What I've been up to lately

Well this may be only 24 hours late but here is a bit of an update. Back in September I started a PGCE. For those not in the UK that is a qualification taken by people who wish to train to be teachers.

The last term has been like a typical rollercoaster. There have been good days and bad days and I have discovered a number of things. Firstly I don't want to teach in an ordinary comprehensive school. This is because I am too old and too set in my ways to put up with all the hassle of teaching people who don't want to learn. There is for my money too much hassle and bureaucracy in the profession and too much emphasis is placed on things like 3 part lesson plans and other 'great ideas'.

I find the actual course also to be tedious and unnecessary. There are lectures which I have attended and for which I won't ever get the time back. The course propounds more pointless theories and does not concentrate on actual teaching.

In the next few days I start on my second placement at a grammar school but I am already looking for jobs outside teaching. If I stay in teaching it will be in the independent sector or in the FE sector. But I am also looking for jobs in the legal profession for which I am trained as well or in training somehow. Whatever I do I want to somehow end up in Ireland which is where I feel at home or if I stay in the UK somewhere more rural and in a bigger house.

I went into teaching with the idealistic aim of changing the way that kids think and thus hopefully changing the future of the country. What I have learned very quickly is that there is no place for idealism in the profession. Teachers are their own worst enemy by signing up to every crackpot idea that comes along. I heard one lecturer criticise a teacher just because he didn't appear to sign up to a type of assessment. This teacher had twenty years plus of experience and the lecturer said openly that she felt that he didn't understand assessment. On the contrary he probably understood it better than she did.

In the legal profession in England and Wales you are given a small inch thick A5 book which contains all the professional rules to which you must adhere. You sit a small exam and you either pass or fail. After that you are deemed to know the rules. Nobody will check that you have read the rules but if you infringe any you will be held to account. In teaching you have to produce portfolios of evidence to show how you meet each of the 33 standards. This is just needless paper creation.

Until teaching starts to behave like a profession in the way it treats its members then it will never be considered to be one of the professions.

On a lighter note

I have recently started to read books and watch programs about science. At school I was average in my scientific ability but since leaving school I read books about quantum physics, watch television programs on vulcanology and astrology. This phenomenon is not restricted to science but also to things like history.

Currently I am reading Hyperspace by Dr Michio Kaku, in addition to my fiction by Eric Van Lustbader. I first discovered Dr Kaku when he presented a series called Time, on the BBC. His style delivers the subject in an enthusiastic way. This engages me on an interest level in the subject but also from a professional interest as I am about to train to be a teacher. I often ask the question about people like Dr Kaku " Why couldn't you be my teacher?". Another scientist who has this enthusiasm is Professor Brian Cox who recently presented the series Wonders of the Solar System. Series like Horizon have always gripped my interest when they are on subjects in which I have a passing interest.

In the historical field people like David Starkey, Simon Schama and John Romer have an enthusiasm for the subject which comes across through the screen.

I have even tried to read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I think he should stick to The Simpsons because I lost the will to live fairly quickly once I had started.

Science and history, in fact any subject, need not be boring or unapproachable if you have an enthusiasm for the subject. I hope to take some of this enthusiasm into the teaching profession