NOJOMO 3 - Risk in NoJoMo

03: Think of the time you took a gamble and made a decision you wouldn’t usually make. How did it work out for you?

Following completion of my degree in Psychology, having always been a bit of a techie and already knowing people there, I joined the IT department of a well known health and beauty retailer. It was an entry level job which required little skill and no qualifications. Going from surviving on just one income to suddenly having two sweetened the fact that my wage was nothing to write home about, because when you have had very little, having anything at all is something to write home about.
As the years went on at that company, they gradually (albeit very gradually) began to pay me more and though my earnings were still nothing to celebrate, my life was also progressing. A house, marriage, a baby. As my wage increased, my life expanded to meet it. There was little point in looking elsewhere for a job, other than to switch departments within the same company, because it was just so convenient to work there. And because for what it was, it did feel that it was at the very least, well paid enough.
Like all good things though, my job satisfaction there came to an end. And as it did, my now-ex husband felt he could step in and cover my wage in order for me to retrain as a teacher. I had always dreamed of being a teacher, but it was a huge risk. My self esteem was already dented, both personally and professionally, and teaching would require a huge mental and personal commitment from me that would take every ounce of resilience I had and as it turned out, a fair amount I didn’t have.
I was surprised but also proud and a little vindicated after the unfair treatment I had received towards the end of my previous job, that I seemed to walk the application process. It’s worth pointing out that despite the huge recruitment shortage, teacher training is incredibly competitive and notoriously difficult to secure a place for. Yet all 3 of the places I applied for presented me with offers. I made it look easy in many ways.
Training itself, however, was another matter. I don’t think anyone makes it through teacher training without wanting to quit at some point. Those that do are clearly some of the very few trainees who secure a place at a school who are actually nurturing and supportive, where the vast majority are not and see their trainees merely as cheap, willing labour. I fell into the latter category, with a mentor who was far younger than me with quite a chip on his shoulder about that fact, with less experience as a teacher than I have now (yet am the first to admit I still have a lot to learn, where he thought he was the finished product) who told me outright that he felt the best thing that could happen to me was that I’d feel overloaded and unable to cope. What a hero!
Throughout that placement, it was the never the amount of work I was given or the challenge of getting to grips with teaching 30 children for the first time, that made me want to give up. It was always him and the way he made me feel. Having had my self esteem so heavily eroded already by bullying from a previous boss, as well as all of the damage my relationship at the time had done to me, I was not in the best position to sling a deaf ear or just ride it out. He ground me down more and more with every passing week until I was physically ill just before Christmas and ended up getting in touch with the training provider to tell them I couldn’t carry on. I then took up a short placement at another school, only to return to yet more confrontation from my mentor at the end of that placement, despite being told that would stop. But I stood my ground this time. And he seemed to think I’d ‘returned as a different teacher’. (The reality of course was that I was exactly the same teacher, I just hadn’t had to deal with navigating his varying whims and demands for the last 6 weeks).
I made it through that year, without quitting - barely and by the skin of my teeth - but I made it. I did not make it with bells and whistles. I did not emerge like a butterfly. I did not dazzle people at job interviews. I was not imbued with the kind of magical teaching powers that made people want to employ me. I got a job more out of luck than anything else. I was fortunate that the school I got a job at were accepting of me as I was and also that they were research and development orientated so I was given all of the training I had missed out on during my training year. And credit to me - I was self reliant and autonomous enough to stand on my own two feet as a teacher and hit the ground running in terms of day to day classroom management thanks to my previous career, that I appeared to play the part of a teacher who knew what they were doing, even if my pedagogy was not yet sound.
My first year of teaching was no smoother than my training year. My new mentor in this job was also my year group partner - meaning we both had classes in the same year group and so could share the workload. She went off on long term sick in the first term, leaving me to manage both classes and organise whatever supply teacher was drafted in. I had the lion’s share of the workload to manage, all by myself. People think teachers have 12 weeks off and work 9 until 3 but the reality for me was that I was in from 7:30 in the morning, I worked until 10 most evenings and much of my weekends and holidays were also spent working. My working hours over the year as a teacher worked out as double the hours I did in my previous role.
Somehow though, I carried on. Hell, I probably thrived. I worked a stupid amount of hours and I kept on going because in the back of my mind I felt I had no choice. I knew that was what was required to make it through the year. I had my eyes on the prize of completing that year and being signed off as a fully qualified teacher. It was all I could see. And thanks to that year, I will always have this job to fall back on. But the price of working like that has been too high. My mental health, which was already hanging by a thread even before teacher training began, has plummeted to a depth I had never imaged it could sink to. I have issues now that I would never have foreseen for myself. Has this risk been worth it in the long run? I think the jury is still out on that and only time will tell.

Last updated November 23, 2020