Chapter 11: Being a Teacher

I loved teaching. I had my career set out before me. I would be a deputy headteacher by the time I was 30 and have my own school by the time I was 35. I had no doubt that I would succeed. But after seven years, I resigned – with no job to go to.

My teaching career had started back in my hometown at the school near where I lived. I decided I would go back home after college just for a year. The school was a secondary modern one with the grammar school on the same campus. There wasn’t much integration between the schools though and even the staff sat in different areas of the huge staff room. At my interview with the education guy on the council, I said I wanted to work at that school. He was very frosty and said, “Well, Miss Bown, no one is going to resign because you want a job there.”

I replied, “Yes, but it’s an expanding school and you’re bound to need additional teachers.”

So that’s where I ended up.

I was teaching English and all the English teachers were women. It remains my best example of team working and that was because it was all women – no jockeying for position, no talking over one another and all of us sharing ideas and resources.

I have continued to rate women-only groups and teams very highly ever since.

The Head of Department, Barbara, demonstrated the art of seeming to be angry with children without actually getting angry. It was the first thing I learned there, how to remain emotionally unattached from the situation in hand. It was also the first time I saw that the demonstration of anger was safe – it didn’t have to descend into rage.

I also realised that I really didn’t like 10 and 11-year-old children. They would ask stupid questions like:

“Shall I turn over the page, Miss?” (Yes, unless you are going to write on the desk, I’d think to myself);

“What’s the date, Miss?” (I’d just written it on the blackboard);

“Can I underline the heading in two colours?” (I really didn’t care).

Of course, I didn’t voice these responses out loud and kept my sarcasm in check but I did establish a rule – whatever question you are going to ask, ask yourself first, “Will Miss Bown say this is a stupid question?” And, if you think the answer to that is ‘yes’, then please don’t ask me – you can answer your question yourself.” I would see kids at the back putting their hands up and then down and then up again and then biting their nails. I probably terrified them and stopped them asking questions ever again.

My classroom was next to the art room where the art teacher was an older guy, Ken. He was friendly and easy going and his smile never left his mouth, even when he was talking. He guided me when he saw I was trying to be too domineering with my pupils. He showed me that it wasn’t necessary. He also explained to me, with great amusement, what his fourth-year pupil actually meant when he kept asking me about my pussy. I was so naive and had no idea what the boy meant or why he was smirking. It wouldn’t be the only time my naivety about sexual language would get me into trouble.

It was in the second term that I met Martin and who I would marry five months later. After the wedding, in August, we moved to London to take up our new teaching jobs for the following school year. We planned to teach for two years, then travel around South America for two years, having a baby along the way. Of course, both sets of parents were completely horrified at this idea and weren’t shy about telling us.

I had taken Martin’s name when we married (a move I later regretted) and so was known as Mrs Robertson. We lived in a small upstairs flat in Wimbledon. I was teaching at a huge school for 1800 girls in Tooting Bec and Martin was at Wandsworth School for Boys.

That year in London was one of the worst in my life. The school was chaotic.

The girls were unruly. Discipline was non-existent, except for Miss Henry (I never knew her first name). Miss Henry was a very tall, formidable, black woman and the girls were terrified of her. I don’t know whether she knocked them about in the classroom or whether she reminded them of a mother or grandmother who did, but they were quiet and polite and respectful around her – as were the staff! There was a lot of ‘knocking about’ going on – mainly by the pupils. This was 1972/3 and it was a period of school violence. One teacher in my school was held while five others kicked her. Another ended up in hospital with concussion. A boy was stabbed in the playground in Martin’s school. I had to lock my classroom door (which was actually illegal) to stop pupils from leaving. I could be in the middle of teaching when the door would be flung open and a group of girls would appear in the doorway. They would shout to their friends, “You’re not listening to this fucking bitch, are you? Come and have a fag,” and a group of girls would get up and go and join them. And every now and again you would hear the voice of Miss Vaughan-Davies, the Headmistress, echoing though the tannoy in every classroom, “June, June. We can all see you on the roof, dear, come down now,” and girls would rush to the window, trying to see the roof. Once, I saw girls hanging out of the windows on the third floor, shouting down to prospective parents who were walking around outside, “You don’t want to fucking come here. It’s a fucking awful school.” Some teachers blocked their tannoy so we wouldn’t hear Vaughan-Davies’ voice booming out from the wall at various points during the day.

My worst class was 3K. I only had them for a double period on a Thursday morning but I used to dread it. The first lesson I had with them I got there early with my tape recorder so I could play them some music from my lesson plan for the writing part (the same lesson that I had got a distinction for on my final teaching practice). The girls drifted in, glanced at me, then sat in groups, chatting and doing their nails. I said, “Good Morning,” and raised my voice and clapped my hands – nothing. I had to go round to each group of girls and ask them if they wouldn’t mind turning around as we were about to start the lesson. They didn’t turn, but fidgeted in their seats and still did their nails.

Just as I was about to start the lesson, Jean spoke up,

“We’re going to break you.” She stared at me, “We’ve broken every teacher we ever had, and we’ll break you too.

And don’t think you can go running to the headmistress because she is useless, she won’t do anything.”

They were right on that and she did nothing to support me in the following months.

The school consisted of mainly black students and there was not much tension between white and non-white students. There were tensions, however, between the black pupils and white members of staff, which would become very personal before the year was out.

The next few months were extremely stressful at my school and Martin’s. We would arrive home, drag ourselves up the stairs to our flat, drop our bags and just sit in the dreary, dark front room, which we never used, for over half an hour, not speaking, before we could even make a coffee. We had a tiny kitchen which we ate in and then we would go to our bedroom with just enough room at the foot of the bed for two small chairs in front of the electric fire and listen to John Dunn on Radio 2 and play Canasta. Every night.

I started to put on weight and get very tired. My eyes swelled and looked like they would pop out of my head. My heart rate was right up and I was so exhausted that I had to sit down to comb my hair. I could only go upstairs one step at a time and, as my teaching room was on the second floor, there were a lot of steps. In addition, I had large purple welts appearing all over my legs. I was a complete mess. Sometimes there was a group of girls near my room that I would have to pass. I would go up to the next floor and down again at the other side and approach my room from the other side, so as not to have to pass them. Our instructions were that if there was a fight we had to go into our classroom and lock the door and not try to intervene – the police would be called.

The staffroom was in another block altogether and once, when I had locked my class in, their friends started banging on the windows in the corridor and chanting. I started to feel very afraid. I knew I had to get out of there with some dignity, so I walked out of the classroom slowly and down the corridor with girls from two classes shouting abuse after me. I knew that if one of them had jumped me they would all have piled in. I kept walking and didn’t look back.

Had I not taught successfully for the year before, I would have left teaching altogether.

Finally, after I had gained 42lbs in weight, I was diagnosed with an over-active thyroid. My symptoms had fooled the doctors as you would normally lose weight with an overactive thyroid, not put it on. Within two or three weeks of starting the medication the weight dropped off and I was back to normal, i.e. my normal stress levels at that school.

The final straw was the following May when a girl came into my classroom and hit me. I had tried to stop her running down the corridor at a breakneck pace and put my arm out.

She told me to take my ‘fucking white hands’ away from her and called me a ‘fucking white bitch’.

I looked at her and referred to her as a ‘slut’, not something I am proud of in the least, but my naivety about sexual language had got me into trouble again. I had no idea that ‘slut’ had a sexual connotation. I meant it in the same way that my mother used the word ‘common’.

The girl followed me into my room and whacked me on the arm. I stumbled but didn’t fall. I didn’t take my eyes off her and never spoke. Eventually, she left the room.

I reported her to the deputy headmistress but she had already sent me a letter about another matter telling me to ‘sort out my own problems’. Nothing happened, so I decided to act myself.

Martin and I had already decided that we would leave our respective schools at the end of the school year as we couldn’t stand another year teaching and living in London. I wrote a letter to the Headmistress summarising my experiences at the school ending with, “I will not stay in a school where I am forced to lower my standards in order to survive. Indeed, why should I stay and be subjected to the things I have described? Judging from the high turnover of staff in London schools perhaps I’m not the only one who feels this way. However, as I am leaving the country for a year or more in August, perhaps I am one of the few who can afford to speak out about it?”

I waited three days for the headmistress to see me about the letter. I heard nothing, so I sent it to the Chairman of the School Board, the Chief Education Officer and the two London newspapers – the Evening Standard and the Evening News. It was meant to be a letter about why yet another London teacher was leaving and about the situation in London schools in general, and my school in particular. Where I had come from in Bolton, the local paper would never print the names and addresses of teachers in this situation. But hey, this was London so there it was in print on page three of the Evening Standard and on the front page of the Balham and Tooting News with my name and address right in there. The paper used the phrases ‘blackboard jungle’ and ‘jungle tactics’, which I had never used in my letter, so they added a racist element into the mix.

The following day, I had girls following me round the school chanting ‘traitor’ and telling me they knew where I lived and their brothers were going to get me.

Then the News of the World (the sleaziest of the tabloids) turned up at our door. I hid on the landing while Martin dealt with them. He said there was a photographer wearing a leather jacket and with a scar down one cheek. They were both smoking. They wanted an interview and a picture, no doubt with me sitting on a table in a short skirt with my legs crossed. Martin told them the information had been in a private letter and if their editor wanted to chance lifting it from there that was their decision, there would be no interview. I hardly slept that night then went out early to get all the Sunday papers, including the News of the World. I thumbed through every page but mercifully a much more salacious story had broken and there was no mention of me or my school.

Of course, it caused a terrible storm at the school, culminating in a large staff meeting where most people defended the school and refuted the allegations I had made and avoided any eye contact with me altogether. Finally, Miss Henry rose to speak. She rarely spoke in the staff room and certainly not at staff meetings. There was immediate silence as everyone turned to look at her.

“What this young teacher has said is absolutely true about this school. I find it a disgrace that she came here as an inexperienced teacher and has had no support from the senior management of this school. The pupils in this school are undisciplined and the senior management shut themselves in their offices and leave young members of staff to deal with it themselves. Finally, it has driven Mrs Robertson to take the action she did.” She concluded, “It is your responsibility and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

She directed her comments to the headmistress and deputy headmistress. I could have fallen at her feet and kissed them. Miss Henry had obviously been paying much more attention than everyone thought. The meeting finished quickly and then we all carried on; nothing changed at the school.

I stayed in the school for another two months and then we left to go travelling for a year. It was six months before I had a night’s sleep where I didn’t dream about that school. We were away for 10 months, travelling in Europe, culminating in living in Spain for 11 weeks. It was one of the happiest periods in my marriage.

When we returned to Bolton, we did some supply teaching for a term. The school Martin was placed in had a fire so, because he had been given a contract for a full term, he got paid to sit in the staffroom every day and play cards. I was sent to what was considered to be the worst school in Bolton but, of course, after London, it was an easy ride. One year in London was worth 10 years anywhere else.

After a spell in a small rural school, I applied to a school in Oldham. This was where I applied for the job that was two pay grades above the basic one I had started on – unheard of in those days to do that. I got the job because I argued that I was worth it but didn’t realise until I started the job that it was actually the worst school in Oldham and no one else had applied! At my interview I was prepared for the inevitable questions about my moving schools so much and not having a track record at any one school. I made sure I turned all these concerns into advantages.

“You’ve moved around a lot,” commented the Headmaster, frowning.

“Yes, that means I’ve taught all age groups, all levels and single sex as well as mixed gender classes. I have gained a lot of valuable experience and know that whatever situation I find myself in, I have the skills to do the job well.”

I have given this advice to so many women going for interviews – that whatever you think they will see as a weakness, sell it as a strength!

The Headmaster in Oldham wasn’t very good but as long as your exam results were good, he didn’t care what you did in the classroom. My brightest class had been put in for their GCE English Language exam one year early but I had no intention of doing comprehension and essay writing for a year so I told them that we would be doing a variety of things as part of their education. However, whatever they did, they should not miss the last six weeks before the exam, that’s when I would teach them how to pass the exam. They all passed. What time we would have wasted on their education if all we had done all year was essay writing and comprehension!

I managed to get Edward De Bono’s Thinking Lessons on the timetable and did the course with my brightest class and the ROSLA kids. ROSLA stood for Raising of the School Leaving Age and these were the children who thought they were going to leave school at 15 years of age but then found out they were being forced to stay until they were 16. They weren’t happy! But they were brilliant in the Thinking Lessons. One of the lessons was called ‘Short, Medium and Long Term Consequences’ and one of the questions was, ‘Suppose all the cars in the world were yellow.’ My bright class, already being channelled into what to think not how to think said it was a stupid question. My ROSLA class said things like:

“There would be a run on yellow paint.”

“You could set up a business making yellow paint.”

“You couldn’t tell which cars were taxis in New York.”

“Your eyes would start to hurt.”

They had so many examples and were so creative in their thinking, yet they were classed as the dropouts.

I was beginning to get more and more sceptical about the purpose and process of education.        

In this school, I was supposed to be in charge of pastoral care for the girls. This meant that anyone who had a problem with any girl could – and did – send them to me. I remember I was sent a girl who forgot her gym kit. I knew of her and had seen her around. She wasn’t pretty, with misshapen teeth in a mouth too big for them. People suspected that as soon as she left school at four o’clock she went out on the streets to join her mother on the game. And I was supposed to punish her for forgetting her gym kit! We looked at each other carefully. We lived in worlds apart and we both knew it.

I just said, “Make your life easier, bring your gym kit,” and dismissed her. For that girl, education was just a period of time she was forced to spend in school while waiting to earn money on the street. But I still preferred difficult 14-year-olds to enthusiastic 11-year-olds!

My final school was at a large, new comprehensive in a nice suburb of Preston. I had applied to teach English. At the interview I had been asked what I thought about drama. I expounded at length on how important the subject was and how you should have specialist drama teachers to teach it and not just add it onto an English teaching post. They offered me the job and asked me if I would teach drama to two classes. I said I would. So much for living your principles!

One of my classes was composed of mainly 15-year-olds – 14 girls and one boy. They had been promised they could do a CSE in Drama. These pupils had never done drama before and it was way too late for them to do free drama. They were already in the teenage throes of acute self-consciousness. We had been timetabled for the whole of Friday afternoon, which was very handy. I designed a theatre appreciation course and, as well as studying some plays, they learned about staging, directing, lighting and scripting and all the things to do with putting on a stage play. We used to go to Preston theatre for them to observe and talk to people there.

For their final assessment they chose a play to produce about two friends who wanted to stay in a hotel and one of them was refused because people with the name Brown were discriminated against. My group found the play themselves, decided who would be in it, who would direct, who would do the lighting, who would prompt and who would do costume and make up and so on. They all had to have a part and they had to write up the project as they went along. When it came to the final performance, an external moderator was present. She started taking notes but after a few minutes she stopped and said to me, “I’m just going to enjoy this.” 13 of the 14 students were awarded the top grade. I was so proud of them and of what I had been able to do with them.

It was while at this school, four years after my London experience that I was able to express my deep-seated anger at the lack of support for young teachers and at incompetent headteachers.

I was invited to be on a Panorama programme on the BBC called ‘Facing the Class’. All the audience members had been chosen to express a particular viewpoint: lack of resources, lack of training, classes too large, and so on. My angle was about headteachers and I made it clear that I wasn’t referring to my present school. I could never have said those things about a current headteacher, the repercussions would have been too great.

David Dimbleby used to present Panorama (and is still presenting on current affairs programmes for the BBC, 44 years later!). He only appeared just before the programme was due to air yet he knew where everyone was sitting and he called on us by name to make our particular points. It was very impressive. While I spoke, some of the headteachers in the room started shaking their heads and sniggering. But I pressed my point and felt my anger rise as I remembered my London experience. Afterwards, many of the teachers there came and thanked me for speaking up. The producer of the programme sent me a note saying that I had been the ‘star’ of the show and wished I had had more time to ‘stir up your colleagues’. They sent a cheque for 50p, which I still have.

I’ve watched education in schools change over the years. Within 10 years of leaving my last school, the National Curriculum was put into place. Everyone studies the same thing and does the same exam. Teachers are more and more constrained in what they can do in the classroom. They now have no freedom to be creative. Today, I wouldn’t be able to do Thinking Lessons or design a theatre appreciation course.

Teaching in the 70s was one of the hardest jobs to do if you did it conscientiously and one of the easiest if you wanted to get away with doing very little.

What’s more, a headteacher’s role seemed to consist of admin and management and little teaching. No wonder good, creative, teachers became disillusioned and dissatisfied.

I have been asked many times how I judge my success as a teacher if I don’t count exam results. I remember what my father had said and I say that in any class of 30 pupils, if at the end of a 40-minute class just one of those pupils has changed their perspective on something so they will never see that something in the same light again – that is success. And I’ll probably never know it. No accident that when I set up my consultancy it had ‘Perspectives’ in the Business Name and the strap line was “Change Your Perspective – Change Everything”.

Had I stayed in school teaching, I think I would have grown to hate it. Martin had gone off to do a Master’s degree in Educational Technology and I didn’t know where I was heading. I knew that once I joined the senior management team my career would be set but after seven years, I was restless and wondering what else I might do. I cringed at the thought of looking back on my life at 60 and realising that I had taught for 40 years. I loved teaching and was good at it. In fact, I did carry on teaching, and still do, but to adults, not children, and in organisations not schools. But after seven years in schools I needed a change of workplace and maybe there were other things I could do as well as teaching, if not better? I had to find out.

Photo

Hippy teacher in London in the 1970s.

Questions For Reflection

What are your memories of school – good our bad? Was there a particular teacher you loved? Why? What do YOU think is the purpose of education?

A Blessing While You Reflect

May our teachers have wisdom as well as compassion

May we learn in school to have a love for learning

May education encourage all pupils to be the best that they can be

May we remember that all of us teach by our example and be mindful of that

May our children be equipped to contribute worthwhile work to their communities