I’m not a patient person. Where are my keys? Have you seen my phone? Did you book the hotel room? Have you told them we can’t make it till 8.30 on Saturday? I’d like a tequila and soda please. Let me see your homework. Where did you put the mustard? What did he say about the raise? Put that back in the right place. Now, and I mean now. Faster. This second. Wait? No, I can’t wait.
It’s a bad attribute. I try to take it easy, to not worry about the speed of things but I’m extremely bad at it. Which is just one of the reasons why I am in awe of teachers; they are, simply put, the most patient group of people on earth.
You know when you throw your kids a party? Twenty-five kids over to yours for marmite sandwiches and some pass the parcel, a disco with a foam gun (thanks Uncle Ollie) and cake and blowing out the candles and here’s a party bag. Remember the exhaustion, the looking at your watch and the where-did-I-put-the-black-bin-bags panic? Do you recall the overwhelming ‘someone-pour-me-some-wine-and-put-me-in-a-dark-room’ feeling that came over you the second the last child has been picked up? (‘Sorry we’re late, we lost track of time!’ – WHAT?) And of course that promise you make to yourself at the end of every one: next time he can have two friends over and we’ll get Dominos and invest in Disney+.
Well, teachers do that every single day, not once a year. They manage up to 30 kids all at the same time, day in, day out all the time. They have to like the naughty ones, the shy ones, the showy off ones, the nervous ones, the attention-seeking ones, the ones who never say please and thank you. They have to wait for kids to get their answer out while they nod and mutter encouraging words.
‘Well done Luke for putting your hand up, the capital of France is …’ (long pause, Luke is not quite sure, he’s staring into space). If you’re a teacher you’re not allowed to answer, ‘It’s Paris, dickhead.’ You aren’t allowed to wail, ‘But look at the board, Luke, there’s the Eiffel Tower! We’ve just been talking about that city for a full 30 minutes.’ Instead, you have to just smile and wait. When he finally says, ‘Is it Brazil?’ you’re not permitted to roll your eyes or tut or laugh your head off or text a friend. Instead, you have to write in a small homework diary (that his parents might only sometimes glance at), ‘More work on capital cities please! Have a fantastic weekend!’
You have to always be in a good mood and you can’t be bored. These extraordinary people teach the same subject countless times. It’s not just your little Jack they’re explaining vectors to. They’ve done it every year. They’ve done it when it’s sunny outside and when it’s snowing. They’ll have done it with the same enthusiasm. ‘Welcome class, I’m going to teach you A level maths and I can’t wait to get started.’ And they mean it too. If you’re ever had an excellent teacher (they’re all excellent but some really get to you) then you never forget it.
So teachers of this world, thank you so much. We give you our heads and you fill them up and make them smarter and then some of us will put our kids’ futures in your hands. You work so hard, you never forget to mark papers, you nod patiently when we can’t quite remember something and you still encourage us and aim to inspire us. Thank goodness for you.