Education ennui

After three days of staff development, I am now desperate to get back to doing my job. Not because I am particularly looking forward to being responsible for a classroom full of students who have no real interest in my subject; rather that having to sit through hours on end of disclaimers, so-called new ideas and seemingly endless policy jargon is causing boredom and inertia to set in, even at this very early stage. In short, I have always found that days such as I have had at work this week are a futile waste of time. I find myself thinking that I have much better things that I could be doing. Noting fading tans and old haircuts and saying hello to people whose names I can barely recall saps my energy.

Yet again this year, we have an influx of new staff who cannot wait to tell me about their previous experiences, regaling me with tales of how successful they have been as a teacher up to this point. They are in for a shock. There are a number of reasons as to why our staff turnover year on year is through the roof. The most obvious of these are that our incompetent leadership team treat us terribly; and the crazy students manage to rid themselves of adults who have no idea how to cope properly with less than perfect kids. So in spite of my relative newness, I feel like an old veteran of the halls. Hopefully - surely! - this will see me through to the weekend, when I can regroup and assess my classes for the coming year.