If you had just one choice, what would you choose?
Continue to work 60-hour weeks, or kick-back and refuse to mark books and reply to emails after school hours.
Twenty years ago, I watched the film Trainspotting and was recently impressed by the sequel, Trainspotting 2. I’ve decided to be somewhat-creative and adapt the monologue by Ewan McGregor (who plays ‘Rent boy’) for the teaching profession. It’s controversial and has the odd *expletive here and there. At its worst, it’s lighthearted and may inspire some readers to come up with their own.
Choose life.
Choose a job.
Choose teaching.
Choose to make a difference,
Choose a fuc4ing, big, highlighter pen.
Choose interactive whiteboards, staplers, and glue-sticks; TES Resources and non-stop piles of marking.
Choose ‘good’ teaching, performance management and reams and reams of data collection.
Choose a low salary and long working hours.
Choose a subject specialism and a classroom (if you’re lucky).
Choose your colleagues, but not your line manager.
Choose wall displays and matching schemes of work.
Choose a hire purchase, state-of-the-art photocopier in a range of monochromatic colours.
Choose ‘workload’ and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning.
Choose sitting in a meeting, listening to mind-numbing, spirit-crushing exam analysis, stuffing fuc4ing cake and biscuits into your mouth.
Choose slipping away at the end of it all, staring at a computer screen in a damp, miserable office. Nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, spoilt-little brats you’ve educated to replace yourself.
Choose your future.
Choose life.
Choose education.
Choose to make a difference …
You can listen to the original monologue here and the updated version here.
*Apologies to readers who are offended.