Today was the return to school after the two week break. Last night I slept very little. In the general routine of things I'm fairly confident as NQTs go I think. I don't have a great deal of pressure on me, my classes are generally populated by decent kids and my boss is perhaps the most laid-back person in the world.
None of this assuaged my feeling of dread last night, or on the drive in to school this morning. I felt mortified at the thought of all those people looking at me. What if I say something wrong and they laugh at me? Supposing I get one of those impromptu visits that the headmistress is always promising and I'm suddenly found out? (The last of these is unlikely, to be frank, as I am a department of one in a quiet non bacc-water of the school.)
I wondered last night if these spasms of self doubt are a peculiar neurosis of mine, or if it something more endemic to the profession. A quick unscientific poll of my teacher friends was revealing. K an NQT in primary agreed with my use of the words 'stage fright' and said that she feels knotted inside on Sunday evening as she practices her 'lines' for the next day's performance. C, a primary teacher with 8 years' experience, while less dramatic than we newbies, admitted to getting 'very bad back-to-work dreams at the end of holidays - they always involve me screaming at children who don't even turn to the sound of my voice'.
So, I am not alone, we all feel slightly as though we are performing for 5 hours each day. I wonder if this is heightened in me, because of my academic and professional volte-face relatively late in life. I didn't do A'levels. (I stayed on to sixth form but the things I did with my time did not amount to any qualifications.) I got a job at 18 in the civil service, got married, had a number of children, became a housewife until suddenly at the age of 30 I realised *WHAM* that I needed more. So I got a degree (and an extra child during) followed by a PGCE and most recently a brilliant job 300 miles away from my (now estranged) husband. It's been a whirlwind and I often find myself staring at my reflection thinking 'who are you?'. I keep wondering when someone will notice that this brilliant new life is not mine; I don't deserve it. That I'm really not this fulfilled and independent woman with an ID card that reads 'Law Teacher'. When will the curtains come down?
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! I have dreams where I scream at kids who aren't interested...dreams where I am teaching wearing only my maternity knickers (a real gift I can tell you!), dreams where I attack my boss with a hammer..... it's all a show. Sometimes I tell kids off but inside I'm laughing because whatever they've said is on the money! What a job!
ReplyDelete