This week, The Secret Teacher shares what makes the challenges of their job worthwhile and praises a Hollywood character’s unorthodox approach to teaching.

It’s the relationships. It’s when you walk past a twelve-year-old who says hi. It’s when you pass a kid in public on a Saturday and they make you feel like a celebrity. It’s kids popping in to see me when I’m not teaching.

It’s the little moments, it’s the interactions with the kids that make you feel like you’re making them feel worth a damn. I remember being told as a student teacher by the leader of the course ‘make sure the kids enjoy your company, and you can enjoy the kids’ company, but don’t try and be their pal’. I don’t see anything wrong with being their pal, as long as they also have a respect for the boundaries. 

I’m their pal. I want to be their friend, because I want them to feel safe in my room. I’ll ask them how they’re doing, how their weekend was, and the more you know about kids the more you can talk to them. 

We have a lot of young carers in the school. ‘How’s your mum?’, ‘How’s your grandad?’, ‘How are you feeling?’, ‘What did you do at the weekend?’, ‘Did you see the game?’. 

There’s the obvious stuff like handing back an assessment where a child’s done really well and I write little postcards for them saying ‘See, you CAN do this’. Anything that makes a child smile, basically. Teenagers are the best people in the world, because they’re so f*****g ridiculous, they’re so awkward. I love them. 

There is nothing better than owning the fact that you’re not cool, and making a teenager cringe. There’s also a wee bit of admiration there, because if a teenage kid sees you owning your strangeness, that’s a big thing.

The Herald:

In School of Rock, Jack Black’s character was a disaster, but he didn’t plan a thing and he was responsive to the needs of the class. His goals were flawed, he was taking them away from their curriculum, but in terms of going from A to Z he improvised everything and responded to the room at the time, and to that end Ned Schneebly/Dewey Finn from School of Rock is the best cinematic teacher of all time. 

He didn’t plan a single thing, he spoke to them, he listened to them and he encouraged them. He exposed their vulnerabilities and he made them feel safe. That’s what teaching should be. On paper, he’s a disaster, but if he just readjusted his goalposts he’d be the best teacher in the world.

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