In the trenches
Hello everyone,
This week and next I’m working every day at a High School on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. About an hour out of the city, it’s a bit of an odd school.
When I’m at these places I spend a lot of time remembering a previous career - one where I worked in spots like this for the better part of a decade.
For loads of reasons, these workplaces can be the place of lots of stress, and it’s interesting remembering my peers’ reactions to that stress. For some, there was this persistent language that we, the staff, were at the coalface, the frontlines, the trenches, etc. This sort of embattled imagery reflected the inherent difficulty of showing up each day.
My week, so far at least, has been quite all over the place. Some of the teenagers, and some of the classes, are really quite good. Students are on task, need a little re-direction and are happy to have a go. On the other hand I have this blisteringly obnoxious Year 9 class that includes two boys constantly ‘trading’ (eg, playing stock market games), three boys just making bizarreo noises (think like impersonating a t-rex at max volume), three kids hell bent on doing the opposite of the instructions and about 5 kids very happy to quietly do nothing and slip under the radar. In that class I very much feel I’m in the trenches.
But here’s the thing. It doesn’t really matter. I’m here this week and next, then I’m off to WA to do some work. So I have 4 classes with the naughty class left, and I am counting down!
I’m reminded of what it takes to engage a group like that - the time a teacher needs to spend building class culture, relationships with students and high standards. Follow up with discipline, calls to parents and boundaries. It’s certainly possible to take the noisy, disruptive nonsense and see a calmer, more constructive learning environment. It just takes time, skill, commitment and a bit of luck. But as a substitute teacher, I’m just here to get paid.
My mother asked me the other day if I would prefer to have real classes to teach, or if it is a more enjoyable job when there’s real work to do. Sometimes that’s the case, but more often than not I’m very happy to have a class where I can type a newsletter, do some planning, relax a little. I have so many other things that I have to spend effort on, I’ll take the easy win. After all, if I had more money I wouldn’t be here.
I think that if I admitted this to myself aged 25 he’d be aghast - how could someone approach a classroom with such callousness? But when there’s other things taking up my energy it’s like, I don’t know, it’s just a job - I get paid to do a basic task, I don’t get anything more if I try harder - no extra sense of satisfaction or reward.
I will say, though, it’s interesting how quickly some students glom onto me (or anyone). I’m teaching a Physics class (I do not know how that happened), there are 12 boys and 1 girl. Yesterday the girl asked me how long I’d be teaching them for, because it was nice that I talked to her rather than always spending time with the boys. It’s a bit sad to think that, Friday next week, I’m gone and she’s probably back to flying under the radar. Still, no one can help everyone, and I’m not the person to help rural kids grasp physics.
So, in some ways it’s quite affirming being back in the trenches, and in other ways I’m already looking forward to leaving them behind again. I’d rather be making books.
A few small things for you:
All Tall Poppy workshops are 25% off for the rest of the week, use code ‘2025’ at check out :)
If you’re in WA we have a bunch of events coming up with Perth Centre for Photography, please head to PCP’s website to see them - I’d especially love to see folks at our talks event on August 12th and our book launch on August 16th