Monument at Great Zimbabwe

is an education writer.

MY EDUCATION LIFE

Vocation

Early on in my adult life I realised that a business life wasn't for me - I started work as an analyst/programmer and didn't cope with office politics. Through various attempts at voluntary work I decided that I wanted to work with children. For a year I worked in assessment centres and decided that they were holding-places, and not creative. For this reason I moved into schools, and became qualified as a teacher.

Although I recognised some of the limitations of working in state schools, I embraced the teacher training college con of self-realisation and tried to put it into practice when I started teaching. In the end I felt that my dedication to the vocation also conned the kids because in Brixton some trusted my vocation and still failed.

By the time I left the UK my vocation had gone but it returned in Africa, got a few knocks in the Middle East, and came back with a vengance in Chengdu.

Working with Black People

Working with black students in Brixton opened my mind to my racism. With help from friends especially Gavin, they were always an inspiration in adversity, I learnt a litle about alienation. It was my experience in Brixton which led me to the dissertation; check out my dissertation

I also discussed the work I did on anti-racism in my professional biography - checkout: the contents of the professional biography

Young Journal

This was perhaps my greatest work experience editing a black youth magazine based at the Dick Sheppard Youth Centre. I learnt a great deal about the community involvement and the tolerance that many people showed. The magazine was written by members of the Youth Centre and showed great wisdom.

Teaching in Botswana

For six and a half years I taught at a secondary school in Botswana. They recruited teachers through the British Council because they say that they needed UK teachers as they hadn't had a chance to develop their own teachers. To be honest I don't know why they recruit so many as there are plenty of qualified Batswana but they choose to work in industry for the money.

To be honest compared to the UK, working conditions were good although the pay is very poor - I earned less than Ł400 a month. But I had a reasonable standard of living, I had none of the UK stress, and I lived in a warm and pleasant climate with much to see in Southern Africa. I enjoyed life there but there were no career opportunities, no pension, and it was time to move on.

Teaching in Oman

Well I moved on to Oman. With the lack of prospects and not sufficent financial reward globally ie at the time going back to the UK, I have had to give up the more idyllic lifestyle. I left Botswana in April 99 and started working in Oman August 99. I sorely missed Africa, and miss the students at FSSS who were very pleasant to me when I left. I joined a private school in Oman, and had trouble adjusting to the profit motive in education. The management took advantage of the staff, and education came second in the interests of profit and pandering to some ill-disciplined rich students.

Teaching in Bahrain

Teaching at Muscat Private School was the biggest teaching mistake I had made professionally, until I came to Bahrain. If any of you are fortunate enough to read this, don't go to either.

I started working at Ibn Khuldoon National School, and I thought I had hit paydirt. Then various things started to go wrong. Promises made at interview were made of water. Backing for teachers was non-existent, and the students had a mentality that they could hire and fire teachers unless the teachers gave the students the grades they wanted. The management was so weak that phone calls from a few influential parents, and people lost their job.

This school was worse than Muscat, and was an even bigger mistake.

Teaching in China

I started work in Chengdu in November, 2002. I thought it was great as when I offered suggestions to the students many followed them. This notion of following suggestions was completely alien to my previous teaching except maybe some in Africa. The level of work suited me, foundation preparation for university.

I also thought I had hit paydirt with my boss. One evening we were talking. Recognising he was overworked we offered to help, mine through a genuine desire to help the kids; in retrospect others' motivations were not substantive but self-seeking. This offer was a boss manipulation that led to a severe attack on the part of the boss when he discovered he couldn't manipulate me.
The confrontation, termination of contract, he caused was circumvented at the end of the year by my mother dying and my returning to the UK to look after my father. Within two weeks of my leaving I heard he had also been moved on.

Back in the UK

At short notice I was able to get good part-time jobs, one in a crammer school that formally is not one - Abbey College, and one at Xaverian college; both were teaching A(S). Xaverian was a sixth-form college, and because the kids were the best the state education was producing it certainly confirms my status as a Grumpy Old Man of Education. The kids did not have the academic background and discipline to do A level, politics brought them this far and was going to give them some success but not an education. As for the cramer the less said the better in terms of profiteering.

Moving on to Lagos

My UK experience continued in this frustrating way. The students were pleasant enough as they had chosen to stay on, but they lacked the academic discipline to succeed. With my father dying earlier in the year I decided to move on - and found work in Lagos, Nigeria.

The job sounds interesting but the place daunting. We'll see.

Feb 2005. Lagos is difficult, the people are so pushy. Even simple day-to-day things are made difficult. The school has problems but my department are keen and the students try mostly.

I have left Lagos

I have left and must point out that the paranoia engendered at the school had made me write a "safe" paragraph online. Going to Lekki British was the worst decision I ever made followed closely by the ones I made to stay there for two years. The students were mostly good and the teaching staff mostly equally good, but the power brokers from administrator on up to the ownership were a disgrace and should never be allowed near children. My stay was worsened in the second year by a young British pipsqueak careerist who thought he knew it all and proceeded to destroy the best part of the school - the student-staff relations. Unfortunately he had lost the ears he was born with.

I got on the plane when leaving with a huge sense of escape burdened only with the sorrow for those that stayed there. The teachers who were willing, but had a lot to learn, had learnt to survive in Nigerian politics with Nigerian power-brokers; sadly they had never been required to teach as that wasn't a priority at the school.

Now I have retired to Trat

This has been a good decision. What happens to me and education? I will wait to hopefully erase all the bitterness and anger that for 30 years turned my education vocation into a battle with careerists and profiteers. Any future education discussion will be in this blog or at Matriellez.