The Sum Total

“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”

― B. J. Neblett

I'm not sure I will ever fully get my head around this quote, but it certainly makes its way around my head a few times a week. I will be in the middle of a high-stakes chat with a child, explaining to them why using fists to solve disputes is wrong or why using unsavoury language is senseless; I might be helping a child with using similes for description and Neblett's words will suddenly echo within me. A cold fear of the damage that I could cause to the future of this child with the wrong advice or example looms to the fore of my consciousness. It is a fear of how I will potentially feature in the sum total of their experiences.

I should say here that I actually pride myself on the guidance I give to children whilst wandering the theme park of scenarios we find ourselves in as educators. My superiors have even told me that I have a knack for phrasing guidance in a unique and interesting way for children (and even parents, sometimes). But I am, nevertheless, quickly overcome with the fear that I am doing some kind of damage.

Neblett's postulation would suggest that a wrong word, even amongst a thousand other positive ones, could have a ripple effect through time and cause chaos. Movies like Back To The Future, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or About Time have taught me that cause and effect through time is a powerful thing. The Harry Potter stories say the same. What does that mean for us as mortal teachers who cannot travel back in time?

I often wonder, after a few glasses of adult's pop, if I have ever been that teacher who made a future adult hate maths forever. I can't help but agonise over the idea that, somewhere in the year 2038, there is a grown man or woman telling stories about Mr Knowles and the way I made them hate grammar, or art, or life-cycles.

Were I able to travel back in time, I would give medals to a smorgasbord of adults from my past if I could - they kept me in school and they ignited my talents beyond the pathetic embers that were my own self-motivation. These adults made me who I am. I am the sum total of their generosity and support, and any brilliance I can claim as my own is simply a cover song of their original impact on me.

I also have a hodge-podge of adults in my past from whom the dark beasts of my pride and shame crave flesh. These were adults who type-casted a hyperactive boy before he walked in the room. They were educators who assumed ignorance where there was genuine confusion. I played the role of the 'clever and able, but easily distracted' boy in school and my innate energy and enthusiasm was often not weaponised for the good of my learning. It was battled, and rarely defeated. It's these teachers that left me scared of science and sport - two of my favourite subjects to teach now. It is these teachers that I strive not to become, and I hold them in the darkest esteem.

I also have a lot of adults in my past that told me I was 'very intelligent' and 'special'. These probably had the worst impact overall. I've never been very anything, except loud. I am intelligent, but not very. I am talented and special in my own ways, but not very. I've met Mr Very Talented a few times and believe me - I am not him. However, teenage me didn't know this and he lapped up all the praise...and, of course, slacked off a fair bit, thinking he didn't have to work hard. It damaged me. Its contribution to the sum total of me left me less whole as a learner than I could have been, and I imagine that this is the same for many others.

That's where Neblett's words land and take root, for me - more as a warning to not be, than to be. I don't know whether my hyper-awareness is a good thing or a bad one, but it reminds me to simply be aware that my job has few second chances, and fewer take-backs.

I suppose that's why old school friends furrow their brows and say YOU? when they find out I'm a teacher...

Why Are We Learning About This?

It’s a question we’ve all come across. It’s a question we’ve all asked. It’s a question we’ve all rallied behind and it is certainly a question we’ve all groaned inwardly at.

Why are we learning this?

The fact is, it’s a relevant question and should always be asked. I love learning, but I have spent many hours in classrooms, lecture theatres and other learning environments, being spoken at rather than to, and thinking why on earth am I here?, mainly because I couldn’t recognise the objective the learning that was being forced upon me. Were I able to travel back in time, I might change my tune.

 Most frustrating is when we as educators are asked the titular question - the mouth dries, the heart pounds and that little doubt goblin rears its ugly little head and sneers, you don’t know do you? Well fear not - in the face of this question, I recently pulled an answer confidently out of nowhere and I suspect that I have answered this question forever more (with regards to primary education, at least).

Before we go forward, a disclaimer: I’m not so pompous as to think that my mind has constructed the explanation you’re about to read. I’d bet that my subconscious has collected facets of this explanation over time from much wiser people than myself and has put it together in the ramshackle fashion you’re about to experience. Furthermore, I’d be willing to accept the idea that I’ve plagiarised some wise sage and am merely regurgitating (badly) some wisdom earlier I’ve received in the past.

So, if the question is why are we learning this?, the answer is simply this: the details of the subject are not important; it is the features of the subject you must remember. 

Good isn’t it..? Yes...?

Okay, let me explain - teaching should not focused on the goal of planting specific details in the mid of the learner; instead, the key elements of a style of learning should be communicated so that they can be carried forward.

Let’s take a subject like The Romans. It’s a classic and most Britons below the age of 50 can remember learning about them. Since learning about them, I’d wager that 100% of those learners have forgotten the year that Caesar was murdered and they wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of a centurion’s sword (it’s a gladius).

Yeah, okay, you smug twit. You can Google search. Who even needs to know what a 2000 years old sword was called?

That’s what you were thinking wasn’t it? I don’t blame you either. Why do you need to know that? The answer is that you don’t. As I said earlier - it’s not the details you need to carry forward when learning. It’s the the areas of learning that must resonate in the learner. Here’s what I mean…

When children learn about The Romans at primary school, they learn all sorts of facts and the themes of the Romans topic carry across into their writing, maths and most of the foundation subjects. This topic, like lots of topics, bleeds across a half-term’s learning and finds its way into every corner of school life. But here’s the secret: not a single detail is important. I know, you want to argue, because if not a single detail is important then none of the planning and teaching is worthwhile, right? Wrong. Not as long as you explain what the details they are learning represent.

You see, when children learn about the Roman Empire, they aren’t learning about Romans; they are actually learning about learning about a civilisation. They aren’t learning to be experts on the Romans; they are learning to be historical learners. Let’s look at a topic web:

This topic web is pretty generic, but it is reflective of my point. Take Mount Vesuvius: the child here learns about a key landmark and parts of the geography linked to his or her topic, as well as about key events and their lasting effects. They do some fantastic writing and some lovely artwork that won’t see Christmas, and the key facts and words dissolve from their memory in time. Now, let’s fast forward twenty years to that same learner at 28-years old: they’re moving to Japan to work and want to learn about their new home. Well, whad’ya know - their Roman topic learning kicks in, right on time. Okay, they might not remember learning about Vesuvius, or that it erupted in 79AD, or that the place it destroyed was called Pompeii. It really won’t matter in Japan. What matters is that the 28-year-old learner has the ingrained instinct to research key landmarks and parts of the geography linked to his or her new home, as well as about key events and their lasting effects in this new place.

The same ideas can be applied to all areas of subjects and topics. Take Roman myths for example - they don’t specifically matter, but knowing that reading any culture’s myths and legends can strengthen cultural understanding matters greatly. The architecture of the Roman Empire isn’t specifically important for most people, but knowing that the architecture of a culture is key to learning about it is something all learners should take from their experience learning about the Romans. Scientific breakthroughs; mathematical impacts; arts; people of interest; these are all key elements of a learning journey that the learner is living, but knowing all of these things specifically about the Romans is not.

We cannot remember everything nor should we be expected to. A person can only be expected to harbour the knowledge we are currently living, and it is our job as teachers to make sure that children enjoy the details they will likely forget, but carry forward an appreciation of what those details represent.

I hope this rambling shack of logic has given you some perspective, because when we as education professionals are asked why we’re teaching the things we teach, we don’t actually have to justify them by grumbling about the government’s choices for what goes into the national curriculum, nor do we have to paddle our way through a flimsy excuse. We are enablers, and we enable children to learn beyond the current half-term’s backdrop. The backdrop doesn't matter, because we have the pleasure of carrying the fundamentals of learning past each backdrop. We have that privilege. Maybe we’ll even have the honour being remembered by the learner when they are whole and able to educate themselves twenty years later.

Education Professionals Shouldn’t Have To Pay More For Their Holidays

Teaching is a rewarding, fulfilling profession, make no mistake. The opportunity to change the world by enriching young minds is unparalleled in its importance, however the effect it can have on the lives of its practitioners is a binary tale. Teaching is a highly demanding job and learning is a demanding process; just as every learner needs time away to reflect and recharge, so do education professionals. Left without recuperation time, teaching will rip the soul out of the very best of us. Indeed, recent studies show that half of teachers have been diagnosed with mental health problems.

It cannot be argued that it is crucial that educational professionals are given adequate time to recuperate. The opportunity for that recuperation, however, is not within the reach of many professionals in due to the cost increases during school holiday. As school holidays are the only times that education professionals can get away from it all, they are faced with the choice to pay hiked up prices, or to not have a holiday at all.

But you get paid enough, says Norman from down the road. Do we Norman? When politicians like Nigel Mills are paid a basic income of £77,000, the average teaching salary of ≅£24,000 (for a job more necessary and impactful) seems paltry. Now, I’m not saying educational professionals (or politicians) necessarily deserve £77,000 per annum for their services, however it is nothing less than a fact that the salary earned by any public servant should stretch as far as any the salary of any other public servant.

It’s important to note that education professionals are not the only victims of this practice - the cost increase faced by education professionals also applies to parents. It could even be argued that the cost disadvantages apply to parents even more so, as they have their little ones (who also deserve a holiday) to pay for as well as themselves. The only advantage that parents have is that they can take their children on holiday for cheaper during term time. Educational professionals simply don’t have that choice, practically or morally.

From September 2013, unauthorised absences taken during term time can incur fines of £60 (increased to £120 if not paid within 28 days) from local authorities across England and Wales (there are no official fines in Scotland). These penalties might deter truancy if you look at a single day’s truancy to visit a theme park - it’s not worth an extra £60 to skip a few queues, afterall. This becomes a different story when we look at the cost of term time holidays against the cost of holidays in school break periods:

Average cost (flights and hotels) per person for two children and two adults.
Location	June term time	August Summer holidays
Majorca	£280	£690
Greece	£300	£550
Florida	£1200	£1200

Above are the average costs for holidays in June 2019 (a Wednesday to the following Tuesday) and the same holidays in August 2019 (again, following a Wednesday - Tuesday pattern). Data compiled from searches on expedia.co.uk. All flights are from Heathrow and based on two adults and two children.

For clarity, here are the same searches based on two adults:

Average cost (flights and hotels) per person for two adults.
Location	June term time	August Summer holidays
Majorca	£350	£700
Greece	£400	£590
Florida	£800	£1000

Above are the average costs for holidays in June 2019 (a Wednesday to the following Tuesday) and the same holidays in August 2019 (again, following a Wednesday - Tuesday pattern). Data compiled from searches on expedia.co.uk. All flights are from Heathrow and based on two adults.

As you can see in the first table, if a hard working Mum and Dad want to take their two children on holiday during term time to Majorca, they will be £410 better off PER PERSON than if they went in the Summer holidays. Even if their school chased up these absences (some don’t), they would pay £60 per child and still be £1280 better off as a family. Who can blame them?

This raises the question of whether fines imposed by schools for absences are high enough. Would raised fines make them a better deterrent? It wouldn’t be out of place to think that the government actually don’t care if children are taken holiday, but simply want to make some money off of the back of it (money which no doubt doesn’t find its way back to education). Then there is question of whether the fines should exist at all, but that is a discussion for another time.

The second table shows us that the average cost of a European holiday is even more costly for adults travelling without children during the school term. Outside of the school term, there are still jumps in price, albeit small ones. That is a moot point, however, as education professionals don’t have the choice to take a week off during term time. Aside from the contractual obligation to attend work during term-time school hours, the moral implications of leaving the children you care for is out of the question. Any temptation to do so would solely be based on the price benefits of taking a holiday during term time.

Of course, Norman from down the road would say you get enough holiday time and should be happy with yer lot, and I wouldn’t shoot him down. He’s right about the holiday time being substantial but the term ‘holiday’ is badly used. Think of it more as ‘time away from the children’ and you’re onto something. It is an unavoidable fact that, from the outset, the thirteen weeks children have off school looks like a lucrative deal for the professionals that educate them, however a fair portion of that time is spent working towards the next term. Planning, along with the assembly of learning spaces, accounts for most of the time educational professionals spend working during school holidays. Those thirteen weeks across the year soon get cut in half. It seems unfair, then, that the remaining time left away from the children cannot feature the same affordable holidays that a civil engineer, doctor or journalist might take at a lower price.

What can be done about this issue? Well firstly, the government needs to recognise that teachers are public servants and their purpose in society crucial. If they are not treated with the same respect and rights as every other professional contributing to the infrastructure of the country, then the current teacher retention crisis is not likely to recede. Secondly, I would have the government intervene and cap the cost of holidays for educational professionals, if not all people, during term time. If this is done by equalising holiday costs, then so be it. I don’t want the holiday companies losing out on profits they’ve earned, nor do I want anyone else to have to pay more than they should. I just want it to be fair.

Fair is the key word, here - no decent teacher wants special treatment or a free ride. We try to instil the very opposite of that attitude in children. The simple truth is that teachers deserve a break just as much as all of the other amazing public servants who worked for years and accumulated academic debt just to serve the society they belong to. Educational professionals work just as hard as any other public servant, and therefore it is about time they had the same opportunities when paying for holidays.