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What Happened When Teaching Could No Longer Hold Me Together
I worked my way through jobs that focused on helping people before I stumbled into working in a boarding school. Fuelled by a slight obsession with the Malory Towers books and a strong desire to get away from Wigan, I took on the role of assistant housemistress. My job was to look after twenty four Year 7 pupils, avoid the senior headmistress (terrifying) and try to stay sane on my days off with bells ringing and the sounds of the girls belting Spice Girls tracks just outside my room.
This was my first taste of responsibility and I liked it, but I wanted to do more. Fast forward two years and I was teaching English. To set the scene of teaching back in 1998 you’ll have to picture blackboards, chalk, no internet, one photocopier and a whole heap of relative freedom when it came to lesson content. Lovely!
Many things sang to me back then: creativity, autonomy, but also structure, results and challenge. None of these dissipated over the years. Yes, the curriculum got harder, certain curriculum changes reduced autonomy, but creativity was always there and of course, the kids. The kids were challenging, infuriating at times, but also innocent, funny and honest.
Dark times were being bullied by another staff member, going part-time to stay sane but having to watch promotion chances pass me by, Gove and numerous Ofsted inspections with ever-changing invisible goal posts.
People would ask, ‘How long will you teach for?’
‘As long as I’m still enjoying the classroom,’ I would say.
And then, one day, that prophecy came true.
One day I just got bored. Not gradually, not slightly either. Boredom bowled me over and almost overnight made me a clock-watcher. On top of that, I began to struggle with noise. Bells, high- pitched screams that only teenagers can perfect and class changeovers.
No-one knew this of course. I hit it well. I strung lights in my office, dimmed the lights, played soft music. All meant to be stress relievers but not very effective ones. The weekends became shorter as my race to build a department before the imminent Ofsted visit became more frenetic and filled with the need for everything to be perfect.
And then, that was it. I couldn’t do it anymore. I reached out to the school and it did not go well. I handed in my notice and just left.
Unfortunately, what I hadn’t banked on when I left was that the burnout, anxiety and trauma would just pack up and come along with me. Only now I had MORE time to ponder all of it!
Then, roughly a year later, I was interviewing women with late diagnosed ADHD for my end of year psychology thesis and the penny dropped.
The exposure to research and data hadn’t alerted me to the possibility of me having ADHD but, sat across a desk, talking on screen to women who had struggled with ADHD traits in secondary school, I suddenly got it. Lived spoken experiences are so often left out of research, so how was I to know?
The Beginning of the End
If you know schools you will know that there are bells, timetables, defined expectations, benchmarks, rules etc. Leaving all of that and going out into the ‘wild’ with increasingly unpredictable ADHD symptoms is not fun.
Turns out, there were many things that I excelled in in school that I was actually terrible at out in the real world:
But what happens when all of these things suddenly turn on you and the pressure, masking and perfectionism all collide and contribute to the end of your teaching career and your entire sense of self?
It’s embarrassing turning up a day late for an appointment, it’s also not so good when your RSD flares up every time you receive the slightest bit of feedback from… anyone!
Learning to use the Pomodoro method to help you to focus for 20 minutes at a time is a sobering eye-opener as is realising that you can actually take breaks and not feel guilty for it.
Knowing when to accept a certain level of pressure is good; knowing when to give it all up and go and sit in the garden is another.
Insomnia, incessant thoughts, anxiety and the interminable, persistent bitch of an inner dialogue all jumped in the car with me on the last day of teaching. My head’s been a crowded place these last couple of years.
Luckily, I have support and a growing sense of self-awareness that is fed every day through coaching teens. Because, as much as I help them, they don’t know this but they help me too. When they talk about overthinking, I’m right there. Equally, when they discuss the pressures of school, RSD, perfectionism, sensory overwhelm or task paralysis, I get it. Because going through ‘puberty in reverse’, as a friend said recently, ‘Was so fun the first time!’
I worked my way through jobs that focused on helping people before I stumbled into working in a boarding school. Fuelled by a slight obsession with the Malory Towers books and a strong desire to get away from Wigan, I took on the role of assistant housemistress. My job was to look after twenty four Year 7 pupils, avoid the senior headmistress (terrifying) and try to stay sane on my days off with bells ringing and the sounds of the girls belting Spice Girls tracks just outside my room.
This was my first taste of responsibility and I liked it, but I wanted to do more. Fast forward two years and I was teaching English. To set the scene of teaching back in 1998 you’ll have to picture blackboards, chalk, no internet, one photocopier and a whole heap of relative freedom when it came to lesson content. Lovely!
Many things sang to me back then: creativity, autonomy, but also structure, results and challenge. None of these dissipated over the years. Yes, the curriculum got harder, certain curriculum changes reduced autonomy, but creativity was always there and of course, the kids. The kids were challenging, infuriating at times, but also innocent, funny and honest.
Dark times were being bullied by another staff member, going part-time to stay sane but having to watch promotion chances pass me by, Gove and numerous Ofsted inspections with ever-changing invisible goal posts.
People would ask, ‘How long will you teach for?’
‘As long as I’m still enjoying the classroom,’ I would say.
And then, one day, that prophecy came true.
One day I just got bored. Not gradually, not slightly either. Boredom bowled me over and almost overnight made me a clock-watcher. On top of that, I began to struggle with noise. Bells, high- pitched screams that only teenagers can perfect and class changeovers.
No-one knew this of course. I hit it well. I strung lights in my office, dimmed the lights, played soft music. All meant to be stress relievers but not very effective ones. The weekends became shorter as my race to build a department before the imminent Ofsted visit became more frenetic and filled with the need for everything to be perfect.
And then, that was it. I couldn’t do it anymore. I reached out to the school and it did not go well. I handed in my notice and just left.
Unfortunately, what I hadn’t banked on when I left was that the burnout, anxiety and trauma would just pack up and come along with me. Only now I had MORE time to ponder all of it!
Then, roughly a year later, I was interviewing women with late diagnosed ADHD for my end of year psychology thesis and the penny dropped.
The exposure to research and data hadn’t alerted me to the possibility of me having ADHD but, sat across a desk, talking on screen to women who had struggled with ADHD traits in secondary school, I suddenly got it. Lived spoken experiences are so often left out of research, so how was I to know?
The Beginning of the End
If you know schools you will know that there are bells, timetables, defined expectations, benchmarks, rules etc. Leaving all of that and going out into the ‘wild’ with increasingly unpredictable ADHD symptoms is not fun.
Turns out, there were many things that I excelled in in school that I was actually terrible at out in the real world:
- Time and dates
- Focus (never a problem because I could see the impact of my actions on the ever-expressive faces of pupils)
- Pressure (bring on the dopamine!)
- Tight deadlines and impossible standards. (Feelings of satisfaction / perfectionism)
But what happens when all of these things suddenly turn on you and the pressure, masking and perfectionism all collide and contribute to the end of your teaching career and your entire sense of self?
It’s embarrassing turning up a day late for an appointment, it’s also not so good when your RSD flares up every time you receive the slightest bit of feedback from… anyone!
Learning to use the Pomodoro method to help you to focus for 20 minutes at a time is a sobering eye-opener as is realising that you can actually take breaks and not feel guilty for it.
Knowing when to accept a certain level of pressure is good; knowing when to give it all up and go and sit in the garden is another.
Insomnia, incessant thoughts, anxiety and the interminable, persistent bitch of an inner dialogue all jumped in the car with me on the last day of teaching. My head’s been a crowded place these last couple of years.
Luckily, I have support and a growing sense of self-awareness that is fed every day through coaching teens. Because, as much as I help them, they don’t know this but they help me too. When they talk about overthinking, I’m right there. Equally, when they discuss the pressures of school, RSD, perfectionism, sensory overwhelm or task paralysis, I get it. Because going through ‘puberty in reverse’, as a friend said recently, ‘Was so fun the first time!’