Rant

It was with a knot in my stomach that I read this report on Steve's blog today.

To summarise, teacher David Buckley, writing in the Guardian's education supplement, tells the sad story of how he visited the Facebook site called 'The Dave Buckley Appreciation Society' and got a bit of a shock. He found himself described as patronising and disorganised with ill-fitting shirts and coffee stains on his clothes. He's had the site closed down, arguing rightly, that he signed up for scrutiny from a small audience not an international one.

As I commented over on Mustard Seed Shavings, I think this piece is absolutely horrendous. Personal attacks and incidents like this are why good people are leaving the teaching profession in their droves, and why the government are finding it so difficult to recruit others to the job.

There are, in teaching as in most other jobs, proper structures in place to evaluate the effectiveness of staff, and procedures for correction where appropriate. These include OFSTED (or DENI locally) inspections, the reports of which are published on the appropriate body's website for public consumption.

Then there's PRSD, the Performance Review and Staff Development scheme, were teachers are reviewed annually 'on the job' by their Principal or a member of Senior staff designated by the Principal. This involves monitoring of performance and classroom observation. (The outcome of these reviews is actually linked to pay, so they are not insignificant!)

Let's not forget about League Tables, a document published that showed the results for each exam class in each subject at every level in every school. You could use these documents to see, for example, what grades the class of a colleague who taught the same subject in another school got.

It's one thing to be judged by other professionals in your field. It's something completely different to be judged by those who are neither working in your field, nor professionals.

For years I taught students who didn't want to be there, didn't want to listen, didn't want to learn, didn't want to do any work and didn't want a job because they knew they could live very nicely on Government handouts thankyou. So, because I persisted in teaching the syllabus, because I expected them to listen to me instead of their MP3 players, because I pushed for coursework (and coursework of what I considered an acceptable standard for each individual pupil), because I expected a level of behaviour above 'riotous' in my classroom, and because I pushed them to be the best they could be, do the best they could do, improve themselves and their opportunities, I was judged. I was the bitch. Actually, I was the f**king bitch.

Of course, I wasn't the best teacher in the world, but I'd had my fair share of positive reports from DENI Inspectors and my exam results were always above average both in my own school and across other schools. I wasn't a greenhorn or a soft touch either - I held a fairly senior position within the school. However, where some of my students were concerned, because I didn't let them listen to their music, chew gum, swear at each other or me, do colouring in all day, talk about (or even to) the oppostie sex, beat each other up, write paramilitary graffiti and smoke or drink in class, I was a rubbish teacher.

People in some other professions just wouldn't take the abuse that a minority of students who act as judge, jury and executioner deal out to their so-called 'rubbish' teachers. Mine were rude; personal and hurtful. They told me they hated me. Frequently. I was sworn at and threatened. They made up ficticious stories. I was man handled (I was pushed off a bus when I was five months pregnant). They went out of their way to try and make life hell in the classroom. Will I go on? I'm thinking you're getting the picture.

And today, it's on a whole new level because they do it in the public domain of the internet. Go see 'Rate my Teacher' dot com.

It's bullying. And it's hateful, and it's hurtful, and it gets you down.

But, let it be said that, as in the story of the 10 lepers, there was generally one student who came back at the end of it all to say thankyou, and that in itself made it all worthwhile and maintained my sanity for many a year.

Just for the record, this wasn't the main reason for my breakdown, which led to me resigning my full-time job. However, who's to say if the constant wearing thin of my elephantine hide by such behaviour wasn't a contributory factor to it. One thing was for certain, life had got to the stage were I had to stop raising other peoples kids and start enjoying raising my own while I still had the mental capacity to do it.

PS. I think I need to finish off by saying that I love teaching, which is why I'm still doing it instead of working the till at Tesco!