Feed the Passion not the Pedagogy

I remember when I was an NQT working in London I felt a little aggrieved that, due to the ridiculous number of hours I had to put into my teaching job just to keep my head above water, I no longer had any time to go to the theatre. I seem to recall complaining to the head that teaching had forced me to stop feeding the very passion which made me want to teach in the first place. Being a large and accommodating school, they teamed me up with the head of drama and I saw the full A level Theatre Studies course of plays across London. It was truly wonderful.

On my way to and from work on the tube, I used to read and read, again feeding my thirst for literature. But that was all before I had children and swapped my daily commute on the tube, for a short walk along the road, and the fast pace of London life for a sleepy seaside town. I had all but stopped reading recently, (my anxiety had robbed me of the patience needed to tackle any book I wanted to read) evidenced by the pile of unread Booker shortlist books by the side of my bed. But I can’t even remember the last time I read a poem for the pleasure of that poem and not to use in a lesson or put up as an inspirational poster around the school. Life in general is too impatient to allow time to contemplate a poem. Today that all changed. Today I read not one but several poems for pleasure.

I sat in the sun and leafed through a poetry book. Like all English teachers, our house is rammed full of books and I had a wide selection of poetry collections to choose from. I chose to read some Edward Thomas, from a book I had received when I left primary school.

Thaw

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed

The speculating rooks at their nests cawed

And saw from the elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass

What we below could not see, Winter pass.

Well there is no snow round here, but the poem felt right and I liked it. No detailed explanation, no over-thought analysis, I just liked it. Despite feeling guilty about sitting down and reading in the afternoon sun, I really enjoyed the experience. Maybe we should spend INSET days in schools feeding the passion for our subject specialisms by going to the theatre or a poetry recital. I am sure that many teachers would find it more inspiring and invigorating that learning about the latest buzzword in pedagogy.

Moving on from teaching

I have spent the weekend mulling over my options on whether to leave my teaching role or not. As with other decisions which I make, I vacillate between thinking I can just get back on the horse (my sick note signs me off until Thursday) and thinking that I don’t want to ever enter a classroom again.

I began this blog to try to get myself fit enough to teach again, however, as with all aspects of life other factors present themselves and throw a bit of confusion into the mix. I have been trying to tease out what aspects of the job I find so stressful. (All the while, I am trying to bear in mind that I am suffering from stress and anxiety and now might not be the right time to make fairly permanent life-changing decisions.)

So what is the problem? On the stress front, I do feel over-whelmed by the continual reinventing of the wheel in terms of teaching initiatives. In school, people are now so bogged down by the minutiae of the ‘science of learning’ that we sometimes forget that these children are experiencing a far bigger life outside of school and that our impact is fairly miniscule. I firmly believe that parents are the main educators of their children and as teachers we just tinker around the edges. Quite frankly, if you ask the average child, or their family, about skills vs content/ rigour vs engagement, they couldn’t give a monkey’s because they are dealing with the daily grind of life; the fact that their gran is ill, or their parents are splitting up or they have only had Wotsits for breakfast. I have always believed that strong teacher/ pupil relationships coupled with a passion for the subject is the most important thing in the classroom. Clearly, learning is important but there is a bigger picture out there which we all seem to have lost sight of. Parents want safe schools and cold, hard qualifications.

Anyway, that is an aside because the reason that I want to leave teaching is because I am exhausted by having to constantly manage the behaviour of thirty teenagers at a time. I am a good teacher; my lessons are well planned and my books are marked, the parents like me the students like me and my exam results are fine. However, like every other teacher up and down the country I spend my day encouraging children to be reasonable human beings and follow pretty arbitrary rules. “Please sit down/ please stop talking/ don’t push past her/ Don’t throw your rubbish on the floor/ Have you started writing? Do up your top button/ take off your nail varnish/ Listen! etc. etc” I have reached a point where I feel apathetic towards the ‘science of learning’ and worn down by behaviour management. It is time to go.

I have really considered the option of returning to the school with the support and friendship of some of the wonderful staff there, and my department and the wider school truly is filled with wonderful staff. However, when I engage with these thoughts, I feel a real tightening in my chest and the anxiety, which has led to me being off sick in the first place, starts to reemerge. I no longer feel that this path is an option. The risk of sinking back into the mire of deeper depression and anxiety is too great.

I have read a few blog posts about life after teaching. One of the biggest regrets I have about the demise of my career is the impact it will have on my sense of self. I always loved teaching; I felt so passionate about it that my husband was tempted back into teaching due to my evangelism. I have always felt proud to be a teacher and felt very frustrated by the moaning section of the profession. Whinging teachers are a real blight on all who they come into contact with.Teaching is an honourable and noble profession and I have always believed that anyone who is passionate about their subject – whatever that subject may be- owes it to society to teach it and share their passion for a few years, a bit like National Service. I still feel passionate about my subject but I have lost my need to imposes that on others, for the moment.

If you are involved in a vocational line of work you need to ‘feel the love’. Now that has gone, I need to move on. There is nothing wrong with the school so changing to another one would be a futile idea.  I am a bit scared but mainly I am excited about exploring the other options open to me now that I am the wiser side of 40.

Choice and poetry

Despite the fact that over the years I have learnt about how choice, far from freeing us, adds to our feelings of stress and anxiety, I can’t help falling into the trap of thinking that more choice equals better decisions. When I lived abroad in the mountains of the Karakorum there was very little choice. There were two modes of transport, jeep or foot, unless you had an army pass to use the helicopter (I didn’t.) The local shops offered fresh fruit and vegetables, determined by the seasons and live chickens or hanging beef. There were also sacks of rice, tea and flour, but basically that was it. One little grocery shop did sometimes sell western goods like pasta and processed cheese. When my granny used to speak of enjoying the challenge of cooking in the war, I thought she was romanticising her youth. But I did enjoy the challenge of cooking from scratch without an oven, without electricity – just a two ring gas burner and my ingenuity. There was a real sense of satisfaction with my achievements which is harder to achieve with ‘shop bought’ pasta and pesto.

So coming back to the UK, albeit many years ago now, I found the choice over-whelming. Row upon row of foods I had lived without for two years. Food so far from ‘real’ food in layers of branded packaging. I lost most of my interest in cooking and resorted to a toast based diet. Now once again I find myself back in the territory of too many choices. I am at a cross-roads and far from being exciting it is terrifying. the fear of making the ‘wrong’ choice is all consuming.

I need to make some decisions over the next few weeks and they feel pretty significant. I have taught for the best part of two decades mainly in busy mixed comprehensive schools. Now I feel as if I can’t do it any more. The thought of the noise and the constant low level confrontation with students: asking them to sort out their uniform; hand in their homework; stop talking, is quite frankly exhausting. This coupled with the fact that my own children are now on the cusp of adolescence means I will have absolutely no emotional energy left. These are high quality problems, but when you live with recurrent mental health worries (in fact maybe even if you don’t) it is important to protect yourself from running yourself into the ground.

I used to love  the banter, of the students. They made me laugh and they rewarded me with fabulous work and genuinely engaging human interaction. That is not to say they were my friends but I really liked most of them and cared about their woes. Right now I feel, however, that enough is enough. I am meeting with the deputy head today. I am not really sure of the agenda because I don’t feel in a position to make a decision yet but I realise that time is fast approaching. I know what I don’t want.

• I don’t want to be back in the classroom
• I don’t even want to go into the school (we are meeting off-site)
• In fact I can’t even watch Tough Teachers or read about education in the papers
• I can’t stand people talking about pedagogy around me AfL, plenaries, student voice, observations – it makes me start sweating

So I find myself in a situation where I have good degree from a respected university, 18 years (on and off – two children etc) of classroom experience, the bills still to pay and no direction. There seems to be a sense that it is okay to hurry through our day jobs to be rewarded by our weekends and two weeks of a All Inclusive holiday in Turkey every summer. The problem with this is that it leads to the very thing I am trying to avoid, NOT living in the moment. Remembering the past and planning for the future, racing mentally towards the weekend, counting the weeks of the term out from week one. I am not so idealistic that I think that everyday is going to be a beautifully rewarding experience, but I think that there are things which are more important than money and status. (Although I have to keep reminding my self of this.)

To help myself make a sensible choice I am going to do some thinking tasks with a piece of paper. These are the two practical tasks I am going to do: write a list of everything which I find life-enhancing and calculate (look I am still a teacher Literacy and Numeracy based tasks) exactly how much money we need to keep the wheels of our life turning without too much stress.

But first I am going to meditate on the following poem. I am going to read it through and then choose a short phrase to repeat over and over to myself in a state of meditation- it might even work!

William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare

Tuesday 10.20am

I am now into the second day of staying sane and I am having some success in my endeavours.

This morning, despite really struggling to fall asleep last night, I still managed to get up with my children. I can’t switch off the internal calculation of how much sleep I have had versus how much sleep I need. I am a bit obsessed by the fact that because I can sleep for 10 hours I need to sleep for that long. I used to be the same with the children when they were little, constantly worrying about their sleep patterns and fretting over whether they would be developing properly without enough sleep. I didn’t get as much sleep as a wanted last night, but I proved to myself that it was enough because I followed my first rule. I got up as the 8 o’clock headlines were in full flow on the radio. A stickler might think I had failed here, but I am going to give myself the 90 seconds leeway. So rule number 1 met!

Rule number 2 – I really had to force myself out this morning and not give into a certain amount of agoraphobia which starts to creep in. The school playground is an appalling concept for me, but post-school run I was able to go on a walk round our town, taking in a shop or two. Sometimes I need to persuade myself that I have committed to nothing except the first steps. So I think all I need to do is put on warm clothing. Then all I need to do is open the front door. I did this with my youngest who was very fearful of going to nursery. “let’s just get out of our PJs and see how we feel, let’s just put on out coats and see how we feel…etc.” So I employ the same coaxing with myself, no pressure no retribution if I fail. But I didn’t fail, in small, incremental steps I managed to get out of the house,  walk in the fresh air (and howling rain) buy some essentials and talk to a couple of friendly faces. The walk was up hill on the way there so I am going to give myself half a tick for exercise (rule number 3) as well. I will do some yoga later too…

Now I am writing and adding some order to the chaos – although to be honest, I am not proud of my writing achievements, but hopefully over time I will ‘find my voice’ and my writing will marry closer to my personality. Also my bed is made and the washing up is half done. I have left the rest for my coffee break later this morning.

Finally onto living in the moment. I achieved this to the ‘letter rather than spirit of the law’ this morning. I played my mindfulness guided meditation and sat still in a chair. However, my mind ran away with itself and I kept forgetting to force it back. It is still really early days and I will try again later this morning.

This afternoon I am going to experiment with the consolation of poetry…more to follow

Two Weeks to Write Myself: The Rules

Despite some of my best efforts over the last few weeks to improve my mental well-being, I have slightly given into my mind and am now off work with depression and anxiety. I have already taken two weeks and the doctor has just signed me off for two more weeks. I have set myself the challenge to try to get better enough within the next couple of weeks so that I can make some good decisions and move on.

So to begin my race against time I have put some rules in place. I need these rules to keep me on track and stop me from descending further into my symptoms of depression and anxiety. As I am able to be disciplined in some areas of my life I see no reason why I can’t strengthen this in times which are more unpredictable. I also recognise some of the symptoms of depression and anxiety could start to become the cause – for example lying in bed all day is enough to make anyone feel depressed!

So rule number one is Rules and Rhythm

I have several rules but it is important that I start by getting up and on with life everyday even when it feels really difficult. So I am committed over the next few weeks to get up by 8 o’clock every morning. I have also banned myself from eating and drinking in bed. Not even a cup of tea. This increases the getting up incentive and generally once I am up, I am up. So getting up at a reasonable time, an easy task for some, but when you feel daunted by the world and what the day has to offer it seems easier to stay in bed and listen to Women’s Hour on the radio. So every weekday morning I am up and eating breakfast with my children. This is something I didn’t do latterly when I was working. I hid in my room until the last moment and then left the house in a flurry of forgotten keys and half marked essays. This also means that I am tired at the end of the day rather than slowly shifting my sleep patterns to late mornings and sleepless nights. I am also not allowed to sleep during the day, irrespective of how bad the previous night has been.

This also ties in nicely with the second part of rhythm to keep on eating normally. In the past when I have been struggling I have been tempted to stop eating, resort to only toast based meals and drink more. This time I am going to eat properly, not drink alcohol excessively (I actually drink very little usually) and limit my caffeine intake. This is important for me
because both really increase my anxiety levels. Like the sleep patterns this means that I sit down to meals hungry so I eat better and feel more satisfied by the meal. I think that one of the symptoms of depression which is most upsetting is the numbness and lack of interest in the world. By allowing myself to feel tired and encouraging myself to feel hungry I lose some of the numbness and I feel more in tune with my body.

So far I am doing very well with this in as much as I am following the rules for the most part. Yesterday was a very flat day and in addition to eating breakfast in bed, I also resorted to lying down during the day. I didn’t sleep, I just lay feeling agitated and miserable in a darkened room. The net result was I felt worse than ever. I really do need to bully myself into getting better.

My second rule is Fresh Air and Natural Light

This is pretty obvious not least because my low periods do seem to fall more in winter than in summer months and the benefits of fresh air and natural light are well documented. However, as with many things which we know rationally are good for us, actually implementing them into our lives is somehow trickier. Unlike the Rhythm rule, this rule I made was more wishy-washy i.e. I thought that I needed to have more fresh air and natural light in my life but I didn’t really set any parameters for myself. That, however, is about to change. For me to follow rules they need to be very strict and very prescriptive. So I have not really succeeded in this except that I have slept with my window open ever night. This has been life changing in terms of the quality of my sleep. I fully accept that there are placebos at work in many things and this might be one of them, however, it is free (our heating is off at night so it doesn’t impact on the thermostat and I shut the window as soon as I wake up when the heating comes back on), it requires very little discipline and it doesn’t impact on anyone else. I noticed over the summer how well rested I felt after sleeping in our camper van, regardless of the number of hours of sleep I had. I accept that I was on holiday and therefore less anxious but we camped through the most ferocious thunderstorms in France and my youngest daughter was worryingly ill for two nights. Even so, with less than 5 hours sleep I was able to fully function. I am under no illusions that there were many factors at play here. However, since returning home I have employed the open window technique and I feel less sluggish in the morning. Also at the weekend I turn the heating off so that it doesn’t come on at 6.45am. Everyone in the household has benefitted from an extra hour of cool sleep.

The natural light rule is harder. During the winter when you work inside it is fairly easy to go from one artificially lit room to another without seeing the world and communing with nature. I didn’t put set daily requirement into place to fulfil this and so I failed somewhat. However, now I have structured the rule to make it easier to follow and tick off the list. I now aim to spend 30 minutes a day in natural daylight. On a bad day this can be in my garden, hidden from ‘the baddies.’ On a good day it would involve a walk in the countryside. We are very lucky to sandwiched between some beautiful woodland and the sea (it is really a river estuary but it is sea-like enough for me.) If I look out of my window I can see the evergreen oaks in all their majesty and this is very grounding for me. I have failed to achieve my natural light target for today but there is still time. Sometimes the weather is off putting and I feel the cold through to my bones. Even though experience has taught me that proper cold weather gear eliminates that, I still place it as an obstacle to getting out. Over the Christmas holidays, as a family, we put on our waterproof trousers and ski-gloves (not that I ski, I just have very cold hands ) and walked as if it were a spring day. There is nothing like a cup of tea and a piece of cake following a blustery walk to make you feel alive. Our children were worn out and invigorated at the same time. I am now going to pause from my writing to achieve this rule for the day.

And done! I have successfully swept and raked the garden for 30 minutes. The added bonus of some vigorous exercise is also paying off, which brings me onto rule number 3.

Rule number 3 Exercise

This feels a bit trickier to pin down to a daily rule. I simply cannot be bothered to exercise everyday and I don’t think that it is realistic, especially when I return to work. However, I am under no illusion as to the benefits both physically and mentally of regular exercise. Also I think that it is worth considering how the daily rules can double up. So spending 30 minutes outside in the daylight maybe could be combined with exercise rather than coffee. Currently I exercise twice a week for an hour outside. One is a vigorous cardio tennis session. The other is a lesson, which is less vigorous but still active. If I then add in a walk a weekend and some yoga (which is part of my rule 5) I might just achieve some form of physical activity everyday. I think it is okay just to do 15 minutes of yoga style stretching. It is free, relatively painless and can be done in my pyjamas.

The mental health benefits of exercise are so well document that I need little to convince me to include it in my rules, however, it does require some motivation and I have to rely on other factors to make me do it. The first pressure I put on myself is a financial one, which works well for me because I can’t stand waste and to be honest I am a bit tight with money. I paid for all my cardio tennis sessions up front, which worked out a lot cheaper, and adds some extra incentive. If I have paid for it I am jolly well going to do it. The second tactic I employ on the exercise front is guilt. I have my lesson with a friend and if I don’t go she can’t play either. Whilst I am happy to let myself down, letting down a friend is too much for me. It works particularly well because the friend in question would never let me down, she is very emotionally buoyant (which provides a sense of purpose and well-being to the world) and I am a little bit scared of her.

The stretches and the walking do require more discipline because they are free and not at a set time. As an aside, I generally feel that when anything is restricted to a specific time I find it much easier to do. The iplayer has been disastrous for me on this front. Whereas I used watch things as and when they were on, I now feel that I can do it anytime, and more often than not end up missing it altogether. Exercise is the same. The weekend can easily come and go with no walk under-taken. I need to rethink strategies here.

Rule number 4 Add Order to the Chaos

Over the years, when I have struggled with my mental health problems, all other things seem to rapidly tumble into chaos. This is from the minutiae such as forgetfulness, not knowing my left from my right, being unable to spell things, to the general chaos which ensues from low level depression and anxiety. Normally I live with unmade beds, un-ironed clothes and washing up piled around the sink. I am a slob of the first degree, albeit a high function slob who leaves the house with relatively clean children and brushed hair. However, my house tells a different story and at the end of every week the chair in my bedroom is a monument to all the outfits I have worn that week complete with knickers and socks inter-twined. However, when my mind is less stable I find the lack of order very upsetting. So my rule for applying order is about regaining control in the areas which feel least chaotic, ie my surroundings. Again nebulous rules applied to a messy family home would be unachievable and require far longer than two weeks to implement. I have opted for a few key areas to focus on: make my bed (sounds simple and would probably horrify many people that this is not on my usual list of chores, but here I am anonymous and therefore honest.) Clear the surface after a meal and finally write everyday. I read an interesting piece of research on adding clarity to your thoughts which suggested that talking (unless guided by a trained expert i.e. therapist) added to the general chaos of your thoughts, whereas writing adds a sense of order. I am in the learning business (teacher) and should be interested in how this might impact on my teaching, but at the moment, quite frankly, I am only interested in the benefits to my own mental well-being.

The writing is obviously key to breaking some of the circular nature of my thoughts. If I write things down it feels as if I have given the thoughts due care and consideration and am able to leave the ideas outside of my head. Before writing them they tumble around tormenting me. This is definitely a daily requirement. I have chosen to blog because it feels like it is of our time, but in the past I have written endless diaries.

All these rules are relatively easy to achieve and review. I need to write everyday after I have made my bed and done the washing up. It is nice to go into my room and see a neat bedspread (I need several layers of bedclothes with my fresh air at night rule) where I previously would have seen a scrumpled duvet and a wet towel. It also feels satisfying to get into a well-made bed at the end of the day.

Rule number 5 is about Living in the Moment

This idea is very ‘in vogue’ I know, but I have only just heard about it. It was first introduced to me by a few friends before the doctor also told me about it and, following some thorough internet research, I decided to give it a go. Unlike some of the other areas which I had always recognised as helpful when dealing with symptoms of depression this was completely new to me. I have done yoga in the past, although it has always been church hall style yoga. There was very little meditation involved and I was always pleased if I could get through with a bit of a chat and my pelvic floor muscles not letting me down. However, I am now really sold on mindfulness meditation.

The concept of it really made sense to me, in that I mainly live in the future. My anxiety is centred around constant, unrelenting worry about what the future might bring and how I can shape my path through life. To achieve this I become embroiled in endless hours of research into the jobs for me, houses for the family, schools for the children. I act on none of this research, paralysed by an inability to make a decision. My thoughts are based on the utterly unhelpful assertion that things will be better in the future if I make good decisions. This slightly presupposes that things are not good now, which is clearly not true. I live an idyllic lifestyle in many ways: I work part-time in a school, surrounded by fabulous colleagues (teachers in all their quirky glory), with virtually no commute. My husband is relatively well-paid and largely lovely. We have two fabulous, healthy children and we can pay all the bills. We have no worries and yet, due to my erratic mental health, anyone would think we live in a constant state of crisis. I see now that being at peace in the moment is vital for any long-term improvement. The official NICE findings suggest that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Mindfulness has a similar success rate in treating recurrent depression as anti-depressants. This seems a good enough reason to give it a go.

I have managed to find someone who can help me to practise mindfulness in all areas of my life. In addition to some one-to-one sessions he has also given me a dropbox guided meditation session which I can access from home. When I am in his nice peaceful room and I am a captive audience, I find it very helpful and relatively straight-forward. However, once back at home, I find it very hard to sit for long enough to do the 15 minute session. To try to discipline myself into achieving the mindfulness rule I have to quantify it. I need to practise 15 minutes three times a day. Because I am off work at the moment I will do one session after the children leave for school (definitely before 9.30) one session in the lull of the afternoon – always a very bad time for me and one before bed after my Pyjamas Yoga. To be honest, I failed miserably to do this today, but as Anne of Green Gables says ‘ tomorrow is another day, with no mistakes.’ So I am not going to be too down-hearted.

In amongst the mindfulness I am going to try to find merit in the mundane. As life has become busy I have started to outsource some of the more mundane tasks in my life. This is everything from the obvious such as getting a cleaner when I went back to work, to the ironing, the shopping (all online now) and even reading bedtime stories. The final activity is only outsourced as far as my husband and my mother-in-law but even so…I want to reclaim some of these tasks and enjoy the simplicity of them. At the risk of sounding trite, I want to find the benefits in these activities, for example I really enjoy weeding and ironing should be as satisfying. Likewise I feel very satisfied by nit-combing the children’s hair. It is monotonous but it has a rhythm to it and I can bond with the children, in between their shrieks of pain and protestation.I want to replicate this in other activities.

Is the unexamined life really not worth living?

Over the years I have tried a variety of techniques to help me contend with the events which life throws at me and writing seems to be the most effective. My life is by no means troublesome and I suffer only from ‘high quality problems.’ However, in my state of heightened anxiety and general worry, I tend to torment myself with making the right decisions. Whilst I am engaged in these thoughts my life slips by, children, career, marriage all play second fiddle to my perceived fears for the future.

In writing this blog I hope to add reason to my worries, break the thought cycles I get locked into and get back to the fundamentals of life. I want to enjoy spending time with my family and friends. Living in the moment is a popular current philosophy for life and I would like to achieve that. I would like to feel peaceful about where I am now and who I am now.