Most stand-up comedians would run a mile from our audience, the hundreds of teenagers we face every day, the students whose questions, attitudes and propensity for heckling are legendary. But every day we teachers not only face them, we entertain them, we engage them, we make them smile. Sometimes, we even get a laugh.
We make them think about how they behave, how they speak to (and about) others; we make them think, consider, try and succeed. And that’s just the blurb - the full details of our job could fill multiple books.
Why is it, then, that all we ever hear are the negatives about being a teacher? Why is it we are confronted with “oh, I wouldn’t do your job” when we tell people what we do? Why are so many of us apparently masochists when it comes to our choice of profession? Because we enjoy it, that’s why.
Teaching: Tough, tiring, but more fun than other things
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Teaching is a great job. When you push aside all the nonsense that comes from bureaucrats, teaching really is a huge amount of fun. In our job, we can read aloud using funny voices without our colleagues thinking we’re weird. We can come to work dressed as a character from a book without having our sanity questioned. We can use puppets in storytelling, use cartoons to illustrate ideas, dress up as Britney Spears for a talent show, tweet pictures of ourselves reading in odd places; a select few of us can even come to work in sportswear (hello, PE teachers of the world) at the same time as others come wearing suits.
There are never two days the same and we have as much variety as we feel like in our lessons and routines.
It’s fun when you’re passionate about a topic and your enthusiasm brings a class full of learners on board with you - I’ve seen red-eyed students leave a class, weeping at how well a teacher had read Sunset Song to them. I’ve seen kids who’ve never read a book in their life find a book that grabs them and makes them feel like they can read and should read. I’ve seen kids run successful enterprise groups and then go on to run successful businesses after leaving school and I’m sure we’ve all seen the tough kid who comes back to share their success in life beyond school - that visit an acknowledgement of what you did to help get them there. The opportunities to see the value of what you do are endless - and this brings immense job satisfaction.
Yes, no job is perfect, but few jobs have such important outcomes and such vast opportunities to enjoy what you do, so many chances to have fun while making a difference. We have to keep hold of the fun side of the job at all costs - the benefits, for us and the young people we teach, cannot be underplayed.
Nicola Daniel is curriculum leader of the English faculty at Broughton High School, in Edinburgh
