I guess this is one in reverse really, in that I noticed something in particular that was present on my PGCE and I wish it wasn’t. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and I only realised how much I’d been duped after I’d found out what teaching was really like.
What I’m talking about is that I specifically remember my lecturers and the way they talked up the profession all the time. The one point I remember them making that sums up what I’m talking about nicely, is when they told us briefly about their own careers.
Both were ex heads of music in successful comprehensive high schools. They specifically told us that they had become teacher training lecturers, “…not to escape the classroom, but because we enjoy helping develop new teachers…”
I can’t remember if that was the exact real reason they gave, but that’s the exact ‘not’ reason that they gave. Why point that out? Why did they think we thought that about them? Why were they justifying their move like that?
It was obvious everywhere I went. Education professionals were permanently justifying why they were doing what they were doing, as if it was a given that everyone they spoke to would either be thinking, “What did you do to get such a crap job?” or, “Must be nice for you, now you’re not on the frontline anymore.”
The result is that there was so much defensive spin put into every point they made, and every piece of pedagogical theory that you couldn't help but be suspicious.
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