Who is the Old Teacher?

 Well one thing I should admit from the start is that I'm not a teacher. Not any more. However I was a teacher in an 11-16 secondary school in South Wales for 37 years. 

That, and my age, of course, make me an old teacher. 

I loved my teaching career for just over 25 years. In the following 12 years I was driven to depression, burnt out and in some ways quite let down by the school in which I finished my career. 

I retired, took my full pension and a lower paid job working as a clerical officer for the NHS. I learned what it was like to actually look forward to going to work again. I learned what it was like not to take your work home with you, literally and metaphorically. I learned what it was like working with people who have nothing but friendship and respect to offer you.

For two years, I didn't really want to even think about teaching, let alone talk about it. Then I discovered a group about leaving teaching on Facebook. It was not only about people who had managed to do so, like me, but for people who also desperately still want to get out of teaching. I began posting, writing about my own experiences and trying to give advice to others in a similar position to the one I was in a couple of years ago.

I enjoyed it so much that it inspired me to create this blog. so I can continue to do so.

I do not run any companies.

I am not trying to recruit anyone for anything.

I have not written any books on the subject that I'm asking you to buy. 

But if you find anything of interest in any of these posts and you'd like to leave a comment, or ask me a question, then I'd love you to do so. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Am I wrong to want to Quit?

  See how familiar this sounds. Your career is going well and you’re enjoying your teaching, you like the vast majority of the children you teach, you love your subject and the results are good, then it ‘s wonderful to think that you’re doing something special for the children. Then one day it’s not going so well and it’s a different story. Let’s be honest, in any walk of life there are people who don’t like their job. But when you feel like that as a teacher, the problem is the guilt that feeling brings with it. You think – I don’t enjoy this anymore- which often leads to the thought – but if I feel like this I’m letting down the children – maybe it’s my fault . Once you start feeling like that, you’re on a downward spiral. Well, you know, it is perfectly okay to not like teaching any more. You’re not letting down anyone by feeling this way – the only person you let down is yourself because you feel guilty about it. The trouble I found was that while I could rationalise this, I c...
Read more

Should I move Schools?

I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't work for some people. When you're weighing up your options for getting out of the situation in which you find yourself within your teaching career, I would certainly recommend you asking yourself a few questions about the way that you're feeling. This will clarify how likely it is that moving schools might make things better for you. You need to try to be analytical and ask yourself - exactly what is it that you hate so much about your current position? Because if the answer is the workload or the behaviour of the children, then it's unlikely to be substantially different in another school.  On the other hand if your main beef is the SLT or your Head of Department, then possibly a move might be more appropriate.  I do find a lot of people I have met through various groups I belong to who know that they don't want to continue working in the position they are, yet who still want to continue in education. For example, I have...
Read more