play hard

The age old mars bar adagy tells us “a mars a day helps you work, rest and play!” There’s the classic saying “work hard, play hard.” There’s lots of things that tell us that there is a very important aspect of life that HAS to be maintained at whatever cost. That aspect is balance.

When you train to become a teacher in the UK, you can enter through a myriad of possible directions. You can train through higher education: an Ba in Education, PGCEs and other such programs offer extensive training in both the physical and academical segments of teaching. You can work your way in through other routes, the G&T schemes, the HLTA opportunities and training. There is variety. There is no clear, this is the way to take route. They all work as much as they can do given the situations they train you for. Because teaching isn’t something you can completely train for. You have to live it. You have to breathe it. You have to do those things and want them too. But on top of that, you have to remember that it is a JOB.

Herein lies the folly of this scribe.

I committed wholeheartedly to the cause. I signed the sheets, I sold my soul. I ran into the wilderness at night and screamed “I am a teacher!” in the mirky undergrowth, as I morphed into a tweed wearing, moustache bearing replica of that classical stereotype. I did it all. The training was great. It promoted the “modern” ideas for effective and successful teaching and management, whilst providing a forum for discussion on the academical aspects of the profession too. It gave “in the deep end” placement schemes, where you took the chance to develop your art (for it is such a thing: teaching to a class is much akin to a performance amongst your worst critics, forget a line and you’ll never live it down). It gave ample feedback and assessed your capabilites as a future classroom leader.

It was enjoyable.

Then the REAL challenge came. You’ve tamed the beast – take on the wild! Dive in there and take on the real world, the real stage, the career you’ve worked to aspire to! Take your minimum graduate salary (after all you’re here for a higher purpose) and show us what you’re made of! This moment is your make or break moment. During training, you think its your observations that make or break you. Not so. The moment is so: You enter your classroom and realise that after only one year of training, you are now solely responsible for the development of 30 individuals for an entire year. You must not only teach them, but provide a go-to point, a shoulder, an ear, a lent hand wherever it is required. So after leaving your training, the comparable difference is much like the difference between taming a house cat and a bloody african lion.

Not to say that it is impossible.

Far from it. Magnificent people that I know and have met walk into these houses of learning and day in, day out, not only inspire children but they also inspire those around them. Teachers are the most incredible bunch of people I, and the entire world has ever seen. They sign up for a career that not only provides a high stress working environment, but also provides them with a work load that NEVER runs out. Never. There is always something that they have a need to do or complete. So their working time becomes that of a highest importance structure: you need this doing the most, you do it first. But you have to finish the rest. Rest assured (in the holidays, which are only holidays in the minds of those who have never taught). Teachers are incredible people.

With that all said, the balance reference starts (perhaps) to become clearer. All the routes, all the courses, all the teachers you can ever meet will tell you the same: It isn’t easy. You enter the profession with the warnings: “Beware! The work-life balance will sway!” or “It got me! You’re signing up for stress!” You knock these back in your mind because you think to yourself “I’ll know before THAT happens!” or “What is that guy on about?! Thinking crashing a car is easier than teaching 8b. Plain crazy. No one gets that far.” You take on the advice and you trundle through your new job.

Suffice to say, my balance swayed. It pitted too far in one direction. That ruined me. There have been very few moments in my life I have felt both complete despair and a complete inability to resolve the cause of it. Two in fact. Death of a family member, and teaching.

Now before people that I know run headlong for me to cry condolences, let me explain. I felt that way. I have since taken the time, the counsel, the medication and the resignation. I have thought about my situation, and I have resolved it. I was the judge, jury and executioner of my own fate. I created the situations that led to that pivotal moment.

Yes, I may have become (in a Terry Pratchett trouser sense of the term) a fabulous teacher. Yes, people may say that I should have stuck with it. I don’t deny that in some ways, halting (or pausing, depending on my frame of mind) this career right now could be seen as a mistake.

I do not see it as a mistake.

Yes, I now have no job and many bills in a recession. Yes, I currently take anti-depressants. But I have made a decision that I think I needed to make and I do not in any way shape or form, regret it.

Not an inch.

I’m looking for a new job now. One that allows me to maintain my balance happily. Caesar did the whole “Veni Vidi Vici” thing. I’ve done the “Veni” and the “Vidi”, not the “Vici” for a career. But for life I’m still on track for the title. I’m “Veni Vidi Vici”-ing life.

What’s more, I’m enjoying doing it once more.

forking in some trousers

I read a lot of Terry Pratchett. A lot. This is by no means a bad thing, his novels are interesting and in some instances, informative. One such moment that I think about often, is his trousers theory of time (He may have sourced this elsewhere, if so, please inform me so I can reference it correctly). He writes, that at any given stage in the present, there are two directions or actions your potential future can take, which in turn has two potential futures. So at any given point (especially by now if this is a constant since time began), there are many different versions of yourself about to make choices as to what they are about to do.

Thinking about this made me wonder, “has there been any moments in my life where I wish I had chosen otherwise?” (Better put “Do I have any regrets?”) My answer, naturally is yes. There have been plenty of moments that I dwell on and contemplate how things might be had I acted differently.
I’m going to talk about some of these.

I have had 4 humdinger regrets. Two I don’t (and won’t close friends reading this) want to talk about.

The third involves my brother and I. We were at a gig my youngest sibling was playing. We were approached by ten or so youths, whose main aim was very apparent: they were looking to display some aggression and achieve some animal dominance for shits and giggles. They approached us at a time when we were all way too relaxed. In this moment the ringleader so to speak approached us, egged on by his web of jeering peers. He walked up to me, and stared me eye to eye. His face must have been within a thumbs length of my own. At this point my heart was racing, but I stayed calm, and tried my damn hardest to show a look of

“I look weedy, but dammit go near me and I will go to town on your behind. I am MENTAL!”

It worked. The guy sniggered and walked away from me. At this point he turned to my brother, who being over 6ft at the time, not only met his criteria for domination, but made him look good at the same time. My brother was not in a very quick mental state at this stage, so when he was punched he was in no way ready for it. He fell the the floor amidst cries from the gathered apes of “dropped ‘im in one ked!” (local lingo). My regret is that at that point, I did not react and at least get a hit on that guy. Obviously, had I done so, I too would have been having intimacies with the asphalt, but still, I think that it is vitally important that you stand up to unprovoked aggression. I should have reacted and taken the hit.

On a funnier note to the above, the guy was really short and actually only managed to punch my brother in the neck. THE NECK. We laughed afterwards. My brother didn’t, as he was concussed, but everyone else did.

Moving on…

My biggest regret so far in my life, my numero uno, first place, unbeatable champion regret concerns the early passing of my father. Diagnosed with cancer, which then progressed far too quickly and killed him, his actual death holds no regrets, so I will not linger there. The regret arises out of the mists after this event. This was a very difficult time for all concerned. Bereavement is the single most worst feeling I have ever had in my life, it drains you of everything in your soul. When it concerns close family or friends, it pains you tenfold. At this time, I receded into effectively an emotional coma. I blocked my senses. I shut down.

It seemed like a logical idea at the time. In this state, I closed off, and connected only with the banalities of my life, or things that masked the grief: I mowed the lawn, I played video games, I played football. Any instance where emotion could seize a chance to screw with me, I discarded, refuted, ignored. This, at the time, seemed to work for me in my head.

It took me a further 2 years to realise that it had probably wrecked my ability to share my feelings with people properly, and a further 5 years (and a lot of intensive work by my wife and friends) for me to be able to outwardly talk about my emotions like I am doing right now. Although that isn’t my regret. That caused my regret. I had the chance before the funeral to visit my father’s body, to be at peace with him. My mother came to me and asked sensitively “do you want to come with me to see your dad?” In that very moment, locked in my emotional coma, I froze. I recognised in my head that this was something I should do, it would help the process, bring closure. I said no. I threw away the chance to see my father one last time.

Every time I think about that it wrenches my heart. I have no way to reverse it too. So I think about Terry’s trousers and I hope, somewhere out there, one of me had the confidence and the sensibility to go, and to grieve.