Stick It Up Your Scrolls, Son.

1. I do not love and have never loved my students. I like them, most of the time, but love is for loved ones. I also think that love is a little dangerous in modern day teaching.
2. I do not always know who is in front of me in my classroom. Sometimes I struggle with names. I get some names confused with each other-Rachel and Ruth is a good example of this. I put it down to the Old Testament.
3. I don’t always act the grown up in a classroom situation. Often, I am infantile in order to remind myself and my students that being a little daft is a decent mental escape valve.
4. I don’t plan lessons. I don’t plan on paper at all. It helps to keep it fresh and interesting; for me.
5. I know that students can do more but have often taken it upon myself to do more for them so that they succeed. I have stopped this now.
6. I don’t stick with literacy programmes as I think I know better.
7. I do expect the very best behaviour and am often disappointed by the rough fare that is served up in schools as a whole.
8. I take myself too seriously and believe that the profession in which I work has become a joke. Four different coloured pens for marking?
9. I am told to have fun but I can’t see that much fun in this job any longer. And, by the time I’ve got home, I’m too knackered to have fun.
10. I think that the best pastoral care for the students who I teach is to help them become decent human beings rather than becoming products of an industrialised education programme.

That’s my confession, the one for now. It may grow by the end of this episode and I may be charged with treason or witchcraft or fornication with my self-awareness. 

Signed: ME