I: THE PROBLEMS
1. Too many go from school to university to school.
2. Too many are women.
3. Too many are left-liberal.
4. Too many are middle-class.
5. Too many are unintelligent.
6. Too many are humourless bores.
Teaching is difficult but hugely rewarding, especially if someone enjoys being creative, thinking quickly on their feet and using humour to cope with the problems hitting them constantly - sometimes literally. Experience in an environment outside education is vital, especially a fast-moving one requiring constant and fraught interactions. 
It’s short-changing pupils if their teacher is in effect one of them but with ten years added on, in time spent studying. That's the situation with a 22-year old graduate. Zero life experience and nothing much of their own to bring to the role. I’d make it impossible to enter the profession unless one’s had a job - ideally not just in the public sector - outside of education. I’d also insist that no one can qualify to teach under the age of twenty-seven. Gap year jaunts and teaching English in Sumatra don’t count.
Teachers should also broadly reflect society. The preponderance of female teachers causes problems, especially for boys. Many have little understanding of teenage lads and compound this with an arrogant assumption that maleness is something inherently wrong which needs treating.
Ditto for being left-liberal and showing obvious bias. The vast majority of teachers are and do: they simply cannot see any value (even sanity) in views that aren’t narrowly ‘progressive’. Many see their role as producing pupils who are the same.
The class bias is also highly damaging. Perhaps this is most evident in how class itself is rarely discussed - replaced by indoctrination in selfish identity politics - as dictated by recent ‘woke’ graduates.
On that, too many teachers are intellectually unimpressive and uninterested, with poor general knowledge, literacy and critical-thinking. They’re easy targets for the latest codswallop educational or social theory. Almost no time is spent critiquing these - their shibboleths being treated as unquestionable holy writ - until dumped in favour of the next one.
Add together all of the above and my sixth point becomes obvious. The job is impossible to bear unless humour is a constant - if controlled - element. Of course, much the same could be said of life itself.
As always, the first step is to get general acceptance that there's an issue. The only hope is through free speech, for pupils and teachers. Just be aware this has largely vanished in our schools. Parents are the best way it can be addressed, challenging anything they’re unhappy about - with the school; with their MP; through the media. I’d especially warn those with teenage boys told their lads are ‘sexist’ or ‘offensive’. Check it’s not just puberty being demonised by some fanatical feminist.
All parents should be similarly sceptical over claims of ‘racism’, ‘homophobia’ and ‘transphobia’. These terms may well have been taught irresponsibly in lessons - especially for LGBT identity - flagging a weapon for bullies to make false claims with. Those are at epidemic levels for supposed ‘transphobia’ or ‘homophobia’, usually involving pupils not old enough to understand the terms.
This is being driven by activist teachers with their own agendas, willing and able to impose them on pupils. Scarcely a day passes without an accusation, with worrying effects on impressionable young people. Some schools even encourage denunciations of 'bigotry', without considering how this will be misused.
I know a boy accused of ‘Islamophobia’, for sniggering during an RS lesson over some crackly recording of a mosque. The school is in an area with a large Muslim population. He was named and shamed, in an assembly.
As a result, gangs attacked him when he was walking home and warned they’d be back the next day, but with knives. The school directly caused this appalling violence by their reckless irresponsibility, yet doubtless basked in their own righteousness.
Incidentally, this is also an area where a major grooming scandal occurred, exclusively perpetrated by Muslim men, mostly of Pakistani background. I’ve heard that the issue - which directly affected girls at the school - attracted no time or warnings, in PSHE lessons. Instead, efforts were directed at spurious claims of ‘Islamophobia’.
In summary, our education system - whilst full of good people - is in a mess. Maybe insiders always feel this but it’s clear that sense is now widespread. It’s being linked to the obvious signs our institutions are failing those they’re supposed to serve - and badly.
One can have no faith whatsoever in OFSTED providing solutions. They're part of the problem: the worst managerialist nihilists outside of the Chinese Communist Party. They've overseen a relentless worsening of standards and culture in schools, whatever false data and tick-box analysis they pump out to say the opposite. Their system of school inspections should be disbanded and the old one, of HMI’s occasional oversight, reintroduced.
But the crucial change needed is in the quality and variety of the teaching body which - to use its own hideous jargon - is institutionally biased against white working-class pupils, especially boys.
Sadly, teachers have often forgotten the wonders that education can provide for pupils from all backgrounds. Instead, the profession is beset by robotic managerialism and pupils are being targeted for indoctrination, by a cadre of activists.
II: ME
I've just had my hair cut, by a friendly girl who remembers me covering a half-term of her Year 8 English lessons. She made a pretty good job of the trim, and resisted slicing either ear off.
So I made it through the 'hated' teacher category. She also cuts my daughter's hair and once told her I was a 'legendary nut-job', which I'll take as a compliment. That's likely her remembering me using comedy sketches from The Two Ronnies; a good resource for teaching creative word-play and punning. But she's also recalling the forensic dissections pupils perform on every teacher.
Think back to your own school days and how many hours you spent on this. Because...what a comical menagerie the teaching profession comprises! It's often down-played, so I'll give a thoroughly subjective analysis with all the glorious and gruesome details required.
I'll start with myself. I'm aware anyone reading this maybe thinking:
'Who in the name of arse is this over-opinionated and quarrelsome bloke?'
Some may also have noticed I did science for a degree then doctorate, so be wondering:
'How in the name of double-arse was he teaching English?'
The latter I sometimes asked myself. Then a year of teaching Year 12 and Year 13 chemistry confirmed I'd made the right subject decision - though possibly the wrong career one.
The truth is my greatest love has always been literature and writing. I allowed myself to get 'steered into the sciences', for Oxbridge entry, but I've no real regrets. I read and wrote voraciously all the while and still do. Outside of family, friends and beer, it's my main pleasure in life.
Halfway through my A-levels, I was immersed in Evelyn Waugh's stunning A Handful of Dust (years later I taught it for A-level Literature) which I finished the evening before my S-level Chemistry. I'm not claiming this breadth was unusual - at least not in those days. I then got sneaked into occasional Oxford university lectures with a friend reading English - especially on favourite writers such as Greene, Waugh, T. S. Eliot and Larkin.
Most of my friends at Jesus were reading arts subjects, so I'd secretly use this to direct my reading. I also started writing poetry 'seriously’, finally getting poems then books published from about 1998. But I'd been scribbling lyrics and constructing mad monologues since childhood.
My experiences doing a DPhil in physical chemistry confirmed I was utterly unsuited both temperamentally and intellectually for scientific research, especially the tiresome academic environment - though writing up a thesis was useful experience. What to do then was a mystery. The one requirement was my need for provocative and contrary stimulation, something providing material to channel into my writing and reading. I wanted to avoid anything dominated by Oxbridge-type left-liberals and middle-class managerialists, to experience things completely outside any obvious destination.
By a quirk of nature, I'm one with a knack for jobs in the worst environments (given my background) at exactly the wrong time. I've a repeated habit of joining workplaces about to be plunged into turmoil, redundancies, special measures and general catastrophe. A sort of jackdaw or stormy-petrel for the places. Or maybe I’m the cause? Whatever, it’s left fantastic memories of an asylum worth of weirdos, some of whom became friends for life.
Before teaching, I worked for Shell Chemicals then British Gas/Centrica, initially in scientific areas but - somehow - moving into North Sea gas field negotiation of multi-billion pound purchase contracts. I was completely hopeless for a corporate environment but loved the cut and thrust of this ruthless world, especially the subtle skills of negotiation and dispute resolution. I also wrote extensively whilst at work, liberally using the ‘free’ printing and photocopying facilities.
Clearly my time would be limited! Centrica undergoes constant tectonic restructuring, with numerous layers of management regularly plunged into the abyss. Another one was looming so I put myself forward for voluntary redundancy. A goodish lump-sum and share-options allowed me to pay off the mortgage then take some time out to go travelling with my wife in Vietnam and Egypt.
I was writing loads of prose and poetry, with some success in the 'small-press world' and then found an American publisher for my second book Brains Scream at Night. But there's no money in poetry! So I decided to become a teacher and remember the exact moment - I was walking around Figsbury Ring, overlooking Salisbury Plain.
I was forty and had always wanted to teach English, perhaps to compensate for dropping it all those years before. I doubted I'd get onto a PGCE course. So did Brooke's University, where I applied. But Harry Dodds, the wonderful tutor, thought my enthusiasm and extensive reading/writing were enough.
Was he right? My subject knowledge was fine but my explosive and argumentative nature (I had a Greek mother) meant I only just survived.
Until 2022 and leaving in a dramatic fashion - on that, more later. I'd made an earlier spectacular exit, though not a final one.
III: A SCIENTIFIC TAXONOMY
Since I've analysed pupils' first names, it's only fair I mention how strangely apt many teachers’ surnames are.
From my own school days, I remember a Mrs Tinston ('Tin Tits'). This battle-axe was walking under some building scaffolding when it collapsed. Amazingly she survived - perhaps those sturdy boobs shielded her - eventually reappearing in a rigid neck-brace. The Head announced this in assembly, reducing me to unforgivable but uncontrollable laughter - much to my cost.
And, not a surname but my favourite nickname - 'Bucket', for Dr Goodwin:
Q: What's the difference between Dr Goodwin and a bucket of shit?
A: The bucket.
Lastly, a terrifying (possibly perverted?) American Religious Studies teacher - Mrs Cuntliffe - who insisted her embarrassing name was pronounced with a prominent 't'.
But all this is too childish, even for me. So for fellow teachers I’ll break them into scientific groups, in tribute to the eight in the Periodic Table:
Group I: THE ZEALOUS GRADUATE
Group II: THE RAGING PSYCHOPATH
Group III: THE FAILED ROCK STAR
Group IV: THE ANNOYING FOREIGNER
Group V: THE IDIOT PANGLOSSIAN
Group VI: THE CREEPY LIBERAL
Group VII: THE EMBITTERED FEMINIST
Group VIII: THE DEFEATED DEADBEAT
IV: I DO THE UNTHINKABLE
January 2007. Ofsted are due any day, so the school is undergoing a 'mock-inspection' by Oxfordshire County Council advisors. The atmosphere is one of silent menace. Any second in any lesson, your classroom door could open and two or three people enter carrying clipboards.
I'm in front of my group from hell, sinking fast, glancing at the door for signs of these inspectors approaching to put a tin hat on things. The lesson is Year 9 SATS preparation: 'Writing to Argue/Persuade/Advise'. A shit thing to teach at the very best of times, which this isn't.
Then it happens. Involuntary, unexpected, almost unprecedented, I hear a voice saying: 'I can't do this anymore; I'm out of here.' I leave the room then repeat this to the gobsmacked Head of Department in the corridor. 'You can't! What am I supposed to do?'
Feeling weirdly at peace, I walk to the staffroom - a place I've hardly visited. I'm carrying my ever-present thermos of strong coffee and pour myself a generous cup, adding three sugars. The only other occupant is the nicer of our two Deputy Heads.
No teacher should ever abandon a group. It's a cardinal rule which I think through with surprising clarity. Knowing my own limits, I assume it was done by me because I was about to completely flip then descend into ranting swearing. Something I amazingly never did when teaching. But that's a poor excuse. I turn to him and explain it all, every detail.
'I'll try and see out the rest of the week then resign.'
'Don't worry, it won't come to that.'
It didn't - though things got close.
I've made many criticisms of teaching so far, but this man's simple kindness and insight is beyond them. Whether he'd heard about my nightmares or just grasped things immediately, I don't know.
He applied to be our Head two years later and was absurdly rejected, leaving to take over at a top grammar school in neighbouring Bucks. The loss condemned the school to gruelling Special Measures, under a posturing 'Super Head' of comical incompetence.
V: THE SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM (SLT)
Despite being supposedly egalitarian lefties, teachers are usually as hierarchical and status hungry as courtiers were in the royal palaces of medieval England, though in less gilded surroundings. Family and friends who've worked in other parts of the public sector report the same.
Many teachers are permanently applying for new jobs. They want to get out of the classroom and 'into management', then make another step 'onto the SLT'. Another motivation is ditching the nightmares and chaos they've endured/created, often by moving to another school.
An excruciating process, made worse by the Byzantine complexities of management-speak and woke-speak. But some are very good at it. The problem is that being skilled at this says precisely nothing about how proficient they'll be in the job, especially for the vital roles of Headteacher and the deputy in charge of behaviour.
It was my school's misfortune to get one of these permanent-applicant characters as our new 'Super Head', in May 2010. So extraordinary was this bloke that it would need another section (if not a library) to do him justice. To add relish to the shit sandwich, we also got an equally incompetent - but more malevolent - joker, for our new Deputy overseeing 'attitudes to learning' - the Newspeak term for behaviour.
What about me? I've a phobia about applying for jobs and the idea of 'management'. In my seventeen years teaching, I never applied for anything. I did have two-term stints as acting Deputy and acting Head of Department, but only as a result of being asked (almost begged) to, when the English Department was in turmoil and I was the only person who could be approached.
But neither of these roles is ‘on SLT’. That accolade is fiercely contested and usually comprises: Head, two Deputies, three Assistant Heads, heads of Sixth Form, Curriculum and Pupil Attainment - then various other titles of increasing unfathomability. Jostling for position, turf-warfare and job-duplication are guaranteed, since there's a constant pressure from below to expand the SLT. This is characteristic of environments where 'management' holds near-religious significance, so in all but the smallest organisations. Having spent years in industry, it's far worse in the public sector - both in the daftness of it and the lamentable quality of those who succeed.
By far the most vital roles are those of Head and the Deputy 'who does behaviour'. Which is why a school that was teetering but just surviving when I joined in 2006 went into full blown failure and Special Measures, in early 2013. We achieved the worst Ofsted report ever seen in Oxfordshire for a school which wasn't immediately shut-down, failing in every category assessed.
Strangely, the period actually in Special Measures was one of my favourite times from teaching. This may reflect my connoisseurship of workplace catastrophe but is also due to the war-time spirit and comradeship which miraculously emerged in the surviving staff. It was also heartening that the two maniacs discussed were fired; I played a role in getting the really evil one turfed out. He later resurfaced at another school, the one where I did most of my teacher training. His new job? Deputy Head - with responsibility for behaviour.
All the Governors in my school were chucked out, having supported the failed regime right up until its collapse. The same berks who’d rejected the Deputy who left for a top grammar school. Then our luck changed. We got a no-nonsense new Head and Deputy who - finally - got to grips with the school’s allegedly intractable behaviour problems. These had probably existed because they were regarded as inevitable in a ‘rough school’; a snobbish tolerance of disruption which speaks volumes.
These two - along with the chap who should have been Head - were the best SLT I experienced. Their knack was to use common sense and avoid educational bullshit. SLT itself was massively slimmed down until we came out of Special Measures in summer 2014. Sadly, it then expanded.
Things were still better, for a while. Then the atmosphere changed overnight, between the 23rd and the 24th of June 2016. The Brexit vote ‘went the wrong way’, as far as I could tell for all but me and a delightful Sikh maths teacher. The effects were massive and my days were numbered.
VI: HOW TEACHERS CONTROL CLASSES
This is likely to be what outsiders most wonder about. It certainly was when I occasionally thought about teaching. You'd see mouthy youths on buses or outside McDonald's and think: 'Jesus Christ, imagine being stuck in a room with that shower. You couldn't pay me to!'
It's not helped by unrealistic impressions from TV dramas like Waterloo Road and documentaries such as Gobshites in the Classroom; oops, I mean Educating Yorkshire/Essex (much as I like both counties).
For non-teachers, I have three questions about their occupation:
1. How many people do you work closely with?
2. What percentage of them do you like?
3. How emotional is your investment in your job?
Teachers work closely with perhaps two-hundred plus, the majority children. Some of them - at least in the school environment - are very annoying, and a few are actively horrible. The work is highly emotional, with every side of the teacher's character potentially exposed, including those they were unaware of. An often ignored aspect is the way it forces you to subconsciously relive experiences from your own schooldays.
Other jobs share some of these characteristics, but I think the combination of huge numbers with the need for detailed involvement is unusual. There's a need for simultaneous crowd control and individual focus. For the former, techniques of 'behaviour management' - or in Newspeak 'optimising attitudes towards learning' - have been developed. But the latter is what brings the joy to those who enjoy teaching. Juggling such demands is tricky.
Most off-the-shelf behaviour management techniques are pretty useless, though inadvertently funny to see rigidly applied with diminishing returns - if they ever worked in the first place. They're never simply 'bolt-on', as an NQT quickly realises.
These are my top six most dodgy techniques for behaviour management, all of which I fell foul of:
1. The seating plan
I've discussed my own experiences in detail. I'm not saying they shouldn't be used; they help with getting names right and showing a group one's prepared. But as so often, one is flagging up a target for disruption. Many a failing teacher attempts endless rejigs, trumpeting them and using them as threats, in a doomed cycle of increasing futility.
2. Pointless battles to 'avoid backing down'
This is the pitfall of many, including those with years of experience. It's especially common over trivial uniform infringements, mobile phones and demands for absolute silence. We've all been there. Sometimes because the SLT demands particular stands, other times because we slipped into it.
3. The whole-group bollocking
This alienates the many whilst leaving the intended few unmoved. Too often it feels cathartic for the teacher but ensures sullen dislike from the entire class. Pleading with them: 'I'm only talking to a few here' adds to an impression one's scared to take on the true trouble-makers.
4. Standing in silence and expecting quiet
An absurd idea that's still recommended! I've seen many an NQT waste an entire lesson trying it. On one occasion, the poor sod came to my room in tears having stood there until bombarded with sweets and rolled up graph-paper. I went in and explosively terminated the teacher silence.
5. Overpraise of appallingly behaved pupils when they have a 'good lesson'. See number 3.
6. 'Was that a good idea?'
This links to the liberal fantasy that pupils are reflective and willingly 'take ownership' of their behaviour, as rational and reasonable individuals. It's an easy cop-out for some serial-killer of other pupils' lessons to readily agree and express anguished regret - until the next time.
So what works then?
The vital thing is to feel and seem yourself but maintain enough of an act to achieve emotional distance. This only comes after going through so many disasters, upsets and apparently irretrievable situations that personal immunity develops. There's an enormous churn of dramatic events in teaching, so a lot just vanishes downstream.
Using humour - if necessary sarcasm - and being able to act (but not actually be) furious are what this brings. The old adage - 'Be reasonable, but don't reason' - is the one bit of advice I've found really works. In other words, don't ever justify what you're doing but make sure it isn't unfair.
All easy to say - but just try it, when thirty Year Tens are slipping into mutinous defiance. As said, it's only possible if one's been through it before and somehow survived.
But teachers in general are now leaders in that wider phenomenon threatening our freedoms and culture: the constant monitoring, reporting on and restricting of what's being said. Many give the impression of being teachers' pets themselves, eager to seek favour and suck up to the implacable forces of 'wokedom'.