Find your why!
We’re nearly at the end of week three, and the warning signs are all there: it’s getting darker, the leaves are turning, and summer feels like it happened about 14 years ago. We’ve officially entered that time of year at school. The one where you leave the house in the dark, get home in the dark, and start wondering if daylight was just a cruel myth you once believed in.
As a music teacher, the early weeks of term give me the briefest of honeymoons: no clubs, no productions, no endless after-school rehearsals. Bliss. But reality has caught up with me now, and I’m back to living in the music block every evening, pretending I’m fine with it.
That said—tonight reminded me why I do it. Rehearsals were brilliant. Full cast in, everyone up for singing, laughing, getting stuck in. Honestly, if I were a proper teacher, I’d have either resigned or been politely escorted off the premises years ago. I couldn’t cope with the steady diet of worksheets, Shakespeare quotes, or solving quadratic equations for the thousandth time. I need chaos. I need noise. I need kids belting out Christmas songs in September while I wonder if it’s too early to start drinking mulled wine in the cupboard.
But here’s the point: teaching’s tough. We all know that. And at this stage of the term it’s very easy to start questioning your life choices. (Some of you are already browsing Rightmove and Googling “How to become a postman.”) So here’s my advice: find your thing.
Find that reason that stops you screaming into your pillow and shouting “sod it, I’m out.” It could be that Friday morning class who actually like your subject. It could be that one kid who finally opened up to you about something important. It could be just five minutes in a day where you actually laugh, properly laugh, at school.
For me, tonight was my thing. I was shattered, I couldn’t be arsed, and I was secretly hoping the kids would forget about the first rehearsal. They didn’t. They all showed up! But then we sang, we laughed, I made a fool of myself (again), and I left school buzzing.
So that’s all really. Breathe. Find your thing. Find your “why.” Use it as your compass to navigate through all the other nonsense—the emails, the meetings, the data drops, the “can I borrow a glue stick” requests. We’ll get through this. I promise.
Even if we do it in the dark.
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