School's Out Forever

My final teaching day was earlier this week and I said goodbye to some of the classes I've worked with for almost a year. It's always (OK, usually) sad, saying goodbye to children, and I was genuinely touched by my students' good wishes and their reasonably convincing refrains of  "We'll miss you, Miss."

Although I'm happy to be leaving teaching, I wish my students every success and hope they continue to enjoy their learning. (10YA: there's your promised plug!)

I'd intended to write a longer post, sharing some final thoughts on teaching and education....the need for more creative time and space, my hopes for a  "slow-learning movement" in English, which could create a real appreciation of literature and writing for all students, not just the most able or motivated.

I'd hoped to thank (again) the brilliant support and SEN staff at my school, who make inclusion work and remind us that education is for everyone, regardless of what trolls like Toby Young may think.

But...the sun is shining and the year is over and I've already forgotten that I ever was a teacher!

"Igor" Young and his evil master Govenstein have been reduced to shadowy figures in a year 7 story that ends with the phrase "and it was all a dream."

This nightmare will recur, of course, but in the meantime...

what Alice says!

What Teaching Has Taught Me About Kids

Last week I wrote about the hard work and dedication of the many teachers I've known and worked with over the past ten years.

As I approach my final week as a class-room teaching, I'm thinking back on what I've learned about students. I've only worked as a qualified teacher in one school--a comprehensive in a rural and suburban community--so my observations may not ring true for every teacher. In fact, I trained in a school where there were many more "challenging" students. If I'd spent ten years there, I'm sure my attitudes would have been more Trunchbullian by now.

Anyway, here are a just few of my observations:

1) Children are not the enemy.

It's often easy and tempting (not to mention satisfying) to see teenagers as a potential massed army of droogs, but it's simply not a fair picture. Most of the moral panics involving youth crime are either a repeat of an earlier panic (teddy boys=hoodies) or involve heinous acts that are extremely rare.

2) Children are not all bad.

OK, maybe kids are irritating, noisy, confused, troubled, troubling, selfish, irresponsible, rude, highly-strung, aggressive, challenging, defiant, nasty, disobedient, arrogant, lazy, or annoying....

...but they're not all bad. Really.

3) Young people need adult support and approval as much, if not more, than they ever did.

In a school situation this is hard at times, especally as kids often act out their frustrations and insecurities in ways that are challenging (that word again) and disruptive. Frankly, I'm operating in "do as I say, not as I do" mode now. I've always found it hard to see beyond bad behaviour and find somethig positive in every kid.

But something good is always there.




 4) In short, what teaching has taught me about kids is that young people are kind, co-operative, hard-working, funny, caring, intelligent, energetic, hopeful, entertaining compassionate, inquisitive, easy-going, supportive, talented, charming and above all, good.

 

Most of them, anyway...

Warning: This blog post contains pictures of both Michael Gove and Toby Young

 

There are two weeks left  in the UK's school year and, for me, these two weeks will be my last. After ten years in the job, I'm leaving teaching. I've taken time off in the past (I had a year's sabbatical two years ago, which probably marked the beginning of the end) but I'll soon be completely out of the educational loop, except as a supply teacher, tutor and (I hope) a visiting writer.



 How does that feel?

Fantastic!

There are many things I will miss about teaching (OK, let's make that "some things") and there are some things I won't miss (OK, let's make that "many").

Right wing? Moi?

But now that anyone with the proper right-wing credentials can get state funding to open their school, and many parents think they can do a better job at educating their children than teachers, and the current education secretary has decided to re-make British schools according to his whims andd fanciful notions, I might as well throw in my comments about education, too.




 So, here are some of the things that teaching has taught me...

1) Teachers (at least every one I've worked with or met) are dedicated to their students and are good at their jobs.  

2) Teachers work harder than anyone who's not a teacher will ever know. The UK holidays do not compensate for the extra hours and the unrelenting stress. They don't even come close.

 3) Most of this hard work is unneccessary. The crippling workload serves no purpose.

4) Before I started teaching I thought that schools were like prisons. I still feel that way, although much of the "imprisonment" is internalised by both jailers and jailed (as a teacher, I felt that I was both). In such a pressurised (and politically volatile)  environment, it's almost impossible to think creatively or imagine a more effective way of doing things. At least it was for me.



5)Teachers who work in difficult or challenging schools should be rewarded with smaller class sizes and higher pay, not derision.

6) Everyone involved in education should be part of the national "debate" on education--students of all ages and abilities, teachers, TAs, SEN co-ordinators, admin staff, libarians, technicians, parents.

Know-nothing? Moi?

 Leaving important decisions to experts and academics alone is silly; leaving them to know-nothing politicians who use education as a convenient stopping point on their path to world domination is criminal. 








7) League tables have caused immense damage to education, and warped educational priorities so that results have become the only things that matter. This has set school against school, parent against teacher, teacher against student.


 More importantly, the very existence of league tables suggests (and not too subtly) that a student who isn't an academic high flyer is less valuable or important than one who is.    


8) Every year when GCSE and A level results are announced, there is an outcry about standards and dumbing down and blah blah blah. There will be one this year, too. I think some newspapers just run the same item with the percentages tweaked slightly.

 
They print the same picture every year, too. Those girls who are jumping into the air with glee? They are actually 38 years old now and are getting tired of this cruel reminder of their more energetic and agile youth.








7) Everyone over the age of 25 thinks that they were much cleverer and hard-working than the students of today. They weren't.

 And finally...

8) Having children dress up in suits and ties to go to school is creepy. Wrong on SO many levels. What's wrong with you people?

The Launch!

A massive thanks to the wonderful friends, family and colleagues who were at my launch on the 19th!

Maurice Lyons and Emily Sharratt, editors par excellence!

 

I really do wish that it could have lasted all night (I wanted to carry on reading, but everyone else had gone to the pub!)

I'd also like the thank the people of Paris, who helped me celebrate my actual publication date by posing for pictures with my copy of At Yellow Lake (sorry to disappoint you people, but it's not yet a global publishing phenomenon!). 

Everyone was good-humoured about it. 

 Some actually seemed pleased!













This was an exhilarating culmination of an unforgettable year! Thank you everyone.

After the Launch Party--What Comes Next?

By  this time next week At Yellow Lake will be a published book. Two weeks from now and I'll probably just be getting over my At Yellow Lake launch party hangover...

So what wll happen next?

The road to publication has been exciting, but very long and (as long journeys often are) somewhat exhausting and even disorientating. But now, this journey  is almost over and another one will begin. As a newly published writer I have very little understanding of where this will lead. For some (all right, a few...)  writers, publication is the first stop on a journey to fame and fortune! Think JK Rowling and Suzanne Colliins! For others, it's the beginning of a thrilling  (so it seems to me) cycle of awards, events, festivals. For most writers, though, the pre-  and post-publication worlds are probably very similar. There are still day-jobs to work at, children to take care of, dogs to walk, houses to clean.

I don't have a dog, my children are reasonably able to look after themselves and I never was much of a house-keeper, but I still assume I'll fit into this latter category. I doubt that my life will change substantially. I'm going to the Edinburgh Festival this summer (!) and count this as a thrilling honour. I'll also be attending a CILIP event in Ireland in November. Unbelievable! But, like most writers, my day to day life will be largely untouched, except that I'll write blog posts for other people, try to arrange school visits,  hope for solid sales and respectful reviews.

And then?

I'll write some more. Hope some more. Brace myself for some more disappointments and discouraging times.

So nothing's really changed?

Well, I wouldn't say that. My dreams have come true--being taken seriously as a writer, seeing my book in shops, knowing that whatever else happens in my life, I've achieved something rather special--that's a change!

And looking back on the past two years of working with brilliant editors, of forming working relationships and solid friendships with so many wonderful writers--that's a change!

What's unchanged, though, is the desire to write, and the determination to carry on regardless of what happens next. At this year's London Book Fair, Patrick Ness said that writing is such hard work and being published is such a privilege...

I couldn't agree more. I'm very grateful for the privilege of being published and am looking forward to more hard work! 

At Yellow Lake--How Lucky Am I? Very!

A few months ago, I launched my first book in the US. It was an absolutely joyous occasion, as I was on home turf, and in the company of my immediate family and many lifelong friends. I was able to launch at one of the US's most celebrated children's bookstores, Wild Rumpus, and hold an additional event at a leading regional independent bookseller. The good will and support, the enthusiastic turnout, the amazing cakes--it was more than any writer could ask for.

But I've always been greedy.

So, less than 2 weeks from now, I'm doing it all again!

I'll be celebrating the UK launch (which should have come first, anyway, as the US date was re-arranged due to my travel plans) of At Yellow Lake. Again, there will be many long-time friends in attendance, as well as my husband, children and other family members. Again the venue will be a highly-celebrated children's bookstore--Independent Children's Bookstore of the Year 2012, the delightful Book Nook in Hove.

   
Again, there will be cake....

And this time there will be wine, too!







Yes, I am very, very lucky. I'm  very, very grateful, too.

At Yellow Lake and the Beer Bottle Sized Tree

This beer-bottle sized tree is one of many that my sister and brother-in-law have recently planted at Yellow Lake. It's a sign of hope to me. A symbol of the way we move on after the shocks and surprises that life and nature can spring on us. The way we pick ourselves up, buy some trees, plant them in the ground, wait for them to grow.

Many of you are aware that some of my fellow writers and I received a different kind of  shock recently--the news that Frances Lincoln Children's Books' children's fiction list is to be discontinued.

Other Frances Lincoln authors have already blogged about this: Chris Westwood, Zannah Kearns and
Keren David have all written eloquent posts about a corporate decision that has led to heart-breaking disappointment for many talented writers, and created a sense of frustration and anger among people who value the kind of unique list that Maurice Lyon and Emily Sharratt were developing.

Chris, Keren, Zannah and other Frances Lincoln writers have also, of course, expressed their determination to carry on--to continue creating unforgettable characters, spell-binding plots, thrilling stories.

As for me, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the wonderful team at Frances Lincoln. At Yellow Lake would not have been published without Maurice's enthusiastic support and would not be the book that it is without Emily's skill and insight as an editor. I know that anyone who's lucky enough to work with either of them in the future will feel as lucky as I do.

So, it's almost time to launch At Yellow Lake and I'm determined that the event it will be a great celebration--not just for my book or for me, but for all of us who've been able to work with such magnificent people.

So let's drink some beer, my friends. And then let's plant some more trees!