I have been a teacher for 25 years, a Headteacher for 10 years and, at the age of 49, this much I know about loving the job again.
I do like a good aphorism. These famous lines from Mark Twain have always resonated:
Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like it's heaven on earth.
I reckon Tom Sherrington's a modern day Twain! His liberating Tweet has a hint of Twain about it...
In many ways the profession's on the front foot. I've just returned from two days at Ampleforth College with the leadership team thinking about developing our school and I feel empowered like never before. As a whole staff we have been asking ourselves a single question,
How do we create the conditions for every teacher to want to improve their teaching?
and over the past week colleagues have submitted their answers to that question - the result being a 10,000 word document with all the ideas we needed. We have some more thinking to do before we present the pared down plans to our colleagues next Wednesday; in the meantime here's my own aphorism which encapsulates the spirit of our two days' thinking (with obvious apologies...):
Plan like no one's observing, teach like you’ve regained your worth, Lead like no one’s inspecting, learn like it’s heaven on earth.