted permission letters, risk assessed trips and bought resources out of my own pocket. All the time I worried I wasn't doing enough and meeting other's expectations of me. I let work erode at my time with loved ones.
A few days ago I received an email from another teacher saying our head was going to change the classes AGAIN! These changes are BIG and render all the work - work she asked us to do in prep for our new classes back in July - void. She tells us this with less than a week to go until the return to school?! She expects the planning and prep to be done but I, for one, am too deflated and demoralised to bother.
I think I reached tipping point and asked L how he would feel if I didn't go back to that school in September and asked the agency for another booking. He said what I knew he would say: we need to get my NQT year done as you only get 5 years after qualifying to complete it and I am already a year into those 5 years. He thinks I need to suck it up until July to tick the box of my NQT and once that's been achieved leave. I know practically speaking he's right but I am so fed up with feeling unvalued and invisible. It seems because I am agency I am not on the company email lists and therefore am never included in on important notifications. I was told I'd have a contract last Easter and that changed to January due to (apparently) missing a deadline for submitting paperwork and I've not had any further reassurances this is still going to happen. I am using the log on details of other staff because despite being there at the school since February, I haven't been added to anything as a member of staff. I am temporary staff, agency staff. All of that pales into insignificance when I think about all the work we've done over summer in preparation for our classes and the children we were meant to have...everything we did we did for nothing, it was pointless and a waste of our time. How's that for feeling valued, for having your work and dedication valued???
If I think about it everything reeks of temporary. Except my excess baggage.
Tuesday, 15 July 2014
Impossible Situations
There's a line in Pretty Woman in which Richard Gere laments his knack for impossible relationships and I sympathise, mine is for impossible situations.
It seems I can't go a couple of months without finding myself in one - stuck between a rock and a hard place. Usually involving a conflict between my work and home life...
I withdrew into myself today, turning things over and over and over in my head and my heart. Each time I arrived at the same destination: anger and hurt.
Eventually I tried to talk to a friend but she misunderstood the situation, completely, and I didn't have it me to correct her.
No matter which way I turn this problem to look at it from another angle, I see the same disappointing facet. And no clear resolution.
I could philosophise all day long about how I ended up here (again) and try to apportion blame, but I'd still be no closer to knowing what I should do. Or what is the right thing to do.
Sometimes love has a hell of a lot to answer to. And the damned military too.
It seems I can't go a couple of months without finding myself in one - stuck between a rock and a hard place. Usually involving a conflict between my work and home life...
I withdrew into myself today, turning things over and over and over in my head and my heart. Each time I arrived at the same destination: anger and hurt.
Eventually I tried to talk to a friend but she misunderstood the situation, completely, and I didn't have it me to correct her.
No matter which way I turn this problem to look at it from another angle, I see the same disappointing facet. And no clear resolution.
I could philosophise all day long about how I ended up here (again) and try to apportion blame, but I'd still be no closer to knowing what I should do. Or what is the right thing to do.
Sometimes love has a hell of a lot to answer to. And the damned military too.
Saturday, 10 May 2014
Rock and a Hard Place
I seem to have this amazing knack for picking the oddest and most challenging places to work, the kind of places that are small, private and less than organised. To coin a phrase, once is once, twice is coincidence and three....well now that's a pattern and let's just say in term of my working life I'm well beyond three times is a pattern.
I don't know how - or even why - but some how I've managed to do it again. I was supplying as a SEN teacher for a private school. I was providing outreach teaching to children who have experienced severe trauma either through neglect or sexual/physical abuse. I was verbally offered a job and I accepted. I was over the moon.
That was over a month ago and since then....nothing except unfulfilled promises and no communication.
What do I do?...trust the offer is good and will be made good or trust my instincts that are telling me things have changed and that job is never going to materialise???
*sigh* rock and a garden place.
I don't know how - or even why - but some how I've managed to do it again. I was supplying as a SEN teacher for a private school. I was providing outreach teaching to children who have experienced severe trauma either through neglect or sexual/physical abuse. I was verbally offered a job and I accepted. I was over the moon.
That was over a month ago and since then....nothing except unfulfilled promises and no communication.
What do I do?...trust the offer is good and will be made good or trust my instincts that are telling me things have changed and that job is never going to materialise???
*sigh* rock and a garden place.
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Work vs Life
Some time ago I read an article that angered me greatly, it questioned whether a teacher in the current climate of education can ever hope to have a work-life balance. An undeniable hot topic. An unresolved one.
A work-life balance is hard to achieve in any business sector or job. For a start, everyone's understanding and concept of what a work-life balance differs.
No one argues with the notion that we all have a right to a life and to some relaxation time, but actually having those things....is another thing entirely. If you listen to the news or read the papers a picture of there being a dark cloud of doom hanging over the economy and working world is painted in infinite detail. Competition for jobs has increased, companies can afford to be more selective, the pressure in a job is increased as every company or establishment demands the very best from their employees and if you fail to give it...well step aside because there are plenty to fill your shoes. Rightly so when it comes to doing the job to the best of your ability, but I ask at what cost to the individual and eventually that sector?
As a person who has never been work shy and has regularly worked a 60+ hour week in my working career, I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to navigate the conundrum of guilt versus a work-life balance.
Personally, I'm a perfectionist and I have high expectations for myself, which means I have a tendency to drive myself to stressed exhaustion. This doesn't bode well for my current career as a teacher. Yet, I've started to do a u-turn on many habits and previous beliefs, it's just a shame it took L rolling the car in a accident and his ruptured appendix for me to do that.
This time last year I was shoulder deep in my second placement on a PGCE course, training to be a primary school teacher. Understandably a PGCE is tough - the government, head teachers, parents and children want the very best you've got to give and I've started to view that period of my life as being equivalent of a 9 month obstacle course. When the afore mentioned things happened - L rolling the car and his appendix rupturing - I initially made the decision that the course and my placement came first...and have never quite forgiven myself for that. I swiftly realised I wasn't coping with the demands of physically looking after L, the masters level course work due and the general workload of the course and looking after a home, so I went to see the powers that be in university. Suffice to say I was stunned and distressed by the lack of support I received, especially as it was from a person I had somewhat put on a pedestal. That's a demon for another day.
It was precisely that moment that I asked myself 'Is anything or anyone worth more to me or more important than L and my own health?' The answer was an emphatic 'no'. Since that moment I've been struggling to define what a work-life balance means for me. I no longer think it's acceptable to spend hours at a laptop planning lessons, or bent backed over exercise books marking and responding to work while L waits patiently to spend time with me. I no longer think it's acceptable to use my own money to purchase resources or things to use in the classroom and most importantly to put anyone above and beyond L and myself. To be frank, I don't think it's acceptable to be consumed by a job even if it is a calling. Perhaps then I shouldn't be a teacher but I ask this, were I an accountant in a finance department I wouldn't be expected to bring my own calculator to the job, or pens, or any equipment in general in order to do my job. Should I be made to feel less or unsuitable for a job because I am not willing to put myself under unrealistic and unsustainable pressure to do it? Should I be ostracised or judged negatively because I think my health is far more important than marking books? Should I be made to fee guilty for putting my home life before my work life?
The answer to all those is 'no' and I resent anyone who thinks it is acceptable to make an individual feel guilty for giving any other answer. With this attitude in place I'm fearful of what a career as a teacher is going to be like for me. Perhaps my opinion is slightly skewed on this but the prevailing and very much dominant ideology present during the PGCE course was if you weren't prepared to sweat and bleed planning and teaching you weren't a teacher and you weren't suitable, taking care of a home and those you shared it with came down to 'just dust that will still be there at the end of the course' and loved ones 'will be understanding that you aren't spending time with them, that you are tired and snappy and swear and will often be tearful'.
The fact remains as I do embark on a teaching career I am not certain it is for me, I don't think any job and anyone is more important or more deserving of my time and attention than loved ones and my own health. I don't believe that it is healthy to be consumed by a need to spend every ounce of my energy and spend the majority of the hours in my day on my job. Perhaps it has gone unnoticed by many but without a good stable home life with support, a place that is your sanctuary to retreat to when your head has become a tangled ball of things left undone, there can be no happy work place or ethos. When we go out to work to earn a living, what are we working for? What do we do it for? Who are we doing it for! If it's money to buy things like holidays or gifts for people they are our motivation, we are working for them, our loved ones. If it is to make a difference in children's lives what use to them are we if we're exhausted, fuzzy headed, stressed and emotional?
So, to answer the question can a teacher ever have a work-life balance?....I'm inclined to say not if the prevailing message being conveyed during your training is one that tells you teaching comes first and family/personal life second. Until universities and schools tell students and teachers alike 'Your health NEEDS family and relaxation time and you SHOULDN'T be made to feel guilty about having it' there can be no balance. I could go into a lengthy diatribe about university lecturers using positive modelling (you know, like they told us trainees to use with our class) or I could mention Ofsted and Michael Gove's penchant for only providing negative feedback despite research stating this causes students (of any age) to shut down and disengage. But I don't have the time because I took the time to blog and now I've got to claw back the hour or so I spent doing that because I feel guilty it wasn't time spent planning lessons and I'm obviously not working hard enough if I've time to blog.
A work-life balance is hard to achieve in any business sector or job. For a start, everyone's understanding and concept of what a work-life balance differs.
No one argues with the notion that we all have a right to a life and to some relaxation time, but actually having those things....is another thing entirely. If you listen to the news or read the papers a picture of there being a dark cloud of doom hanging over the economy and working world is painted in infinite detail. Competition for jobs has increased, companies can afford to be more selective, the pressure in a job is increased as every company or establishment demands the very best from their employees and if you fail to give it...well step aside because there are plenty to fill your shoes. Rightly so when it comes to doing the job to the best of your ability, but I ask at what cost to the individual and eventually that sector?
As a person who has never been work shy and has regularly worked a 60+ hour week in my working career, I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place when trying to navigate the conundrum of guilt versus a work-life balance.
Personally, I'm a perfectionist and I have high expectations for myself, which means I have a tendency to drive myself to stressed exhaustion. This doesn't bode well for my current career as a teacher. Yet, I've started to do a u-turn on many habits and previous beliefs, it's just a shame it took L rolling the car in a accident and his ruptured appendix for me to do that.
This time last year I was shoulder deep in my second placement on a PGCE course, training to be a primary school teacher. Understandably a PGCE is tough - the government, head teachers, parents and children want the very best you've got to give and I've started to view that period of my life as being equivalent of a 9 month obstacle course. When the afore mentioned things happened - L rolling the car and his appendix rupturing - I initially made the decision that the course and my placement came first...and have never quite forgiven myself for that. I swiftly realised I wasn't coping with the demands of physically looking after L, the masters level course work due and the general workload of the course and looking after a home, so I went to see the powers that be in university. Suffice to say I was stunned and distressed by the lack of support I received, especially as it was from a person I had somewhat put on a pedestal. That's a demon for another day.
It was precisely that moment that I asked myself 'Is anything or anyone worth more to me or more important than L and my own health?' The answer was an emphatic 'no'. Since that moment I've been struggling to define what a work-life balance means for me. I no longer think it's acceptable to spend hours at a laptop planning lessons, or bent backed over exercise books marking and responding to work while L waits patiently to spend time with me. I no longer think it's acceptable to use my own money to purchase resources or things to use in the classroom and most importantly to put anyone above and beyond L and myself. To be frank, I don't think it's acceptable to be consumed by a job even if it is a calling. Perhaps then I shouldn't be a teacher but I ask this, were I an accountant in a finance department I wouldn't be expected to bring my own calculator to the job, or pens, or any equipment in general in order to do my job. Should I be made to feel less or unsuitable for a job because I am not willing to put myself under unrealistic and unsustainable pressure to do it? Should I be ostracised or judged negatively because I think my health is far more important than marking books? Should I be made to fee guilty for putting my home life before my work life?
The answer to all those is 'no' and I resent anyone who thinks it is acceptable to make an individual feel guilty for giving any other answer. With this attitude in place I'm fearful of what a career as a teacher is going to be like for me. Perhaps my opinion is slightly skewed on this but the prevailing and very much dominant ideology present during the PGCE course was if you weren't prepared to sweat and bleed planning and teaching you weren't a teacher and you weren't suitable, taking care of a home and those you shared it with came down to 'just dust that will still be there at the end of the course' and loved ones 'will be understanding that you aren't spending time with them, that you are tired and snappy and swear and will often be tearful'.
The fact remains as I do embark on a teaching career I am not certain it is for me, I don't think any job and anyone is more important or more deserving of my time and attention than loved ones and my own health. I don't believe that it is healthy to be consumed by a need to spend every ounce of my energy and spend the majority of the hours in my day on my job. Perhaps it has gone unnoticed by many but without a good stable home life with support, a place that is your sanctuary to retreat to when your head has become a tangled ball of things left undone, there can be no happy work place or ethos. When we go out to work to earn a living, what are we working for? What do we do it for? Who are we doing it for! If it's money to buy things like holidays or gifts for people they are our motivation, we are working for them, our loved ones. If it is to make a difference in children's lives what use to them are we if we're exhausted, fuzzy headed, stressed and emotional?
So, to answer the question can a teacher ever have a work-life balance?....I'm inclined to say not if the prevailing message being conveyed during your training is one that tells you teaching comes first and family/personal life second. Until universities and schools tell students and teachers alike 'Your health NEEDS family and relaxation time and you SHOULDN'T be made to feel guilty about having it' there can be no balance. I could go into a lengthy diatribe about university lecturers using positive modelling (you know, like they told us trainees to use with our class) or I could mention Ofsted and Michael Gove's penchant for only providing negative feedback despite research stating this causes students (of any age) to shut down and disengage. But I don't have the time because I took the time to blog and now I've got to claw back the hour or so I spent doing that because I feel guilty it wasn't time spent planning lessons and I'm obviously not working hard enough if I've time to blog.
A Weighty Issue
Like a vast number of women out there I'm concerned (and fed up and frustrated) about my weight, in a nutshell I'm far heavier and softer than I'd like to be. I don't really understand why, I go to the gym 3 - 5 times a week and I mix everything up with weights, resistance training and cardio, plus I eat a healthy fibre rich diet and don't snack. And I'm still not what I would call slim...let me give you a few digits, I'm .....
36 years old
5ft or 152.4cm
8 st 9 lbs or 55 kg or 121.3 lbs
BMI 24.78 (normal)
Dress size (UK) 10, (European) 38, (US) 4 or 6
And STILL I'm not happy.
So what's the problem? Have I been comparing myself to others? Well, yes and no and a couple of other things in between those answers.
A couple of years ago those digits were different...and I was happier.
Surely my preoccupation should be with being healthy not slim or having the perfect body? What even is the perfect body and according to whom? And who are they to judge or decide what and whom has the perfect body? I'm not attacking anyone or looking to blame anyone, I'm genuinely curious. When and why did we as a society become so fixated on being slim? Why are so many women's, myself included, self esteem entwined with the number on the scales, the reflection in the mirror, the size label on our clothes and the label slim? Where has this fixation come from?
My psoriasis is virtual nonexistent, I have a few stubborn patches that refuse to disappear but that's no surprise because it is MY body we're talking about after all. Yet, that doesn't appease my vanity and boost my self esteem when it really should considering I have been a psoriasis sufferer for over 20 years and no amount of both prescribed and holistic lotions and potions have done that job.
My mum raised me with a great deal of love and she was always telling us girls that we could be and do anything we wanted, our looks and figures did not validate us as women, as human beings. I don't buy women's magazines being a firm believer my IQ drops by about 100 every time I do, so I'm unable to blame them for a negative body image and a preoccupation with being beautiful and slim. Which leaves the question, if I had a balanced, supportive, encouraging and empowering upbringing....why am I still governed by my appearance? And more importantly, if I as a 36 year old woman who hasn't been raised in a MTV era, encouraged to follow and emulate celebrity lifestyles, bombarded with airbrushed images of women and have still developed a sense of physical inadequacy, what chance do future generations of young girls have??
36 years old
5ft or 152.4cm
8 st 9 lbs or 55 kg or 121.3 lbs
BMI 24.78 (normal)
Dress size (UK) 10, (European) 38, (US) 4 or 6
And STILL I'm not happy.
So what's the problem? Have I been comparing myself to others? Well, yes and no and a couple of other things in between those answers.
A couple of years ago those digits were different...and I was happier.
Surely my preoccupation should be with being healthy not slim or having the perfect body? What even is the perfect body and according to whom? And who are they to judge or decide what and whom has the perfect body? I'm not attacking anyone or looking to blame anyone, I'm genuinely curious. When and why did we as a society become so fixated on being slim? Why are so many women's, myself included, self esteem entwined with the number on the scales, the reflection in the mirror, the size label on our clothes and the label slim? Where has this fixation come from?
My psoriasis is virtual nonexistent, I have a few stubborn patches that refuse to disappear but that's no surprise because it is MY body we're talking about after all. Yet, that doesn't appease my vanity and boost my self esteem when it really should considering I have been a psoriasis sufferer for over 20 years and no amount of both prescribed and holistic lotions and potions have done that job.
My mum raised me with a great deal of love and she was always telling us girls that we could be and do anything we wanted, our looks and figures did not validate us as women, as human beings. I don't buy women's magazines being a firm believer my IQ drops by about 100 every time I do, so I'm unable to blame them for a negative body image and a preoccupation with being beautiful and slim. Which leaves the question, if I had a balanced, supportive, encouraging and empowering upbringing....why am I still governed by my appearance? And more importantly, if I as a 36 year old woman who hasn't been raised in a MTV era, encouraged to follow and emulate celebrity lifestyles, bombarded with airbrushed images of women and have still developed a sense of physical inadequacy, what chance do future generations of young girls have??
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