Yeah, sorry guys. As surprising as it may sound, this blogging business is still very new to me, and as such, it's not always at the top of my list, nor is it on my mind. It's been an incredibly busy end of term; generally is when reports are due! Which leads me to the topic of this post.
A lot of people don't seem to realise how hard teachers work. We don't just rock up to school, teach a few lessons, then go home and relax. Gosh, if only it were that easy! But then, no one would be learning anything, would they?
So you're a busy person too, I get that. You work 9-5, that's a whole 2 more hours! Woah... But, you probably get to go to the toilet whenever you like, don't you? And I'm sure you're not scoffing down your food in 20 minutes because you have to get back to work.
Oh, you take work home too, do you? I'm sure you do! I can't imagine any professional who ever leaves work at work. You can't help it. There's always stuff to do, isn't there? Even if you're mentally planning, you're still working, yeah?
Remember that presentation you got asked to work on? That's due in a few weeks from now? You're bed-time reading is consists of research and data, you're spending evenings creating slides that will captivate your co-workers and hook them in. Sometimes you wish you had more time to do everything you wanted, or the technology to do a really fancy presentation.
Now it's all done, your heart races as you head off to the conference room. Luckily, everything went well. Slight hiccup with getting the projector set-up, but you've learnt that next time, you'll just rock up a bit earlier and check everything beforehand. Fortunately, that's not for another couple of months, phew!
So hard, isn't it? Could you imagine doing that everyday? Except you're presenting to a group of 28 10-year olds. Some of them have difficulty sitting and listening for longer than 5 minutes, others need to have fidget toys. Then there's the couple who find the whole thing utterly boring and start chatting amongst themselves. How on earth do you cater for all these different needs? Some a lot more complex than others. How do you make sure you're engaging everyone? How do you know they're paying attention, that they're actually actively listening and learning?
Sometimes, people need to take a step back and think about all this, before accusing teachers of having it so easy. Short days, plenty of holidays... If you're really that jealous, I'd welcome you into my classroom to have a go one day! We need those holidays to gather ourselves and prepare for the next term. To recuperate and recharge. Also, there's quite a few professional developments to attend. Those short days are as long as kids can learn for, before they turn into mindless zombies. Teachers do a lot of prep before and after school, there's meetings to go to, phone calls to make, sometimes trips to other places to pick up resources.
We're still working long after the kids have gone. And you know what? We wouldn't change a thing. We do this because we love it. The only thing we ask in return is some appreciation for the effort we put into educating your kids.
