Old Primary Head

Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly

Good golly Miss Molly and boats

Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet

Jump back in the alley and nanny goats

Ian Dury and the Blockheads – Reasons to be cheerful Part 3

I have been asked to talk about the State of Education at #BrewEdBristol on the 9th Feb. I’ve been thinking about what to say quite a lot. I could easily do a depressive hour bemoaning the terrible mess we seem to be in – cuts, workload stress, our fragmented system, massive divisions amongst educators around practice, SEND provision, inclusion… Oh, I could go on and on.

Last week, whilst thinking, I listened to the Ian Dury and the Blockheads song – Reasons to be Cheerful – Part 3 in which Mr Dury lists all the things that make him happy. Now, for Ian this is mostly drugs, sex, rock and roll and nanny goats… but it got me thinking – What ARE the reasons to be cheerful in education? What if I twisted the narrative and looked at the things I may be taking for granted. So, on Wednesday just before a governors meeting I tweeted:

It got a fantastic response and has helped me compile a list for my #BrewEd talk. I don’t want to give too much away yet but felt like exploring some areas. There were many obvious ones on there – the children, colleagues etc – but some really got me thinking… especially twitters role in how the profession has developed. There are a few Twitter related ones on my list – some controversial. It makes me think about a scene in The Life of Brian:

Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals!

Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals!

Brian: You’re all different!

Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!

Man in crowd: I’m not…

I think when it comes to how I feel about education and especially twitter I want to be that man in the crowd. I want to be able to step back and reflect without white noise clouding my judgements. As long as I have been in education there has always been this addiction to following prevalent or dominant tendencies. I have fallen for it time and time again. I have added to the ‘Education is Doomed’ soundbite because I have been unable to flip the way I see things.

I taught this week – for about 30 minutes – and loved every second. I realised as a head teacher I miss that part in my role. Those teaching interactions… The teacher left me and just assumed I knew how to teach the Mathematics on the board. I didn’t. I had to think quickly and got the children to explain the way the method was worked out. When I last taught we did it differently – the method we used now was genius and once I’d picked it up we were off! I felt real joy in those few moments. I recently read a great blog by an Ex Head teacher colleague from Bristol about why he went back to teaching (https://www.teachwire.net/news/why-i-quit-my-headship-and-moved-to-supply-teaching)

I understood exactly what he meant this week. This week, that little tweet had made me realise what a gift teaching is. What a blessing it is to work with children and young people.

Reasons to be Cheerful? 1 2 3…