MASTERS AT A GLANCE
Richard Kelly tells you everything
you ever wanted to know about teachers
EARLIER this year, the government backed a high-profile advertisement for school-teaching, one which aimed to lure `more bright young people' into the profes- sion. The ad involved a series of celebrities recalling a teacher who influenced their lives, the implication being that teaching really is a rewarding profession and that one of the main rewards is the gratitude of former pupils.
The prospect of acclaim from famous alumni might well appeal to future teach- ers, just as it might have appealed to a few present ones. Yet this has never been the main instinct that drives people into teach- ing. There have always been other, more powerful forces at work which are evident in any staff or common room. As such; it is possible to identify eight specific types of teacher, all motored by different urges, yet all contributing to the uniquely lurid char- acter of our profession.
1. The Evangelist. Teaching always attracts a ragbag of idealists and philan- thropists — people who are drawn to the `pastoral' side of the job, hoping to shape the lives of malleable youths. In this respect, teaching has an obvious appeal to those who, in a previous life, might, have become preachers or missionaries, com- mitted to the redemption of souls and the cleansing of spirits.
Yet Evangelist Teachers do not have to be religious. They could easily be fired by philosophy, ideology or politics — hence the high number of cranky liberals, nutty Marxists and foaming eco-warriors now found within the profession. Of course, such teachers seldom have much impact. Very few pupils listen to their teachers' propaganda, and those who do usually reach very different conclusions.
The head of my old secondary modern, for instance, was a communist who draped the school's corridors with posters of Castro and Lenin. Had he been more reserved then we, his pupils, might have become Leftists ourselves (like most other voters in that Welsh constituency). Instead, the whole sixth form, by way of reaction, became rabid Thatcherites and the only group in the area to vote Tory in 1979, thus occasioning the head's early retirement and eventual sui- cide. So teachers with strong views should keep them private or, better still, renounce them. The teachers who stay sane are nor- mally those who believe in absolutely noth- ing — apart, that is, from their own survival.
2. The Exhibitionist. To a large extent, classrooms are mini-theatres, with the pupils forming a regular and fairly docile audience. As a result, the teaching profes- sion will always attract failed actors, pitiful extroverts and tenth-rate comedians. One of my former pupils, Chris Addison, is now a professional comic, compering this year's Telegraph 'open mic' awards in Edinburgh and starring in countless graveyard-hour chat shows on Channel 5. He recently told me that, as his sixth-form tutor, I had been something of an 'inspiration'. Yet this `inspiration', he added, did take a rather negative form, for he realised that his own efforts at stagy humour could not possibly be worse than mine. Thankfully, he was right, otherwise he too might have finished up as a teacher.
3. The Bureaucrat. Following the numer- ous 'reforms' of recent years, schools have become fertile venues for anyone with pen- pushing tendencies. There are now endless opportunities for creating documents which make no sense and committees which achieve precisely nothing. Moreover, anyone seeking promotion in teaching must these days show a mastery of arcane bureaucratic language, plus some interest in the foggy dis- ciplines of 'management science'. All of this made the 1990s a golden age for Bureaucrat Teachers, with 'administrative talent' being rated above all else. As a result, the ability to teach something — anything — is now almost obsolete among teachers, making schools a haven for the grey and faceless.
4. The Scholar. Even in these days of dumbed-down exams and worthless cours- es, schools continue to claim an attach- ment to academic rigour. Consequently, teaching still attracts swotty misanthropes who flourished in exam rooms but virtually nowhere else. This is especially true of arts and humanities scholars, whose MAs and PhDs offer little prospect of alternative employment.
Scholar Teachers face swift disenchant- ment, for the job is simply not conducive to the hesitant, reflective nature of real aca- demic study. This harsh fact was discovered by a flatmate ten years ago, who had just completed his thesis on 'The Role of Aldermen in 19th-Century Suffolk' (sur- prisingly unpublished). Having started his first week of teaching with 'seminars' on Pitt the Younger, he finished it with papier- maché models of Napoleon and panto-style enactments of Agincourt (he is now a deputy head). With the advent of GCSE, the debasement of academic study is quite normal — maybe intentional — and usually extinguishes any interest a teacher once had in his subject. 5. The Hearty. Teaching offers a useful wage to anyone obsessed with outdoor pur- suits, assuming the school has escaped what is laughably called 'industrial action'. Par- ticularly within private schools, it is com- mon to find teachers defined not by their subject, but by some robust extra-curricular activity, such as cricket, soccer, trekking or the success of a new 'ruck 'n' scrum' machine. Though they moan as much as the rest of us, Hearty Teachers have little cause for complaint. After all, where else could they earn a living wage for blowing a whistle or putting up a tent? 6. The Fascist. Teaching will always attract those fascinated by power and disci- pline. For those with authoritarian tenden- cies, the prospect of commanding disciplined obedience while regimenting hundreds of children into uniform proce- dures has obvious appeal. This aspect of schooling has faded, of course, with the demise of corporal punishment, an avenue which offered huge opportunities for the many sado-fascists within the profession. Yet there is still some scope for punitive activity in schools and, therefore, still some enticement for quasi-fascists. A boy who left a nearby school last year told me that his teachers had inflicted 'ritual cruelty' upon him for five whole years. But .to have encountered so many Fascist Teachers in one school is most unusual today, leading one to infer that there were strange, psychic phenomena among the staff concerned. It probably deserves special academic atten- tion — or an urgent police inquiry. 7. The Paedophile. Society inevitably contains adults who are both skilled at passing exams and sexually attracted to children. Many of those cursed by such feelings will shun teaching in the way a reformed alcoholic shuns a pub. But, equally, many will allow themselves the luxury of being surrounded by those they could find sexually interesting. Most Pae- dophile Teachers show admirable restraint, stifling their urges and often suf- fering a nervous breakdown in the process. Yet one or two always break cover, with results that are disastrous for themselves, embarrassing for their schools and per- plexing for their pupils. 8. The Cynic. The largest category of all are Cynic Teachers, those who entered the job not because of any specific interest but because other jobs looked even worse. These teachers have no wish to be seen as `characters', neither do they care much about the rights and wrongs of the profes- sion. They are just ordinary working people who have to earn a living and who see clear benefits in a job with shortish hours and lengthy holidays. The happiest Cynic Teach- ers are those who tried other careers first: that way they can be sure that in other jobs, too, it is easy to be bored and miserable but with longer hours and shorter holidays. These eight categories arc not mutually exclusive. It is quite possible, for example, to be a Scholar and an Exhibitionist, a Hearty and a Bureaucrat or, indeed, a Pae- dophile and an Evangelist (ideal for sports days). It is also common for teachers to switch categories as they go through their careers, starting out, for instance, as gentle Scholars but ending up as violent Fascists. But what this taxonomy really shows is that teaching (pace the government's ad) is a profession for the displaced, comprising people who should really be elsewhere, such as on the stage, in a vicarage, in the prison service, behind the counter at Mil- let's, in a Bangkok sex den or simply at home doing nothing. It isn't true that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach'. It is just that those who can teach can't be bothered to do anything else.
The author teaches at Manchester Grammar School.
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