I have read your "Such a Waste".I taught in the old Approved School system when run by the Home Office( 1955 to60s). The discipline was firm to strict .the staff well trained ,married and in their mid thirties and upwards. The boys 16 to 18 were given a general education and training in a trade as close to their choice as possible.outward bound activities were weekly and there was regular sport and evening hobbies. It was hard work for the staff none of whom had the standard school holidays.On top of a normal school week we had to work 20 extra duties one member of a team sleeping in...alone each night..We were a happy staff the school was in a remote Northamptonshire village. The school was open few boys ran away
The "success rate was around 75%. for the failures Borstal......One of our best pupils had a Paddington prostitute for a mother and a Manchester pimp as a father ( unless of course he was the result of a commercial transaction)I could trust this boy with my children...he kept the department keys for me....he was expected to be trust worthy so he responded in kind. He committed suicide some years after leaving the school...So sad . I think the best years of his life were At the school
I was happy in this work but after 7 years I left for a post in the DoE. The home Office job was demanding and I think I was spent;howevr my new post was a synch. they didn't know what work or commitment was. I earned more money and my public standing was enhanced ( Approved school staff were looked down on by the main steam profession...it was believed that we only did the job because high academic achievement was neither possible or expected Hypocrisy was endemic in the teaching profession in those days ( is it the same today????? The general public then as now want the criminal to be put away........ rather like the sloven whose kitchen is tidy... but don't look in the cupboards
I am retired these many years I dislike the attitude of many of my generation who prefer to drink in the lounge or at their club, in quiet boredom, as far away from the youth and its optimism as is possible.
We live in a society with many divisions ...age. incom, class, profession, religion colour, race home owner, housing association, education unemployment, low pay ( and more ) these are cosmetic. Our lives are the result of opportunity and luck and yes,commitment,qualities not available to all.
I must not go on. These remarks are spontaneous but come from a library of sixty years. Like you I had to learn...Promotion should go to the longest beard. My life has been guided by two things Aristotle's "let a man play he lute but not too well" and Ecclesiastes "the wisdom of the scribe cometh by the opportunity of leisure" or words to that effect... never met them but have read a few books
All the best in your work.. don't let the teaching profession get you down

I've only just started reading your blog and here are my first glance comments.

I used to be a maths teacher - and it is the hardest of all the subjects to teach - not because of the content but because of the lack of interest in the subject by the kids.

No matter how much you talk 'sensibly' to them it isn't going to engender a love of maths.

Somehpw you have to make the lesson so entertaining that they want to take part and turn up despite themselves.

I know it is very difficult for a new teacher - I was for a long while a supply so that made things even harder - you need to keep discipline and yet you also need to get their interest.

It seems strange to me that often the younger teachers have the hardest time understanding the motivations of their pupils - given that they are so much nearer in age to them.

For me it boiled down to - lighten up, have a sense of humour, show the kids a certain amount of respect (but not be palsy with them), treat them like human beings and don't talk down to them.

Lesson plan, lesson plan, lesson plan - and get as much stuff printed out on worksheets as you possibly can manage - and give them lots of diagrams and if you can draw them cartoons.

Incorporating colour into things helped a lot as well.

I also found that kids really appreciated being told that the stuff they were about to learn was - very very hard - but that I had made a special effort to try and put it in very clear terms for them so that they could appear genius like to people without having to put the genius level of effort into it.

I also had a motto

The only people who don't make mistakes in life are people who don't do anything with their lives.

In my classes getting things wrong was a badge of honour as long as they learned how to put them right - and I let them see me make mistakes as well.

Good luck. I gave up teaching not because I didn't like the kids - I didn't like the teachers LOL

Any further tips are welcome! I think my own personal difficulty in understanding my pupils' motivation is that it's so different from my own. Might be the same with other young teachers. Somewhere inside we expect the kids to want to learn like we did, though the reality can be so very different. I'm getting there though, I think I understand my pupils a little better than a year ago. Even if sometimes I'm still totally lost!

I became a much better teacher when I had my son.

He had ADHD and it turned out that he also had a very different learning style than my own.

He learned better when his sense of touch was stimulated. I learn from my sense of vision and so I have always been a model student.

ADHD is termed a learning disability - and yet when his personal learning style was matched his learning ability far outstripped anything I could do.

He hasn't got any 'paper' qualifications but he was a concert standard musician by age ten, and started his own computer business (alas not a profitable one though) by the age of 13. He has a number of career options and has a couple of jobs waiting for him if he ever gets out of the awkward lazy teenager stage LOL

I would strongly reccommend that you do a bit of personal research online about the more common learning 'disabilities'.

You will recognise a lot of your pupils - whether they have been diagnosed or not.

All of us have some aspects of the various learning 'disabilities' - it is simply how much of an interference they become that determines whether or not one gets the label or not.

However having a clue as to why some kids learn better whilst chatting (that is actually true of some), some need to have something to fiddle with, and others need total silence and so will do better being able to take it home with them, and why some kids will never do homework - and why it might not really matter - except as a power struggle between teacher and pupil - will help you understand what is going on in the classroom.

If you can learn not to value yourself as a teacher solely on the results of your pupils - you will also find life improves for you.

Just as a pupil not achieving is not necessarily your fault, also a pupil doing well might also not really be your teaching either - just how they would have done anyway.

Of course you can pat yourself on the back every time you explain something clearly and engage a child. Frankly just sticking around is reason enough to be proud of yourself.

But overinvesting in your kids results just adds stress and can be a barrier to doing your best for them.

My son once had a teacher who hated him - because she knew he was capable of good work and she felt that his good work was her right to have. She took his ADHD and its effects personally - and because of that the classroom became a battle ground instead of a place where co-operation could have found a way forward for him.

We ended up home educating him.

If you have a kid who consistently refuses school - be on the watch out for bullying or an unadressed learning difficulty.

It is something that most teachers want to ignore but if you can make your classroom a judgement free zone - it helps so much.

Discipline is very important - but academic learning is such a small part of the school experience for kids. A frightened kid is not one that can relax and take in information.

Watch out to see who hangs back to leave last, or turns up late all the time. Sometimes they are trying to avoid being beaten up or teased on the way between classes by minimising their 'corridor time'.

For a lot of kids school is a very frightening place.