In praise of the glory of the humble teenager as “hero”

In praise of the glory of the humble teenager as “hero”

A question many parents ask themselves, at least once, when their children hit those “problematic years”. Why would anyone remotely coherent and sane choose to work in a school, especially one with teenagers?

Schools are marvellous places; altruistic organisations where young minds are developed and children explore their philosophical outlook on life, the world and everything in between. Pragmatically, they are establishments where parents send children to be cared for while they work. Cynics say they are a place to send children so that parents can achieve some peace and quiet. 

Nelson Mandela praised education as:

“The most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” 

Mandela recognised that schools help young people to learn life’s necessities: how to read and write, how to communicate effectively, how to make friends and settle disputes and play sports, act, sing, learn an instrument, pass exams, make jokes, share adventures and develop kindness, resilience and determination. Mandela also recognised education as a tool for the empowerment of young people.

Einstein was more critical of schools:

 

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” 

Does school make education more of a challenge? Arguably it does. Schools are full of teenagers; teenagers experiencing growth spurts, hormonal surges and huge developmental changes: physical, cognitive and emotional. 

The teenage years are notorious for impulsive behaviour, recklessness, disobedience, subversive rebellion, strange clothing choices, dyed hair or long hair or shaved hair or a combination of all three. Monotone answers (if given at all), excessive sleep, shouting, defiance, a loathing of authority and a desire for irresponsibility. Teenagers are the anti-heroes of developmental phases, as bad as the infamous “terrible twos.”

Which brings us back to the question: Why would anyone remotely coherent and sane choose to work in a school, with teenagers?

A recent British YouGov survey asked almost 1000 teachers to cite the reasons why they worked in the profession. The top reason? 83% of teachers said seeing pupils develop and achieve. What is all the more astounding about this figure is that teenagers are not renowned for their good judgement, sensible decision making or respectful love of authority. They are not renowned for heroism. And yet, as teachers we love our jobs, we strive for our best to honour young people’s decisions and support them in their learning, support them on their hero’s journeys.

 

Since Einstein’s school days, educationalists have become more aware of the cognitive developments in young brains. We know that the rational part of a teenager’s brain is not fully developed, and won’t be until the age of 25. Teenage brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part, the part that responds to situations with good judgement and an awareness of long-term consequences. Unlike adults, teenagers process information with the amygdala, the emotional part of the brain.

 

Teenager’s brains are still developing the connections between the emotional and the decision-making centre. They often experience overwhelming emotional inputs which they find difficult to explain because their feelings are more powerful than the rational aspects of their brains. This can lead to shouting with frustration, denying homework ever existed in the first place and hating everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

 

A teenager’s brain also becomes more able to think abstractly. They can make plans and set long-term goals, they can develop an interest in the larger world, concerned with philosophy, politics, and social issues. Teenagers see the potential for independence and control, and, conversely, peer influence and acceptance becomes more important; they compare themselves to their peers. This can lead to insecurity, joy and anger - sometimes all at the same time.

 

The teenage years are also a period of growth spurts and puberty. Teenagers grow at a fast pace and their bodies go through changes which can feel overwhelming, frustrating and sometimes frightening. They can be more like gawky, clumsy spiders than graceful, heroic athletes or dancers.

 

So we ask again, why would anyone remotely coherent and sane choose to work in a school, with teenagers?

The response to the question, for me, is that it can feel quite magical to work in a school and just observe, over the course of a year or years, as these teenagers become young people. It feels magical to watch teenagers’ brains develop, as they discover the breadth and beauty of the world, as they create opinions and battle their impulsivity and make mistakes and learn from their experiences. James Sallis, in his novel Willnot, describes this: “Think of the energies required to bend…into conformance and hold them there." At the end of this piece is a link to a poem which encapsulates the celebration of life as a teacher and the joys of working with young people every day. 

It is extraordinary and magical, as a teacher, to be a part of young people’s lives at this stage of their development. Being a teenager takes immense courage and energy, every single day, to face GCSE exams and A levels, to negotiate friendships and expectations and depths of feelings which seem inexplicable. Teenagers walk their paths every day with hope and joy and sometimes fear, yet journey on with  energy and resilience. We are privileged to see those children emerge from the chrysalis of their teenage years and become young adults. We teach in schools, with teenagers, because it is an everyday miracle, to experience the glory of the humble teenager as they walk their hero’s journey.

https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/it-is-everywhere/

Back in the Desert

Been away for a while, mainly because of two huge life events. Those sort of life events that ironically enough, put life on hold while you carry on doing other stuff; feeding the kids, sleeping, driving to work, living! The two things were a death in the family and moving again. The death in the family was a sudden, unexpected, quick death. Sadly it was my mother in law that died. The reason I haven't written about the whole experience is because I found it all so sad and she is very much missed and it's been a difficult goodbye and so quick that I've never felt able to gather thoughts.
Then suddenly it was the summer, we had new jobs to go to (in a new country) and I was tied up with shipping and legalising documents and talking to the children about moving and telling friends and closing up our house in Spain.
And suddenly here we are in Dubai...we've been here just over a month and it's been a hectic, wonderful, hot and crazy time. We have a new home, new jobs, the children are in new schools. We're driving a hire car and relying on new friends for lifts to school and taking our kids to school.
Events have re-affirmed our faith in the best of human nature and the roads and driving in Dubai have reminded us of humanity's worst attributes (impatience, intolerence and road rage).
Moving around (this is our third move across continents in 5 years) tests everything about your life. Your sense of self, your relationships with family, your marriage. It test your inner resilience to the utter breadth and depth of being. I am full of gratitude that I am happy. Sometimes stressed but happy! The kids are great and my marriage is a wonder that fills me with joy every day.
There are a billion things I need to do, with our house (to make it a home), at school, for the new friends that we have made, with my children every hour of every day that I can spend with them. Moving continents stretches patience and tolerance and the bank balance...but it is also an exciting adventure, one that re-affirms our ability to enjoy the life we live and make the most of every single moment we have here. It's a time to re-evaluate and feel gratitude that we are here, now, enjoying life, writing a blog and rambling about life and death and love.

The bi-toed monster footprints in the sand

I love my walk on the beach. It’s become a wonderful ritual on my Mondays and Fridays off. I drop the children at their school bus then drive down to the beach, take a thirty minute walk along the sand and feel as if I have set myself up for a wonderful day.

I was a bit out of sorts this morning. We’ve had a busy week and even though I thought we weren’t late for the bus, as we drove past the bus stop I could see the other children all boarding and then horror of horrors, the bus slowly pulled away and we missed it. I didn’t panic, just followed the bus thinking than eventually it would have to stop again. It took a pretty convoluted route, stopped for a very short time at a major intersection (where I made the decision that I shouldn’t let my kids out – too busy, too quick.) Eventually, the bus stopped at a random roundabout with a convenient little parking place. There weren’t any other children waiting and then I realised that the clever coach driver had noticed the car following him along his convoluted route and had stopped for my kids. I was grateful but a little flustered and felt grumpy as I made my way to the beach.

There’s a magic in a beach walk though. Those waves dashing the shore work on an aural level through the brain fibres and along the emotional rivulets of your soul. The sky was grey but it didn’t matter. The sand was soft, forcing my body to work up just a little bit of heat and sweat as I worked at walking and my muscle memory worked at forgetting the tension of the bus catching drive.

It’s a sensory delight, the sights and sounds of the sand and sea, that inexplicable sea side smell of emptiness. The soft yielding sand and splash of cold salty tang. It’s a distraction for the body and the brain. As I walked I couldn’t help noticing the minor major details, the broken plastic chair that was a bit broken the time before last, very broken last time, has now disappeared. The small pretty shells washed ashore. The absence of those strange sea weedy little things that look like coconut shells but could easily harbour some watery creature from the depths of the scary deep. The smooth rivulets of clean sand that the tractor comes to tidy and the man in the tractor must take a great pride in his work because he always makes pretty patterns on the shore.

Today there was the added pleasure of the bi-toed monster footprints in the sand. There aren’t often footprints when I walk as I am at the beach fairly early. Today there were bare footprints that I puzzled at a while. There were clearly two sets, one walking up, one walking back, but they were so evenly spaced that the foot had landed in almost exactly the same place at times, creating a wonderfully neat bi-toed imprint in the sand. I had great fun imagining the monster creating the print with a set of 5 toes at each end of his foot.

The puzzle was soon solved by the appearance of the bare foot runner enjoying his early morning beach experience as much as me (but with more sweat). His running stride was impressively even and he was stepping on to his own footprints, Robinson Crusoe style. We said ‘Ola’ and he was away. I finished my walk, feeling refreshed to the very depths of my soul.

At a loss for words - morality and philosophy with children

Listening to the news with your children can be a dangerous thing. The headline a few days ago on the radio was: 17 year old sentenced to life in Florida for murder of two.

My son’s face was shocked. “17?” he said. “He murdered two people and he was only 17?”

Then my daughter joins in:

“Why did he murder those two people mummy?”

“I don’t know sweetheart”

“Was he a good guy or a bad guy?”

It is 8.30 in the morning, I am barely awake and my daughter is asking me about morality. I wish my brain would function more quickly, that I could think of the best thing to say to an 8 year old and a 6 year old as they ponder the realities of lives around them, of dangerous streets and disturbed people doing horrible things to one another. They are 8 and 6 and I want to love and protect them and keep them safe from harm but...

This is the real world...a world where bad things happen and I can’t pretend that it’s not true

Me: “I don’t know, but it sounds as if he is a bad guy”

My son is 8, in 9 years' time he will be 17. I look at him and hope that when he is old enough he won't ever want to hold a gun and won't ever wander, lost and drunk in an unfamiliar city and be cnfronted by a person with a gun. I hope that the world he lives in will be safe. They are both eating their breakfast, my son remains little overawed:

“17, he’s not even a man yet.”

And that seems a fitting end to our philosophical consideration of the news for the day.

Teachers leave them kids alone...

I’m a teacher. Sometimes that feels like a hard admission to make, since teachers seem to be universally reviled by the British press. Only today, Boris Johnson links bad schools to rioting. It doesn’t seem to be long before teachers will be blamed for the current economic situation (probably because we didn’t teach maths properly!)http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/23/boris-johnson-bad-schools-london-riots
For the last ten years, it seems that the teaching profession has been systematically abused by government and media agencies. Schools have been criticised for not being good enough whilst at the same time examination results have improved...but that’s been explained by exams becoming easier. Literacy and numeracy are quite consistently rated as not good enough with no headline space for the number of children in schools who speak English as a second language and whose only contact with English is through school. Meanwhile the current government has scrapped the investment in school buildings that started under Labour, so if children are being educated in damp and cold and overcrowded spaces, then that’s unlikely to change in the near future...but that doesn’t matter does it? Teachers and children working in decrepit buildings aren’t as headline grabbing as teachers causing riots!
Unfortunately, many people seem easily convinced by the media and government propaganda, believing that teachers have an easy life, work short hours and deserve the cynicism heaped upon them. Many people remember the dark sarcasm of their own classrooms and will never forgive their teachers for the suffering they caused.
So, let’s just look at the day in the life of an ordinary teacher:
Although school starts at 9a.m for most children, teachers will be in school at least half an hour before, photocopying, preparing materials, marking and responding to emails.
In the course of a school day, a teacher will come into contact with between 100 and 150 children.
Each class of children will be unique. Some children will work quietly and quickly, some will need plenty of additional support. Some will behave, others will not.
Can I just say it again....most teachers come into contact with 150 children every day.

150 children every day

The majority are lovely, some aren’t, but on any given day, 150 children are not going to be EASY.

On any given day, 150 children are not going to be PASSIVE (nor would you want them to be)

On any given day 150 children are not 150 adults following instructions

150 children will ask questions, will need help, will complain, and will shout (with excitement or frustration) will laugh, sigh, cry (sometimes), will hit out in anger, and will have a bad day.

150 children will swing on chairs, lose their books, forget their equipment, suffer bereavement, be ill, be happy, be unhappy, have fallen out with their friend...will love you or hate you...

150 kids will not let you, EVER, lose your focus because the moment your focus slips, someone is crying or shouting and you have a riot on your hands...so the WHOLE of your day is spent on maximum alert, monitoring every nuance and comment in the classroom- every potential conflict or joy.

And it’s your job, every day, to make sure that they are o.k. to make sure that they learn, to make sure that they can walk into the world with confidence, to make sure that they can pass an exam that will possibly have an impact on the rest of their lives...and you probably spend at least some of your summer getting ready for the new year ahead, planning and reading and resting your brain for a while.

As well as the 150 children, the teacher may also come into contact with their own ‘tutor group’; the teacher will closely monitor the tutor group students’ needs, socially, educationally, personally. It is the tutor’s concern if children in their group are under performing, unhappy or celebrating their birthday!

The teachers will also need to work together to ensure that they are aware of difficulties or problems, marking criteria, new government strategies and if there are biscuits in the staff room.
The teacher will make sure that the children have the knowledge and skills to pass exams, as well as the knowledge and skills to function in society. We try and make sure that the students we come into contact with every day are pleasant, can listen, can co-operate and treat each other with respect.

Lunch times are often spent helping students with work, offering lunch time clubs, spending time supervising the students on their lunch break, marking, catching up with e mails and planning.

More lessons after lunch

Schools finish at varying times, but most teachers will do some sort of work after school, either at home or at school. This may mean meeting with parents, planning, preparing the lessons, writing reports, marking or reading the new exam criteria to make sure everything is covered.

Holidays....you know, if you worked with 150 young people every day, trying to help them to learn, to pass exams and to behave appropriately for the society they will eventually be a functioning part of, despite their indifference, or antagonism or social disadvantages, then perhaps you too would appreciate a week off every now and again...it is exhausting.

And sometimes, you know that the children you teach will find it very difficult to get a job, that the economic climate will be unfavourable for them, that their family will not or cannot pay for the cost of university.

And you hope that any small thing that you can do with those children will help them to cope with the world they are about to travel into.

And you sometimes spend your evenings and your holidays helping those children to find work, suggesting voluntary arrangements that may help, giving advice, researching every possible avenue to help a child who gets help from nowhere else.

And sometimes you know that the students you teach have no hope that their future will be filled with learning. That school will be forever, the best part of their life because after school there's the dark future of unemplyoment and nothing to do.

And you’re probably not paid very much...but it’s a lot of fun

And exhausting

And you love it...because the children that demand so much and need a constant focus are also the warmest, most wonderful and enthusiastic and funny people that you know.

They are full of cynicism and greed for knowledge.

They love you and hate the system or they hate you as part of the system.

They love the time you give them and love or hate the books you make them read!

They make you laugh probably every day with their wry observations of life. They are the wisest and most naive people you know and you hope and fear for them in equal measure.

They thank you for their lessons and sometimes write down things that make you cry.

They are the future...

It’s just a shame that the British public seem to think, after every headline and every bit of bad journalism, that you do an easy job and you do it badly.

Thanks Boris, I hope that every single London teacher refuses to vote for you in the next mayoral election.

The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

It’s poetry, it’s wonderful. In this anthology Duffy deals with motherhood and life and loss. A mother herself, Duffy covers the sadness of the death of her own mother and ‘Premonitions’ holds the desire of everyone who has lost a loved one to unspool time backwards and experience those laughing moments in a shred history again.

The anthology also holds a love of Britain, its nature and geography, the poems The Counties, The White Horses and John Barleycorn drawing a nostalgic picture of a Britain deeply brewed in the honeyed history she creates with her word pictures. As an expatriate living in Spain, her words conjure the beauty of British landscape deeply imbued in our collective cultural memories. There are nods to Wilfred Owen in Last Post and Passing Bells, using the terrors of WW1 to look, perhaps, at the continuing wars that we are living through now with another’s eyes.

As the title suggest, Duffy is also concerned with bees, both as a symbol of what we may have to lose should our environmental destruction continue, but also as a symbol of the potential human ability to co-operate towards a better human good.

Finally, there are plenty of moments of laughter too, with Achilles a reference to David Beckham and plenty of poems in celebration of childhood and the delights of motherhood. Sometimes just celebrating nature and words themselves in a cacophony of assonance, alliteration and rhyme that Duffy is a true master of.

It’s a lovely anthology and one which I will return to with great frequency over the years to revisit the joys and the tears contained within.

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

This is a terrifically funny book and it is wonderful to be presented with modern fiction which doesn’t think that the word ‘feminist’ is one to be avoided at all costs. The book is an autobiography covering Moran’s life to date and although some reviewers have belittled the fact that she does not mention some significant aspects of her life (such as winning writing competitions in her youth that allowed her to plough the lonely furrow of journalism with some support), they are overlooking the fact that autobiography has to be edited and of course Moran is not going to include every single aspect of her life. Our stories are self edited and adapted every day, every year. We tell people what we want to in order to fashion our stories and create our own personal narratives. Do I really care if Moran has adapted her truth? Not really, because the book still stands alone as a funny look at modern womanhood and the need for women to embrace feminism because of the steps we are yet to take.

In the light of the current presidential race in the states; with candidates like Santorum claiming the hard won victories of women, such as birth control and abortion, are towers that he is willing to bomb into historical collapse, it is all the more important that women in Britain and abroad recognise the journey that we have already taken. The rights and privileges that are seemingly enshrined in our lives but which we cannot take for granted as the extreme right, mad patriarchy and the ideologists who disguise their dogma under religious beliefs try to strip away the things that have enabled women to have good health, choices about their own bodies and a sense of independence. When we look at what we have, it is all too easy to strip away.

Moran’s book is not overtly political but comes from a place where the personal is political, where she takes aspects of her working class roots and gender and subjects them to a heartfelt and funny analysis, pointing out the insidious changes in our cultural life over the last twenty years that make a the ideals of a patriarchal consumer society’s ideals of the modern woman’s life a little more proscribed and a little more difficult to achieve. Moran makes us want to be the women we can be, taking difficult choices and not caring too much about underarm hair and the shape of our vaginas. It’s a funny, fun book and well worth a read.