Prologue – An Overview of Cumulative Evidence Reporting and Planning for Improvement
Dear friends,
I was asked about the secret to my success as a teacher.
In short, it was the tie.
But before we delve into my reasoning, before I explain how I came to wear and later discard the head paper bag of shame, I should say that the enquiry alone brings tears of amused shame to my eyes.
On this, the day of my departure, it is I who should be asking how, in all these years, my colleagues have fought professional common sense and human instinct to allow for my meagre blossoming – from insolent immigrant to preposterous pedagogue, from unworthy form to half-formed educator. I should be the one asking, not for secrets, but for everyone’s forgiveness. I should be the one doing the thanking.
And so, from a full, tearful heart, thank you all.
And since the issue of my professional fruition has been raised, I feel ungratefulness would work its direst mischief if I didn’t address the topic.
Those of my readers more knowledgeable of my professional trajectory might equate the roots of my becoming to the steely resilience forged as I transitioned from mobile sandwich seller to petty criminal before landing my first teaching job.
Others may remember the metacognitive plague doctor whipping incident that took place in room B-3 a few years ago. Here I see no choice but to mention that management have still not invoiced me for the removal organic matter from the classroom wall despite my readiness to volunteer a contribution to the school for this purpose.
However, since I have mentioned the humble necktie, it is only fair that I explain why.
I knew it that day – I thought I knew it – sitting in my car and preparing for an interview that I would likely fail. I knew it as soon as I saw the students walk down the alleyway from the school gates to the sliding doors. I marvelled at the steady stream of teal jackets that, I would soon learn, are called blazers, and dark navy skirts and trousers.
And splitting the gestalt down their middles, a diagonally-striped navy-teal-and-white tie.
More ties, sober ties awaited them by the entrance. They belonged to the teachers. Not all teachers had them, but they were all teachers, and not just anywhere, but at Crouchford South Community Comprehensive School.
And then there was me, sitting in a budget car, occupying a marginal bay in the VISITORS area.
Would I ever be that lucky, job-assured, suited champion allowed to use the wider, more numerous STAFF ONLY bays?
Did I deserve to even be there? Helplessly, I tumbled down the memory staircase to my own school days in a country far away. No uniforms, no smiles, no hope. Yet in earnest, no ties either.
Instead of answers, I gave my full Windsor knot a jolt. I noticed my gesture hadn’t helped me breathe any better, but at the same moment revelation overspilled from the stream of teal into my consciousness. It could have been the touch of genius, or hypoxia, and it sounded like this:
A tie is a barrier. It is an insurmountable mountain-prison condensed in one vertical iron bar slicing through the sacred connection between teacher and student. And that is why, my friends, I decide not to wear a tie when working with children.
I had decided – this was going to be the culmination of my interview, the peroration, the victory speech on the award ceremony stage of life that would seal my appointment as Teaching Assistant (TA) in what my mother had always told me was The World’s Greatest Education System.
How the interview came along and what came to pass in the years between the speech that I never made and the present note to my beloved Crouchford family, you will find detailed in the entries to follow.
The Half-Teacher's staff room 