Teaching reflections – not in a Physics class.
Why do so many people who enter teaching after a failed career somewhere else, feel they know how to run a school?
I once knew a Headmaster who started out as an accountant, then trained as a Solicitor, became a school Bursar, then was appointed as a Head, having never taught a lesson in his life!
I knew a Physics teacher who spent fifteen years in research then moved into teaching without completing any teacher training. The first thing she said to me was that all Deputy Heads and Heads were dickheads – I was a Deputy Head at the time.
And an older woman who took early retirement then decided to teach English, again without a teaching qualification. She instantly upset the Head of English and the EAL staff by making out that she knew more than all of them put together. She was another one who knew how to get senior staff on her side through gossip and innuendo. Three English teachers quit because of her – Great Job!
Then we have OFSTED, full of failed bankers, lawyers, accountants and other professional idiots. And they come into schools to evaluate teachers and not one of them has ever spent a day teaching! [rude word deleted].
But the biggest Tw@ I ever met was a guy with a degree in Music who went to be an IT technician in a school in Shanghai. He was sacked for incompetence. The next thing he is a senior teacher at my school, leaching of the narcissistic Head, trying to tell the rest of us how to teach. The best part was when, after a lesson observation with one of my Science colleagues, he said he wanted to give her some feedback. She just looked at him and said, ‘You’re not a qualified teacher so I am not listening’ and walked out of his office!
Magic!
Fairy Hanny 