Teach me what I need to know and show me where I need to go...

Teach me what I need to know and show me where I need to go…

In my first year of Stirling University I joined the University Choir (I was later roped into becoming the president of the aforementioned choir but that is quite another story). I stayed part of the choir for all four years of my study. When it came time for our fabulous conductor (a man I respected more than I think he ever knew) to retire we sat over coffee and discussed where life would take him. Inevitably, the path my own life would soon take came into the discussion and he offered me possibly the best advice I have been given in my career: “No matter what, never forget you’re teaching people. They are only people.” Simple words they may have been but those words have shaped my outlook on my career.

The most common thing that people say on hearing that I am a secondary teacher, after telling me how lucky I am to get such great holidays and be paid so much (I do not like these people), is, “Oh, I could never do that. The kids must be terrible!” I have always, even in the infancy of my career, found this statement strange. I have worked in some of the “best” and “worst” schools in Scotland (arbitrary and pointless titles) and the one thing that has remained consistently true is that “the kids” have never been the problem.

In my career I have always found that it is the adults that have been hardest to work with. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have met some incredible people who I am proud to have called my colleagues and blessed to now call my friends. However, I have also worked with those more interested in looking good than teaching their pupils, those who never truly left high school and those who use their power to prey on those beneath them.

That is why it confuses me when people say that the behaviour of pupils must be so shocking. No. They are children. More than that they are people. The pupils in my care are reacting to life in the only way they know how. They are surviving, learning, bonding and shaping their surroundings based on what life and their parents have taught them. For some that may indeed mean they swear and shout and storm away and for others that may mean that they sit so quiet they are barely noticeable. Both, and everything in between, is normal and wonderful.

I could tell you the psychology of why children react in the curious ways they do but what’s the point? Do you need to know about flight or fight, processing times or taught perceptions? No. What I want you to know is that I don’t teach angels and I don’t teach demons. I don’t teach know-it-alls or jocks either. I teach people. Their actions are sometimes beautiful and sometimes ugly (and trust me the first far outweighs the latter). They dance to the beat of the loudest drum and the harder they try to be unique the more they become like every other “unique” person. They never believe that you’ve seen it all before. They always want to shock you, but they are also often swept away by factors beyond their control. Caught up in lives they didn’t ask for and have no say in. They are often holding onto each day by their fingertips and when they are angriest they are often terrified.

There is no bad child. There are people trying to understand the world with only the knowledge they have.

As much as I relate to where they’ve been and what they’re going through they aren’t my past self or my past self’s friends or my past self’s bullies. They are not me. Empathising does not mean I understand them fully. Understanding the research does not mean I know what to expect from them each day.They are not the tool to prove my worth or my worthiness. The way that I view them does not make me a better or worse person because that view is not them. They are not my romanticism nor my cynicism. They make me neither hero nor villain. 

They are not the future of our world. Do not weigh them down with your hope or expectations. They are not the problem with society. Do not label them as if they can be cured. They represent nothing but themselves. 

And that is enough.