My Job

So I have had my first week of work. The word 'week' is technically an exaggeration considering that I quit on the second day. I agreed to stay until the end of the week and think it over but I don’t know. I would have to say my first day at the school was the worst day in my teaching career, leading me to act in a somewhat unprofessional manner. Yikes! It was not what I was expecting or had been informed by my company that I would be doing and thus a nightmarish week of work ensued. First of all I was supposed to be teaching at a private college for girls. The school is actually a mixed public school. This is not really such a big deal but when it turned out to be as horrible as it was that little error felt like salt in a wound. I thought, I’m not really supposed to be here am I? Sufficed to say, the kids are very badly behaved and I am their 6th English teacher this year including a few supply teachers along the way. Even as they were photocopying my resources for me, the teachers were telling me where to leave those copies if I wasn’t planning on returning the next day. I know what that type of chat signals in terms of the classroom but still I was in no way prepared for the holding cell type area in which I met 5 classes of students. They are more disrespectful than any students I have dealt with. It is incredible what a bad attitude kids can develop, and in such a high concentration in one school. Anyways, I complained at length about it to my friends and demanded more money for the rest of the week than I was being paid.
I went in the next day and it was only the year 11s for some reason and after significant talks we got on with the day and had a reasonable time. There are some very nice kids as well of course. One of the girls had recently moved here from Holland. She told me going to that school disappoints her almost every day. Harsh criticism from a grade 11 student!

NUT Strike
On Thursday, the teachers were on a nation wide one day strike. Their union (of which there are several to choose from) is called NUT (national union of teachers). I laugh every time someone talks about “the NUT strike tomorrow”. It’s always NUT this and NUT that. Highly amusing! So I took Thursday off. I think I could have gone in actually but I couldn’t imagine going in there without the full compliment of discipline staff at the ready. It was a lovely day and I spent it just lazing around and enjoying myself. When Friday rolled around, I was ready to tackle the classes again after talks with the other English teachers. I have support staff in almost all my classes now and I have gotten rid of the kids I don’t want to have in my classes. That sounds harsh but I wouldn’t have stayed if I weren’t able to do that. A few kids can really spoil a whole class. Once they were taken out of the equation, I felt like I could actually help the kids I had left.

I have to give this an honest chance. I think I reacted a bit too hastily initially and I should at least ride out the week and see what kind of a job I could do. I didn’t have my heart or mind in staying there for the first few days so I have to honestly try and see what happens. You can do anything if you know it’s time limited but that doesn’t mean you want to or that you can make yourself do a good job. The one teacher told me to try appealing to their “better nature”. I will try to seek that out to the best of my ability. (Dry cough.)

I am not going to put myself in a situation though where I am stressed out all the time. I won’t pull my hair out over misbehaving kids. I think I needed this week to get my attitude toward the place in check. The kids really like talking it up as a bad school and I just got caught up in the hype. In short, I have decided to stay on. I un-quit on Friday and everyone was happy. The head of English told me this position would make me a better teacher and she is right.

This is my friend Krista from Canada. We went to the V&A museum. The previous pictures are from that trip as well. They are miniature theatre sets. They are so tiny but also very dramatic and compelling. The first one really appealed to me given my job situation. This is the glass installation that hangs in the front hall. It is a piece by glass artist Dale Chihuly. He had a big instillation when I visited the museum the first time in 2001. I was glad that there was still a bit there in the permanent collection.
There was a hall of stained glass which I found a little strange. Where did they get all that from? You would have to take it out of a building would you not? The logistics of what happened to the building it was in interest me but I didn't find out. I'll have to look into that on my next visit.