Aside from when it comes to the marking, I’d say I’m quite an enthusiastic teacher. (My eldest, after seeing me present the story at church this week, tells me I am too enthusiastic, which pretty much translates as, ‘You are so embarrassing!’) Every year when I introduce ‘Romeo and Juliet’ I don’t have to fake the real glee that comes with a legitimate excuse to sit through the Baz Luhrmann film for the umteempth time, or dramatically recite the lines I have learnt through osmosis. I not infrequently burst into song in R.S. classes, as the lessons are practically designed to trigger me with titles like ‘Jacob and sons’ (a recent lesson on Jewish figures overran because the students wanted to stay to sing along to ‘Joseph’ with me). I send so many emails home that more than once I've been accussed of “trying to be, like, best friends with my mum, ‘cause you always tell her whenever I do something good.”
But the absolute highlight of my working year, surpassing even the joy that is ‘gained time’ (the free periods you suddenly have in the summer when exam classes leave) is the annual Year 11 speeches.
The basic set-up has remained unchanged for the fifteen years I’ve been teaching (although the way it is weighted/graded is now changed). Fifteen/sixteen year olds choose a topic to research and present on, they give a speech to their peers, and then answer questions about it. The teacher awards them a grade for how articulate and engaging they are.
And it is SO phenomenally interesting!
I obviously get that a class is made up of individuals, and we teachers are supposed to be all about personalising learning according to the students’ needs and starting points, but a lot of teaching is necessarily about presenting to a class as a collective. So there is something very powerful about listening to individuals and their passions, and gaining insights into their particular thoughts on some really interesting topics. And, my goodness, the topics they choose!
I spent the first half of my teaching career in leafy Hertfordshire where lovely students educated me on all sorts of interesting if fairly harmless topics, like animal testing, and footballers’ wages, and the Danish whaling industry. One highlight (which I still mention to all my Year 11 classes with some sort of hopeful prodding) was on the benefits of eating chocolate, complete with samples for demonstrations. One girl stands out in my mind for talking about why Trident shouldn’t be renewed, and I had to go do some quick research in order to be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions.
I now teach in Cambridge city, and the difference in the make up of the student body really reveals itself in the speeches. In fact, I was just commenting to my husband about how astounding the topics were again this year, and theorising whether the past decade has led to this higher level of awareness of these big ideas, and he pointed out that maybe I am just teaching some students from incredibly well educated liberal middle class backgrounds. The kind of students who will happily spontaneously discuss whether the question of using a black actor to voice a white animated character is a suitable analogy for highlighting the underrepresentation of trans actors in the film industry.
Some general observations on my current students:
- They are wonderfully diverse. It’s normal to look at a class register and have at least five names which I am unsure how to pronounce (it makes cover lessons fun!). There is a deliciously long list of different language spoken and entered for GCSE. A bunch of students are well-travelled; there is a steady trickle of students coming on and off roll as they arrive from and return to other countries; some got trapped in the wrong country during lockdown.
- They are brilliantly mixed. When I was hand-delivering resources for my daily exercise in lockdown, I was struck by how I could be sweating staggering up staircases to hand over a pack of work to a student in a small top-floor flat, then immediately swanning along avenues of giant houses and crunching up long driveways watched by CCTV cameras. There is much more of mixed background here compared to my previous setting.
- There is a significant proportion of parents with fancy titles. It’s pretty standard to have parents working at Cambridge University, Doctor or Professor of this or that, so I have to try not to be intimidated and I’ve so far resisted the temptation to drop my fake MA at the end of my name as an email signature.
Anyway, all of this apparently makes excellent breeding ground for some pretty amazing topics. This week, I have been educated on various points of European and American history of which I was a complete ignoramus (the legacy of neo-fascism on the Italian consciousness, anyone?) by students who seamlessly switch between languages whenever they hit a proper noun. During the rehearsal stage, one girl (who, I kid you not, is likely to be the next prime minister), saw my puzzled face as I listened to a draft speech on the rising cost of living, and kindly gave me a quick tutorial on economic theory and the benefits of quantitative easing.
And they are so woke! So quick to highlight injustice and to spot and call out misrepresentation in the media and the workplace. Two girls attacked the male-dominance of the literary cannon and by the end of one speech I was actually laugh-crying, saying, “It’s true! It’s true! It’s dreadful!”
I am enlightened! I am renewed as a person!
I love the reversal of teacher and student as they present their pet topics and I am the receiver of all their individual ideas and knowledge. When else in life would one be paid to listen to really interesting young people talk brilliantly about their passions? Who wouldn’t be moved by their enthusiasm, and feel more bonded with them as individuals? They are no longer 'Year 11'; they are student X who taught me all about gun control, and student Y who taught me about her 'clean living' experiment. I just love it!
The one slight downside is when they are just a bit too effective and then basically wreck everything. Winston Churchill? A rotter. Don’t believe the slice of history you learn at school. Commercial fishing industry? Apparently dreadful. Find alternative sources of protein and fatty acids. Disney films? Perpetuating unhelpful stereotypes. Don’t inflict them on your children. River Cam? Full of untreated sewage. Stay well away.
You see?
So some of their thoughts I shall have to shelve in order to continue to function in life. At least next year's cohort will get their chance to persuade me back into more moral shape in 2022, and so the overall trajectory should be positive.
Meanwhile, I have spent my evening (after a quick jog up and down the road following a very inspiring talk on the benefits of physical activity for mental health) enthusiastically emailing Dr this and Prof that to commend their offspring on their wonderful presentations.
Some days, I have the best job in the world.
Other days, I have marking.
More on my amazing students' talks here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-identity-and-representation
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