Choose Education


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@TeacherToolkit

Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2010, and today, he is one of the 'most followed educators'on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the '500 Most Influential People in Britain' by The Sunday Times as a result of...
Read more about @TeacherToolkit

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.


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