Why not to teach?

Published in the Guardian, 20 September 2011


There are lots of reasons not to become a teacher. My family, friends and even occasionally complete strangers have informed me of this fairly consistently throughout the past few months as I wait in joyful hope to start my PGCE.


Graduating from university with a circle of friends who have secured dazzling graduate jobs with banks and law firms and the salaries to match made me think hard in financial terms about my decision to teach. Am I going to be happy watching whilst their pay increases exponentially every year? Am I going to envy their glamorous corporate existence? (Although now I'm living with an invisible investment banking housemate, who leaves before I get up and gets home after midnight, I might substitute the word glamorous for something else...)


It's an especially hard financial decision this year, given that dear old Michael Gove has decided to take away the bursary that I would have got if I'd started training as a teacher last year. Or the year before. Or the year before that. Undeterred, I am resolved to develop into the best teacher I can be and will be working incredibly hard this year to ensure that I do – even if the government don't incentivise me to. I am only sorry that others less fortunate than me will be unable to do so.


Even one of my 14-year-old students on summer camp had his own views on my future.

Him: Why would you go to Oxford and then become a teacher? You know teachers don't get paid very much, right?

Me: Yes, that's true, but not everything's about money. Anyway, I think headmistresses get paid quite well.

Him: Headmistresses? Like in the porn films? With a whip?


There are plenty of other reasons not to be a teacher – obviously there are hundreds of professions out there, each different and exciting. I dipped my toe in the water of a fair few careers before realising that I had always wanted to be a teacher and that probably wasn't going to change.


I had a great time working during my university holidays in PR, local news, breakfast television and drama production, as well as teaching and summer camp work. I even did work experience at the ill-fated News of the World – thank goodness I didn't set my heart on a career there. The media organisations I worked at were fast-paced, high-pressure environments with interesting, bright, witty people sitting at the desks around me.


But somehow, the classroom and all the fun and sense of achievement I get from working with children and teenagers, has remained my ideal working environment. I love the prospect of engaging students with their writing, whether it is a discussion of revenge in Hamlet, a creative piece, or a covering letter for a job. I can't wait to introduce a boy who has never picked up a book to the joys of Alex Rider and watch him devour the series in the space of a few weeks, like one child I tutored.


I hope to find ways of teaching the subject I love to students who don't love it like I do. Above all, I want to teach English in a way that confirms my twofold belief: that English is a subject that provides the essential building blocks for education and later life as well as being a subject that can engage and inspire at all levels. I am looking forward to learning all I can about how to be a great teacher, the kind of teacher I admired at school and learned a great deal from. In short, I've decided on a career in teaching.


It's not at all a self-sacrificing decision and I don't judge any of my contemporaries for not choosing a so-called caring profession. I know that I'm going to be incredibly happy in my chosen career, and that's part of what will make me good at it. And if I thought banking or indeed any other job would make me equally happy and fulfilled, I wouldn't hesitate to be doing something entirely different.


So I'm very excited to say that I am starting my PGCE in Secondary English in London.


And yes, I'm terrified. What if it's too difficult? What if I'm rubbish? What if my mentor hates women, young teachers, privately-educated people, Oxford-educated people, or just hates me? What if I'm not tough enough to work in south London? I went to school where the biggest discipline problems were rats being released in assembly and uniform (including gowns!) not being worn properly. And I look young as well as posh. I just turned 22 and I got IDed the other day in Argos trying to buy a tool kit. Yes, a tool kit.


But my overwhelming emotion is excitement. I can't wait to get started. I am as sure as I can possibly be that teaching is the right career for me. I'll let you know if I survive.