Bad teachers?

Nope, not the Cameron Diaz film, which I admit I found pretty funny, although I am easily pleased¹. The reason for all the lesson observations and performance management shenanigans is down to bad teachers.

In an earlier post I said that bad teachers are on the decline and I absolutely stand by that. Why on Earth would you do a job as demanding as teaching if you were a) no good at it and b) hate children (or give the impression you do)?

Your guess is as good as mine. Thankfully, I’ve not had to deal with many staff who are irredeemably bad, or do not see a problem and so don’t want to improve. The first lot are fairly easy to deal with, but it is uncomfortable when you have to go down capabilities and sacking. The second bunch are far, far harder.

So let’s take the piss out of them shall we?

I used to work with a guy, let’s call him Abelard³, who was notoriously late to every lesson. One morning, after our daily staff meeting, I saw a colleague in pain and stopped to check he was okay. I then went to my lesson, where the head was waiting for me and promptly told me off for being late. At first I was highly irritated by this, as I’d been looking after a colleague and also I hadn’t thought I was late. Abelard saw me at break, where I was still fuming, and I explained why. His response? ‘You weren’t late. You were there before me.’ And like that, my anger went as I realised I had been late. Abelard, bless him, had been told and told about his timekeeping. Of course, I had dealt with it many times, and I do think the Head should have taken more action, but instead she decided to have a go at me. Ah well.

Fair play to Abelard, he really was the most thick-skinned person I have ever worked with. That lack of self-awareness takes a lot of work. More, in fact, than just doing your job properly in the first place.

Probably the worst member of staff I have ever worked with, let’s call her Idira, used to run a subject that was 100% coursework based⁴, and was included in my faculty. Coursework was always due to the exam board around about April, and so we had internal deadlines of February so we knew we had it all and could mark it. Idira was absent between Feb and April every single year she ran the course. This meant I had to mark it, along with whatever poor sap⁵ had been employed to cover her absence. The exam appointed moderator thought I was in charge of the subject as he never met her. Not once. Shameful.

Idira used to spend her lessons talking about shoe shopping, and her sex life. No, I’m not making that up. After I observed her and said I thought the lesson was lacking in key areas⁶, she wrote a four page letter to the head explaining how I knew nothing and had downgraded her for no reason.

At a meeting, we had a job to do as a faculty. One of those paperwork exercises which involved how we highlight a diverse community within our lessons. Now, North Devon is not a diverse area, so this was tricky. I gave everyone a few minutes to have a think about what they did, without making anything up, so we could see where our gaps were and do something about it. I then went round the table, starting to my left (Idira was immediately on my right, so last to speak). All five other people around the table said their bit, even if it was a bit vague, and then I got to Idira.

“Let me think,” she said.

“What the hell have you been doing for the last ten minutes?” My not so professional reply.

Next morning, she wasn’t in. That afternoon I was called to the Head as Idira had alleged work place bullying against me. This was probably the lowest point of my career. Idira was off with stress for two months, unions were involved and I had to drag myself in every day to clear my name, even though I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.

Eventually, after two months and a union meeting with our reps, she apologised to me and then came back to work. Yep, the original incident happened in Feb and she came back to school in April. Yep, I had to mark all the coursework. Again.

When she returned, she asked to work with me to improve her maths lessons as I was the only member of the maths team who had ever supported her. Huh? just a week ago, I was a bully and closely related to the Big Bad Wolf. Then she gave me an invite to her wedding. No, I am not making that up. I at least waited until she’d left my room before I put the invite in the bin. Petulant? Yes. Childish? Also yes. But satisfying? Oh, god yes.

Luckily, this incident put her on SLT’s radar and she left the school shortly after (due to shoe shopping in her lesson and the sex life talk). I haven’t marked coursework since.

Two people in 30 years is not bad, right⁷? This is what I mean by teaching has improved. Performance management has helped a lot in this area, but it isn’t the sole reason. I’ve worked with some inspirational people who have helped me improve as a teacher and a head of department. A line I was told that really resonated with me is “To you, it’s just another lesson. To the student, it’s the rest of their lives.”

Until next time.

FOOTNOTES

1. Especially if it has Cameron Diaz in it. ↩︎
2. Sorry, Tinu x ↩︎
3. Currently playing ‘Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader’ from OwlCat Games. It’s excellent, so why not use the character names as then no-one can identify who I’m talking about. Boom! Litigation avoided… ↩︎
4. Luckily very few courses at GCSE have much in the way of coursework now. Arts subjects, Design Technology are the exceptions, I believe. ↩︎
5. Hi Nick! ↩︎
6. Nothing important. Just relationships, quality of work and students actually, you know, learning something. ↩︎
7. There are others, of course. But maybe we’ll revisit them in a future post. ↩︎