The festive season is already a fast-receding memory. The curried turkey leftovers are long gone, presents are abandoned, fireworks have been watched and first-footing has finished. Now it’s time to look forward to another year and a fresh start. A time to destroy the habits that undermine your health and wellbeing and discover ways to make your working life more productive.
The internet is full of new year’s resolutions for teachers. The fact that they change little from year to year, however, suggests a by-the-numbers approach, and some perennials that may be less than effective. Time, then, for a more considered look at what will work in education as we renew ourselves for the year ahead.
Look after yourself a little bit better
A change in eating habits is often number one on the list of new year’s resolutions. But take care. One article I read recently put this into perspective with the suggestion that the number one effect of dieting is a gain in weight, and that people “can find many much more pleasant ways” to put on the pounds. Analysing such fads as the paleo diet, it pointed out that nobody should want to eat like a caveman (with a corresponding life expectancy of around 22 years).
However, we can, of course, try to eat more healthily and, possibly, less. Apparently fruit and vegetables are very good for you - who knew? - but, from a practical point of view, they can often be more difficult to find in a school than a handy nearby cake or biscuit.
There are so many causes for celebration among teachers (birthdays, children’s birthdays, distant friends’ birthdays and, of course, Fridays) that we have seen the profession rise to the top of the cake-heavy tree. Scientifically speaking, it has probably been proven that a banana is a better source of energy, but for a well-needed, end-of-the-day pre-meeting sugar rush you can’t really beat half a packet of custard creams (washed down with a jumbo mug of coffee).
On that last point, a number of bloggers have suggested cutting down on caffeine as a boost to wellbeing. A word of warning here: following 30 years of drinking industrial-strength beans, a recent blood-pressure blip forced me to cut down to one cup a day. Whoever knew that the withdrawal symptoms would include a full-on caffeine headache for a whole week? Alongside that, there’s the problem of what to drink instead. Hailing from the North of England, my ancestors would turn in their graves if I was to touch a fruit-based infusion, so it’s down to decaffeinated tea. It looks the same but there’s something just a little bit odd about it.
Your health and wellbeing may well improve with the occasional jog or trip to the gym, and no doubt you could do with a bit more sleep. Take the time to build some exercise into your life, even if’s just a once a week, and watch your sleep - waking up at 2.30am in a panic about missing some triviality from your lesson planning will do you no good at all in the long run.
Talk about things other than school
I am somewhat blessed by having a completely indifferent wife and children, who really don’t care what I do on a day-to-day basis. Life at home is too busy for them all so, after the cursory “how was your day?” as I walk through the door, I am not encouraged to elaborate.
Having grown up with two teacher parents, the thought of marrying somebody from the same profession seems like madness to me (although there are plenty of examples from my school and elsewhere that this can be a spectacular success). What do these people talk about? I hope they don’t just compare notes - professional collaboration can be taken too far. If all your chat is about teachery stuff, you need to find some friends with other problems and talk to them on a regular basis.
Tidy your room
Is there ever any time to do this? Five-and-a-half years ago I inherited the heidie’s office from a predecessor who had been in the role for 23 years. The room is still full of his stuff. Will I ever need a guide to parent councils published in 1987? It seems unlikely but the rotational nature of policy in some areas of Scottish education means that this may become mandatory guidance again at some point in the future. I just can’t take the chance and throw it away.
Added to all this junk were the boxes of books and papers (and a remote-controlled Dalek) that I brought from a previous school. Rumour has it that in my old school the depute room that I vacated was so full of rubbish the new incumbent decided, rather than have it cleaned, it would be easier to lock the door and move to the room opposite.
In my cupboard, in addition to handwritten attendance records from the 1950s, there is a motorcycle helmet decaying on the inside, a number of VHS videos of past glories, a guide to controlling desert locusts and several boxes of associated slides from a previous invasion, trophies for school competitions last run in the early 1970s, some broken glassware, a rather large laptop and desktop from the dawn of computing (together with associated peripherals) and a Lamb of God 2008 tour T-shirt. I know all of these things will prove to have some use one day.
Act like a grown-up
I also recently read a suggestion that perhaps we teachers should read more books in which the protagonist is over 18 years old, perhaps limiting just one in every 20 to those with a “coming of age” theme. The same could, perhaps, be true of the films we watch. For every Saturday night with Spider-Man: Far from Home there should be one with White Crow (the Rudolf Nureyev biopic). This is a problem, of course, in that: after a week in a school, the former is considerably more fun than the latter - and can be justified in the name of research into what’s going down with the kids.
Plan your career development
Among all the bloggers with more frivolous contributions, there are a number with genuinely serious things to suggest to teachers. Spend more time with individual students, they say. Apply technology to learning and assessment, and mix up your teaching methods, they insist. While ultimately very worthy, these are not really things that should take up your thinking time in the very first days of the new year.
One high-profile website has an inordinate number of new year’s promises connected with using smartboard software - but alongside this fairly specific advice, it also mentions a bigger-picture issue: the importance of planning your career development. This, certainly, can be an excellent exercise in focusing the mind (or, perhaps, wishful thinking).
As I plan the path through director of education to the head of Education Scotland and, ultimately, Leader of the World, reality kicks in and I remember that I do really love my job and am probably at the happiest, career-wise, that I have ever been.
Many of you may have itchy feet in this new year - but check first whether, with a few tweaks, you might just be happy where you are.
Communicate with real people
Building on that last point, that’s not to say there aren’t a lot of things that could improve. Email, for instance, is God’s gift to misunderstanding and a lack of productivity. I would have everyone make a new year’s resolution to forgot about email being a primary form of communication and start talking to people again. Particularly if you work in the same building as somebody else - why would you not take the time to go and see them rather than sending messages that can easily be misconstrued and cause misunderstandings that take days to sort out? Adding emojis does not necessarily help to convey how you are feeling.
If you have a number of people to get the message to, then by all means use email, but there is nothing better than actually having a bit of face-to-face contact with those you work alongside.
When you want to talk to someone further afield, there is always the phone. Nuance does not exist in virtual language but, while there is nothing to convey a message like being there in person, your tone on the phone is a powerful tool.
At the very least I would advise caution when emailing on controversial or contentious topics. The draft box is there for a reason, so stick the message in it, come back and review it when you’re calm, and think about whether it’s actually going to help the situation.
Finally, above all, retain your positivity (even after the prelims)
When beset by new initiatives, unreasonable demands and inflexible processes and procedures, it is easy to forget why we chose teaching in the first place. Seeing children and young people progress is the greatest gift, while sharing the highs and lows with wonderful colleagues can be an uplifting experience and a huge blast. Celebrate all that is good about what you do, preach the joys to the unconverted and make sure they all know that what you do on a day-to-day basis is beyond reproach.
Happy New Year to everyone who works in, and comes into contact with, Scottish education.
John Rutter is headteacher of Inverness High School
This article originally appeared in the 3 January 2020 issue under the headline “Try realistic resolutions, rather than revolution”
