While most of us are happy to have left the classroom for good after graduation, Adam Squires found himself right back where he started. Only this time, he’s in charge of the classroom. In theory…
After a summer of decadent partying and holidays, spending what little money you could scrape from the barrel of your overdraft, you find yourself jobless. Looking through the graduate jobs on offer nothing takes your fancy. You settle in to some temping work to regenerate your cash flow and start to realise that the real world of work is not all that it is cracked up to be.
That’s where I found myself last year when the idea of teaching popped into my head. Or rather was rammed in by those teaching adverts, you know, the one with the smart, smiling kids who have clever questions to ponder.
Yes I do want to work in ‘the most dynamic company’. One thing worries me. Those laughing, well mannered and enthusiastic kids don’t look like anyone I was at school with. I decided to try it out and ring up a local comprehensive to arrange a week long visit.
On entering the school I find to my dismay no cheery 15 year olds pondering life’s questions in the corridor. Instead a surge of bodies crush past as I struggle to find the science department. Have I stumbled onto the plains of
Africa just at the time when the wildebeest migrate? By the end of the week though I find myself casually conversing about one student’s passion for mountain biking whilst trying to steer them towards the topic of renewable energy. Before I know it I land a job as a teaching assistant and spend my days repeatedly explaining that Romeo did not shoot Tybalt, he stabbed him. My only relief was tea and biscuits in the staffroom, when I wasn’t being mistaken for a sixth former.
So that’s how I found my self at the end of September starting a PGCE and embarking on a career some describe as ‘inspirational’ and others as a ‘cop out’. Since then I have had numerous lectures on classroom management, core knowledge and other educational issues. I’ve been told to be strict but friendly, persuasive yet firm and somehow juggle essays with lesson planning and the actual practice of teaching.
Now here I am, well and truly on the path to becoming a teacher. Next week I start my first school placement. I will be in charge of 11-18 year olds trying to teach them the mysteries of science. Am I nervous? You bet! When I first walk into that classroom what is going to make them listen to me? What will stop them from running riot? And what happens when they ask that awkward question, ‘but why’s that sir?’
