I don't feel bad about letting you go (Billy Bragg)

Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

From time to time, I am still asked if I miss being in a senior leadership role (twice last week). I get why I'm asked because after seven years as an English teacher that was my life from 1990 to 2023 before returning to life solely as a classroom teacher.

Former school principals who have that particular career trajectory is nothing new. Partly it's because it's such a lonely road where only other principals understand the stresses and strains. Which can be completely overwhelming.

I'll always remember a lunch I shared with other principals in Taranaki where everyone apart from me talked about their heart conditions and the procedures they'd had. It was super scary and a good warning although I did do another seven years as a campus principal/ district principal.

All of those staff issues (serious and trivial - they are unrelenting), the demands from disgruntled parents, the discipline issues, the endless meetings, the petty jealousies, the back stabbing, all of that offsets the positive aspects over time.

I think it's an impossible job to do really well and remain sane without selling your soul - at least it was for me. Why would I want to go back to that?

Per Angusta ad Augusta (through hardship to glory)

Coogee Peters  

One of my former teachers at Mt Albert Grammar School passed away this week. Jim Peters (for some arcane reason, better known to us turd formers as Coogee Peters, and as Winston's brother) was my social studies teacher in the third form (Year 9).

It wasn't his fault that I came 35th out of 35 in that class. This was back in the day (1971 to be precise) when marks were read out in class and then your placing in class. I can still picture myself squirming in my seat as it happened. That naked statistic then appeared on my end of year report.

As an undergraduate, I did some history papers at stages one and two, and then, at Auckland Secondary Teachers' College, I trained to teach English and social studies.

I've only taught social studies twice over the last four+ decades - my first year teaching in 1983 and, hilariously, this year! Funny how things work out.

I'm sure Coogee (a real gentleman) would be tickled to know all that.

Monday, Monday, can't trust that day; Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way (The Mamas and The Papas)

Photo by Sebastian Dumitru
on Unsplash

Mondays! 

I could have used The Boomtown Rats for the title song lyric. Same deal - I don't like Mondays. Hang on! Stop it! Stop it!

I'm in need of a revisit to a previous post from six years ago, where I listed the five good reasons to shake it off and deal with Mondays (as opposed to all those weirdo nebulous copycat reasons you read online when you google 'reasons to go to work on Monday')

1. Let's get the obvious, no-brainer one out of the way - it's my job and I need the essentials of life to survive, like food, shelter and records. Can't get 'em if I don't have a job.

2. Reset. Apparently, many people use Mondays as their reset button. Good idea! Wipe the slate clean, start a new week, and start off a new approach maybe? Apparently, research indicates that people who start a diet on a Monday have greater success! Hmmm, food for thought (apologies if you just started a diet and that was a tad insensitive).

3. Any day above ground is a good day. I need to get over myself. Give myself a good talking to and follow my mother's advice which she most probs gave me on a Monday - deep breath Warren! Pin your ears back!

4. That relentless positivity. I honestly believe it will get better as I go along. Two deep philosophical thoughts keep me going on Mondays (and any day that goes haywire): Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you; and You have to take the crunchy with the smooth.

5. Hey! I'm the eldest in my family: I don't shirk my responsibilities.

Bonus reason: take a look around you - maybe it's nighttime and the stars are out, maybe you're reading this on your phone, on a train going to work, maybe you just got your baby off to sleep and you're 'laxing with a cuppa and you doom scrolled to find Baggy Trousers. Wonders are all about you. It's no big deal if things don't exactly go your way on Mondays.

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognise them (Ann Landers)

Yesterday, I was asked to adjudicate a House debating competition at school. It was very entertaining and a whole load of fun. Some great zingers were traded back and forth by the girls.

Overall, it was fairly obvious that the two teams who put in some solid teamwork, took most advantage of the opportunity. Having debating experience is a real plus too. That experience gives speakers' confidence.

Hats off to the 12 students who took part (three per House) - they did a great job. It's not easy standing up in front of a whole school and delivering arguments and answering points of information on the fly.

They seized their opportunity for sure, and the experience will only strengthen them.

Insane in the membrane, insane in the brain (Cypress Hill)

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

Most days, I wake at 4.30am after roughly seven hours of sleep (I never hit snooze), and go to bed by 9.30pm. That's 16 hours of awake time - which is about right, apparently.

According to the research I read, 'Your brain starts losing its edge after about 16 hours of continuous wakefulness. At that point, reaction times slow, attention drifts, and decision-making quality drops'. 

On days like yesterday, I think that process is exacerbated by a full teaching day and the effects kick in well before the 16 hours is up. Yesterday, I had seven contact points - five teaching periods plus two tutor meetings. 

When I was a Principal, my brain was mush by about 4pm. Too many micro-decisions. I couldn't function well by the late afternoon.

We're all different, but, as a teacher, with the day regime as outlined above, I'm certainly pushing that brain-is-mush time back to about 5pm-ish. By that stage, when I get back home, overload eventuates. Five days of that and I'm clinging on by Friday afternoon.

My Year 9 classes have been doing persuasive speeches for a few weeks and a few topics - starting the school day a few hours later to accommodate teenage brains, and four day weeks, make a lot of sense to me.