Down with management speak, the contentment revolution starts here!

On a recent holiday I was sat on the hotel balcony mulling over various matters and my wife asked me what was wrong. I explained that "I've got a problem". Without hesitation, but with tongue firmly in cheek she replied "A problem should be seen as an opportunity". Well this was like a red rag to a bull, and in a stream of consciousness and "robust" language I issued forth with a rant against this sort of nonsense.This is that rant.

My initial problem with her response was very simple, a problem is a problem, if it had been an opportunity I am sure that I would have said "I've got an opportunity". I am reasonable bright and I know the difference between the two, one is positive and one is negative. Maybe I'm being negative but I see a flat tyre as a problem, a nuisance, an inconvenience, rather than an opportunity to spend my time getting grubby and frustrated.

I have heard this trotted out on many occasions, so-called motivational speakers telling me (not discussing and debating, just telling) about opportunistic problems, but this is a case of the Emperor's new clothes, it isn't there. This is an opportunity to work harder and sort out something that someone else has done to make your life more challenging. In reality these management aphorisms have created their own mythology, a mythology which at its heart is designed to pile pressure on people, make workers compare themselves to each other, and to apply pressure to fit the mould of being an effective manager. Failure to turn a problem into an opportunity is seen as a failure.

I am not completely dismissive of all of this, there must be some wisdom here. Stephen Covey's "7 Habits..." states as Habit 7 that we should "sharpen the saw", in other words look after ourselves. But even this is still business focused, look after ourselves to make us more effective rather than for the sake of personal happiness. Unfortunately most of these maxims seem to be regurgitated junk or manifesto statements of sociopaths trying to squeeze the last drops of juice out of the orange by playing on feelings of guilt and inadequacy.

Behind the language is an implicit relationship between employer and employee. Business success and personal economic prosperity are at the heart of a majority of the books which populate the management bookshelves in airport bookshops (just an aside why are there 10 times more of these books than science or 100 times more than poetry?). I must admit that during my leadership career I have read many of these books, both general business management and specific educational management. My worry is that most of these books seem to ignore the humanity of colleagues, they are about the individual and just see others as cogs in a machine, cogs that either drive you or cogs that you drive. These cogs are generally not seen as a mutually beneficial machine, cogs are metallic and hard, impersonal and unemotional, but the reality of organisations is that the cogs are organic, these cogs are emotional, vulnerable and unique. Relationships are seen through an outcome-focused lens, a lens that equates professional success with output and profit. I would question if such a belief is sustainable and certainly whether everyone comes out on top.

This may sound like a socialist take on leadership, and may be it is, though for me emotions are as important as economics. At the beginning of the Bruce Springsteen's live video of Born to Run he says "remember in the end nobody wins unless everybody wins". When I first heard this as an idealistic teenager it stirred me, but now as a gnarled middle-aged man I still see it as a plausible maxim for ethically sound organisations, and especially schools. [A small aside I suspect staff at my previous school feared that it would be renamed Bruce Springsteen School].

Most schools are not profit making machines (even most private schools just break even and are charitable concerns) so why would we be wanting to use the language and philosophies of business where the raison d'etre is rarely the betterment of the whole community? Whilst schools operate within tight budgets, have expensive outgoings and often struggle to get to the end of the year, they are not businesses is the sense that the local supermarket is. I therefore feel that we need to be a little sceptical about adopting the philosophies of profit-making organisations where success is often judged in terms of profits and dividends. Ultimately what I am calling for (and also actively promoting) is a different metric of success. Can we see beyond the power, ego, personal gratification and wealth that apparently makes us "happy"? Can we aspire to be content? Can we make our ambition to achieve contentment? That contentment may be achieving good exam results with your classes, seeing low ability children make excellent progress or seeing a colleague thrive, none of which will make you richer. Could we have a simple ambition, to be content? Could school leadership set its main target to achieve whole school contentment?

We need to do something, teachers are leaving the profession in droves, there is a crisis in leadership and stress is going through the roof. Let's be brave, let's be content.

Bleak House: the impact of the physical environment on teacher well-being

On paper my last teaching post should have been one of the nicest. The school was good, the children were well-behaved and I had all the kit I needed but there were days when I simply hated doing my job. The reason was simple, it was my classroom. As a science teacher I had a lab but my school was a mid-seventies unit-built school and the labs were in the middle of the building. They protruded from the top of the building but they had no windows at eye-level, just at 8 feet off the ground. There were days when I could go into the lab at 8;50 with a blue sky and emerge 2 hours later to find snow on the ground. I felt trapped, the lack of light made me feel constantly miserable and not having anything else to look at except the walls and the pupils was challenging. I can honestly say that this had a significant impact on my well-being and I couldn't wait to swap my lab for an office. The knowledge of my lousy environment created pressure, and this pressure eventually piled up on top of all the other pressures to become stress.

I have also worked in some vile locations where schools felt like they were dumped either in the middle of high-rise estates or on the edge of nowhere. I've worked in some awful buildings with lousy decor, poor lighting, low ceilings and small windows. I was miserable before I went through the door.

On the other hand I spent 4 years working in a school in Cyprus. The panoramic windows at the back of my lab looked up to the Troodos mountains and the front of the school looked down onto the sea. The school was spacious and bright, well-designed and easy to move around; I can't remember a single day when I really didn't want to do the job. There was simply so much light, not from fluorescent tubes but natural light. I was happy, the children were happy! You may say that you're not surprised I was happy, I was in Cyprus, who wouldn't be. There were plenty of things I didn't like about being out there and many of these things were precisely because of where I was, but the school itself did not make me miserable.

I have no doubt that your physical environment is a key factor in causing stress. Schools with pleasant classrooms, plenty of facilities, well furnished and nicely decorated premises, have a positive impact of all of those who work or learn there. I believe that most pupils respond positively to pleasant environments but when their environments are unpleasant they may feel that this is a reflection on their worth as learners. We all know about teaching pupils who feel that schools do not invest in them, it is hard work, and there we have another pressure. Lousy environments rub off on the pupils, who  then react against the environment and make the lives of teachers even harder.

What can you do about it? There will be times when the answer is simply to leave that school. Schools are hard-up and you won't get a rebuild. However you can do some things to help yourself. Simply improving lighting can help, talk to your school leaders about this. Given that light can have such an impact on mood and the feeling of well-being it is important that you share your concerns. Brighten up your classrooms. Without getting into the issue of who puts up displays, have exciting and colourful walls. Also look at classroom layout. As a secondary teacher I was never too imaginative but I have seen some great uses of space in primary classrooms. Be imaginative with layouts (if the room allows it), make the room easier for you to move around (movement may help you feel happier and not trapped), and seek advice.

Almost everything I have written about has been about human interactions, but the physical environment can have an impact on your well-being. Make yourself heard!

If only we could stand and stare; the stress of constant change

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

So wrote W.H.Davies in 1911. When was the last time a teacher had the time to stand and stare? In fact I have found throughout my career that I am running at full pelt often just to stand still. Education has been in a state of constant change since I can remember and there are so signs that this will arrest soon. The problem is that this is on top of all of the other demands associated with this profession and that as soon as you feel confident with a certain aspect of the job it goes and changes.

We are the slaves of change but what keeps changing?:

• Technology
• Specifications and courses
• Communities and society
• Educational philosophies and trends (just think AfL, VAK, starters and plenaries)
• Inspection regulations
• National policy, league tables and so on.

And those were off the top of my head! There will be far more but these seem to be the things that have dogged my career. School procedures change but more often than not these are in response to external factors. But why do things change? Governments change and often the political philosophy changes, and schools find themselves squarely in the centre of the ideological battlefield. Technology changes, tablets appeared, social media sprung forth and so on. Our understanding of how children learn and the effectiveness of different approaches develops through practice and research. The curriculum develops to reflect the needs of an ever changing world. Communities change and their needs change. In short everything changes constantly around education and so education inevitably constantly changes.

Change is unsettling for many reasons. We lose our place in our understanding of the world. The things on which we relied or in which we believed move and we are required to make new meaning out of our professional world. Our beliefs and values may be challenged and leave us confused and uncertain. Change inevitably generates work and this is work in addition to our normal professional lives. New specifications, teaching philosophies and technologies all require a great deal of time to react to and to adapt to. Schemes to write, systems to learn and methodologies to adopt.

So change generates uncertainty and change generates work. I also believe the further we are into our careers the harder change becomes, not because of age but because we have suffered it so many times before and every time our enthusiasm is lower. The workload issue is well explored. The work load generated by change is often on top of the day-to-day workload of planning, teaching and assessment. This creates pressure and excessive pressure can cause stress.

I believe that the stress caused by change itself is significant. We lose our positions of certainty and comfort, we witness others deal better and we can end up doubting our own ability to do the job and handle the constant turmoil. I know how I feel every time I experience change with any IT-based area of my work; I realise that this change causes me stress, and this realisation causes more stress! I know that others will adapt more quickly and that my self-esteem may take a battering. I don't want to appear ignorant so there's another stressor. It could go on and on, but change can fill me with dread and I am sure I am not alone.

What can leadership do? Unfortunately very little. Change is imposed on schools and often the quantity of change experienced by school leaders is even greater. However a good place to start is at least with awareness. Change must be monitored and staff must be cared for during the process. Leaders must be aware of the sensitivity of individuals and that all periods of change generate additional stress. Maybe just talking about and sharing these concerns should be a good place to start.

Scary places: A culture of fear in the teaching profession

Are you afraid? That sounds a little menacing but I know I have been during my career. I've had those nights and mornings where I felt like I was 11 again and ready to feign sickness to avoid a French test or disguise the fact I hadn't done my English homework. But fear for a teacher is very different as what you are afraid of can be harder to define or can have far more devastating effects than when you were 14.

As with many other posts within this blog this will not apply to everybody, but it is vital to remember that whilst "teaching" is a single occupational group there will still be a full distribution of personalities within it and you will have colleagues (it may be you) that lives in fear of something at school.

Nearly 10% of the population suffer from mixed anxiety and depression, that translates to some 45000 teachers. That's a lot and if you are fortunate enough not to be in that "premier league stadium capacity" of your colleagues you are sure to have one nearby. This is a terrible burden for someone to handle and must be taken seriously by schools.

If I were to be a tad more scientific I would conduct a survey, but I'm not so here's a list of things that spring to mind that can cause fear and anxiety. They are in no particular order and may be very different, some will only apply to senior school teachers, some to school leaders, some to every one and so on. But if you are a truly reflective practitioner I am sure that you have experienced fear and sleepless nights and that you could add to this list. Please note though that anxiety is something far more substantial than the simple worry of getting a roasting from the menacing deputy over not having finished writing your reports. Anxiety is a condition which often requires medication and other interventions, but the following may exacerbate the condition. So here goes:

• coping with workload
• disruptive classes
• certain pupils
• staffroom (see earlier blog entry)
• other colleagues
• technology
• initiatives
• OFSTED
• exams and results
• monitoring and evaluation (observations, work scrutiny)
• emails and phone calls
• senior leaders
• parents
• governors
• the unpredictability of every school day
• exposure
• performance management / appraisal
• accountability

The point "exposure" is one felt by many primary colleagues (especially Y2 and Y6 teachers) and those teaching GCSE/A-levels. When results are disappointing you will often find that fingers are pointed. One of the roles I used to have as a school assessment manager was to analyse results to identify those teachers in whose class less progress was made. I would like to think that we used the data responsibly and gave teachers support (if needed) to ensure that more progress was made next year or to move a teacher to remove the heat. But I am not naïve, I know that it must have felt dreadful to have been "named and shamed". Careers can be made with good results and excellent observations, and careers curtailed by the opposite, but do we ever consider that the fear of "exposure" is actually a contributing factor in the results. Fear effects motivation, motivation effects performance, performance effects outcomes.


Can anything be done? I truthfully believe that the maintained school system is fundamentally broken. League tables, OFSTED, the threat of forced academisation, all contribute to an atmosphere of fear. Heads are under ludicrous pressure to ensure that their staff push their pupils to get results. Poor results could bring OFSTED through the door, put the school into special measures and make life truly miserable and put the head's career at stake. Fear, fear, fear.

Acknowledge it is real. Verbalise fears. Be open in conversations and share experiences. As long as teachers remain caring, emotionally-vulnerable individuals and the education system tacitly threads fear through all that it does, fear will always be present. But if you know it is there, if you feel you can talk about it, then at least we may be able to lessen the pain.



 

Hitting the wall - a piece worth reading in TES

Please take a look at this piece by Mike Stuchbery in the TES. It is so valuable to have open and honest accounts of the emotional damage that our profession can cause. Thank you.

Save some time to dream - or what John Mellencamp would say about the pressure of workload

Read this:

Teachers are more likely to work unpaid overtime than staff in any other industry, with some working almost 13 extra hours per week, according to research.
A study of official figures from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that 61.4 per cent of primary school teachers worked unpaid overtime in 2014, equating to 12.9 additional hours a week. 
Among secondary teachers, 57.5 per cent worked unpaid overtime, with an average of 12.5 extra hours.
Across all education staff, including teachers, teaching assistants, playground staff, cleaners and caretakers, 37.6 per cent worked unpaid overtime – a figure higher than that for any other sector.

from "Teachers work more overtime than any other professionals, analysis finds" 27th February 2015 TES Online kaye wiggins

I once worked out that if I took all the hours I worked in a year and then divided them out on the basis of working a 37.5 hour week, I would need about 60 weeks in a year and to take no holiday.

 

Schools do not receive sufficient funding to reduce class sizes and increase PPA time by recruiting more teachers. There will currently be headteachers up and down the country laying-off teachers and increasing class size rather than the recruiting and decreasing.

 

I firmly believe that well-marked work is central to improving outcomes for pupils. I have taught so many Year 11 classes with more than 30 pupils that I would struggle to mark their work to the standard I know I should. We forget that teachers do believe in what they do, they don't want to let their pupils down and they do want to do their best for them. But how can they when they are working 60 hour weeks.

 

I have also noticed that workload creates significant resentment and division within schools. Be honest with yourself (don't have a go at me), how many Y6 teachers have resented their Y3 colleagues over workload, or how many secondary teachers have looked at PE and Art teachers with envy. The problem is that all teachers work hard. Put it this way, two people stranded in the middle of the Sahara are going to die, the one with a little water will be envied by the other and may last a little longer, but both are ultimately going to face the same fate.  

I'm sure we can all make a list of the things that make up our days and how overfill our time but on a daily basis lesson prep and marking are by far the most time consuming activities. Add to this reporting, writing schemes of work, undertaking CPD and so on and the time load becomes overwhelming.

In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", the author Stephen Covey includes "sharpening the sword". This is about self-care and personal development. When do teachers find the time? Mental health suffers because we have no time to slow down, relax, reflect, put things into perspective, to do the things we want to do. How many of you dwell over issues from school, sleepless nights are a reality for so many in this occupation and this creates further problems.

 

We often feel that we are competing against our colleagues and that coming up short when judged against those who are also working ludicrously long hours will make us look lazy and unprofessional.

I do believe that school leaders recognise this and they would reduce workload if they could. Schools have insufficient income to reduce class sizes and increase PPA time. The best that can be done is that school leaders need to be sensible about planning expectations and adopt a marking policy that benefits children whilst being realistic. The planning expectations of some schools are ludicrous and are a sure-fire way to increase work-related stress and breed resentment. The best school leaders understand that all teachers are different and respond individually to pressure. The worst unfortunately believe that because they didn't break on their way up through the profession that others should also have this resilience.

You must look after yourself. Your pupils need you. You are the difference between success and failure. You make a difference.

Please check out this from John Mellencamp Save Some Time. Listen to the words and reflect.