Today is the day that I officially withdrew from my teacher training course.
For those of you that didn’t know, I was on a Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) training to become an English teacher at secondary school level. But I have quit the course.
The reason I am writing this post is because, to be frank, this is a massive development in my life. Pretty much everyone I knew and interacted with on a daily basis knew that I was training to teach; a lot of those people knew that it was my ambition for several years now. So this post is to briefly explain and let people know, or at least, for those of you that will see the link from Facebook and actually follow it.
So why? Well, I simply wasn’t enjoying it. A PGCE is notoriously difficult and time consuming; I knew this before I started. I thought that this would be fine – “one year of pain for long term gain” I kept telling people. Unfortunately when it came to teaching practice, I wasn’t even enjoying the contact time with students in the classroom, so it became hard to justify the long hours, sleepless nights and lack of time to spend with the people I love. Don’t get me wrong, I do still enjoy working with children. The problem is that so many elements of the profession loomed over any time I spent teaching the children like a dark cloud: planning lessons, constant observation and criticism, the need to be a disciplinarian, the need to be overly-enthusiastic, the changes to the education system and pay for teachers in England – the list goes on and on and on. I well and truly respect anyone who teaches at secondary level, it is an incredibly difficult job. I still think primary teachers are pussies though.
It is for this reason – the lack of enjoyment, not the condescending view of primary teachers – that I have decided to ‘cut my losses’ and withdraw. It was a difficult decision considering I had planned to go into teaching since before I went to university to do my undergraduate study. I have never really ‘given up’ on anything like this before, and I can’t help but feel like I have squandered time, money and an opportunity with this. But as many people keep saying, “How were you to know without trying it.” And I guess they are right, it is a shame that trying it took up four months of my life and earned me another £5,000 worth of debt with student finance.
This is probably the most personal blog entry you will ever see from me, admitting that I feel defeated and disappointed in myself. I just wanted to write down my thoughts somewhere, and let people know what happened so I can avoid explaining it to so many different people.
I tried sitting down and wallowing in self-pity while listening to The Smiths, but it is difficult to feel sorry for yourself to lyrics such as “Please, please, please let me get what I want, this time” when in reality I have a roof over my head, a first-class degree, a part-time job, a beautiful girlfriend, awesome friends and my whole life ahead of me. “First world problems” and all that.
So now I am at a crossroads, or possibly a new chapter in my life – whatever dumb cliché you want to use to describe this. I guess I need to figure out what the fuck I want to do with my life. But in the meantime, here is a picture of a dog dressed like an Ewok:
Judging from that chair, Wicket shops in Ikea.
PleasantKenobi 