Ep 87: What Is A Teacher Martyr & Why Are They So Harmful To Education?

0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teach Sleep Repeat. My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden. Quick disclaimer for this episode. This episode is going to be a little bit unhinged because I'm losing the will to live as a teacher. How are you, Dylan? What a way to start. Welcome everyone, new teachers alike. I needed to say it because you know what? We are going to rant in this episode because you're. Very. Loud. I'm not getting really angry. We've planned this episode and you know what? It is a bit of a moaner. It is a bit of a ranter. At the end, we'll try and, you know, give some suggestions. We're not just moan, but this episode is one of those episodes for if you are also losing the will to live as a teacher right now because of the state of teaching, then hopefully you can rant along with us in this episode.

0:40 And I just wanted to say that at the start. I wanted to say something then based on what you've just said that because I think you need to calm down for a second. OK? But you're absolutely right. And we always worry. And I'm going to say this as my disclaimer. We always worry, don't we, when we talk about these things. I think we're getting over it. But we used to think, gosh, are we? Are we being negative? And we've had enough people tell us we're not now, for example, in the last week, since we've chatted with Omar last week about very specific issues that are quite triggering to some people because they've gone through bullying in a school or been in a toxic school. It's it's a sensitive subject almost, isn't it? But we're talking about it because, because we think it's important, because we care about the job so much. And enough people have messaged us and said, thank you for talking about this. You, you are the podcast.

1:23 Someone said this week, you guys, this episode. I wish I had it in my first year of teaching because I was in a toxic school. I kind of ignored those gut feelings. We talked about where you feel like this isn't right, but everyone else around you just seems to think it is. And that's what we're going to continue doing. And we're going to talk today about teacher martyrdom. And it isn't. It can be a touchy subject because we are essentially placing some blame about the state of education right now onto teachers. Yeah. And we're teachers ourselves and and we're the first people to defend this job and the people who do an amazing job. But we have to talk about this. Yeah, I mean, lots of our episodes, you know, go back and listen to episodes where they, we've done loads on SLT and how they can help and they can stop, you know, causing such problems in school, the government and how they can help. Do you know what this episode is about? Us.

2:06 Yeah, it is about the teachers at the bottom and things that we can do to to help fix this horribly toxic culture of teaching. And yeah, specifically the Martin we we mentioned it with Omar last week. It was a really, I mean, you said you got, we got lots of nice back back section where we just briefly touched on being a martyr. Well. Everyone can think of 1, can't they? Everyone can think of what we're saying whilst we're doing our introduction. Just have a think. What's martyrdom to you? What does it look like? And we'll tell you what we think it is. But let's just chill out for 5 minutes, have a little catch up, we'll play the Jingle and then yeah, guys, stick around because we're going to really, really dive into this and I'm really interested to hear what people have to say about it as well. Hayden, let's breathe. I'm breathing. And I want to know how your week was, because for anyone who's new listener, we are primary school teachers, we work in school. How's it going?

2:51 Yeah, it's, you know, it's been a very normal nice week up until yesterday in which we had parents evening and now I'm not one to hate parents evening. No, it can be a little bit like a long, it's a long old day because our school, I mean, we've probably mentioned it before, but our school, if this is different, we do, we do a really long one parenting. We are at school till nine o'clock 9:00 PM. So it's an incredibly long day, but we get it all done in one go. So we had that yesterday and we're recording on a Thursday. You guys have seen this on a Monday, But yeah, parents evening, I'd say for the first time ever, right? Every single appointment I had was extremely positive. I didn't. There was absolutely nothing because there's normally at least one conversation. It's a little bit awkward, a little bit difficult. You kind of want to say something and the parent maybe disagrees, like, oh, no, my child doesn't lie. And I'm like, oh, they do, you know, you have those awkward conversations.

3:40 But last night. But it just went so smoothly. It was lovely. Every conversation was constructive and it was brilliant, so actually I had a really nice time. So people listening like hear that and say, Oh, my parents even didn't go like that. Would you? So are you putting that down to chance? Are you putting that down to the fact you're quite experienced now you can handle the situations and and do you think you're better at framing difficult conversations in a way where it's still positive? Or do you think it's kind of out of your control? And you know, some parents are just going to have be really awkward no matter how experienced you are. And you know, you shouldn't blame yourself hearing you say how amazing. I think it was 80% luck, genuinely 80% and complete luck, that I just happened to have loads of really mature parents who were reflective and were able to take criticisms. So did you, were you still, so I know you said it's positive, Were you still negative in in terms of did you still say things that aren't necessarily nice? Things.

4:31 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't have 32 angels in my class who where I couldn't say a possible bad thing about them. Do you know what I mean? I had lots of conversations where I was saying negative things about their children in terms of our saying things like when the conversation comes to mind, oh, you know, your child has been behaving a lot recently, been sent out of class, those of times. Let's get to the bottom of this. So I do think there is an element of you can word it in a certain way that doesn't get someones back up. Yeah. You know, the whole positive sandwich approach. Yeah. I knew going into that conversation the first thing I was going to say was not, oh, your child is getting sent out all the time. Sure. You know, it was actually, we're really fond of your child. We love this about them. They've got a really funny personality. We love it when they get involved in class, they do all these things in discussion, blah, blah, blah. But unfortunately I don't know what's going on. But they've been set out five times this week and that's a really difficult thing because obviously they're not following our behaviour policy. Are you seeing it at home?

5:18 And we quite often make it a discussion rather than I'm telling you off as a parent. I think that's a mistake I made earlier on in my career, which is you just kind of go in straight for the conflict. It's like they don't want that. This is a collective. Experience, and you don't want that either. No, absolutely not. But it is luck because I have had previous years where I'm just as experienced really. And in terms of my understanding of how to run a parents evening where you just, there's nothing you can say or do, it's going to turn into some sort of conflict and be awkward. So I was very lucky this year that that it didn't go that way with anybody. How was your parents evening? It was good. My sorts of parents evening are always twofold where in the build up I'm like, oh God, and I'm interested in what people think because I put a story up about the fact ours is until 9:00 PM. It is normal for us at this point. That's just what we do.

6:01 But we do have votes as well that multiple times across the years we've had votes where it's been asked, would you rather do one very long parents evening all the way up until 9:00 PM or split it across 2 days and go to six, 630, something like that. And once I said that to people on Instagram, by the way, you can follow us at TCP Podcast. Once I'd said that on Instagram, people have messaged saying 9:00 PM. That's disgraceful. A lot of them changed their mind and said, oh, do you know what? I might have preferred actually staying until 9:00 PM rather than having to go until 6 for two nights in a row. I, I think my, my, my view on parents evening is there's no good option in terms of your time and how stressed out you are and how, how burnt out you might feel. But what I will say is I think parents evening is amazing. Like I think it's so vital, so important and I really enjoy it. Like when I'm in parents evening doing it, I think it's ace. I love it.

6:55 The only the only qualm we can have is the fact that we basically fit 2 working days into one day. Yeah, like it should replace it in my opinion. You know, when schools like start parents living at half 12 and the, the, the kids are doing like maybe some PPA or they're outside of class or something, But then part of your day, at least of what you would have done teaching is now doing because it's a job. Right. It's a bit odd tacked on, isn't it? Yeah, Evening. It's like by default it already sounds terrible to me. Yeah, an evening. Sorry I'm not in the evening as well. Do you know what? I know why and I agree with it because some parents work. I had parents who could only come at like 8:00 PM and they were really grateful. The fact we do a late 1. So so absolutely I get there are pros and cons. I'm not suggesting there's one right or one wrong way. But my point here is I guess overall it's I I love it. I like putting a face of the children to the face of their adult and knowing who they are and you might cross their path on the playground and kindly be like, oh, you think he's dad? And now I know for sure and it can be really clear. There's always so many similarities. I said so yesterday and I was like, oh, that was weird. Hayden, why did you say that?

7:50 In my head I was thinking, why did why did you say that? So that was just weird. The parent came in and that kid, I love that. That kid is so nice. Like one of like just so lovely. And then the parent came in and was sort of, we were having a bit of a joke when they came in, when they laughed, I went, you laughed just like named her child. And I was like, that sounds kind of creepy. Actually. She sort of went, oh, I was thinking, oh man, why? Would I say? But it just reminded me, like every parent sits down and I'm like, Oh my God, like children are sponges. They just speak like they're into. It's the intonation when I hear someone speak and I'm like, oh, your child speaks exactly like that. They sound like. You don't you find now that we're parents, like probably our first full year, I guess as being parents in school now they're growing up as well and our children are getting a little bit of a personality. Yeah.

8:33 Don't you find I found last night was the first time at Parents evening where I really, really consciously saw I'd love to hear this about my child and I really want to hear about my child when Rory ends up having parents evenings and stuff. And my favourite part of parents evening genuinely is making the parents proud of their child and telling them all the really cool stuff they do. And as teachers, I think it's our job to find that and tell the parents, you know, we see you. And my favourite part last night, a few parents said this and it it fills you with happiness. There's two things. One was they say things like we never have an issue. They love going to school. I'm like, as a teacher, when you hear that, I think I'm doing my job. You know what? I don't care if they come home and tell you what preposition is, don't care.

9:16 But the fact, the fact they're excited and happy to go into school, I'm like, that's so heartwarming. And the other thing was we had multiple parents say after Amy and I taught Amy to my job show and the parent would say, oh, do you know what? That that fills me with pride. And I'm happy that you see that part of my kid. So they they and they're very honest. They were saying, oh, do you know, sometimes we worry because the child might be a bit full on or a bit like, you know, a bit much. And in the education environment, the parents think, oh God, maybe the teacher will get annoyed or yeah, yeah. And and they were just so happy that from what Amy and I had said, they felt like we saw their child and we could see them as an individual and really appreciate them as an individual. And the parents being happy with that. I was like, OK, again, that I've done my job.

9:56 I see the individual child and everyone and the parents really appreciate that. And they were so nice and happy. And I was like, OK, this, This is why parents evenings really cool. We set ourselves on that right foot. Yeah. 100%, that's really nice. I had a few of those experiences as well. How many of those parents after saying that, then looked at your displays and said, but it's a shame because actually you're clearly and actually a terrible teacher because I tell you what, the environment does not look as good as I've seen on Pinterest. How many of them did that? Yeah. Oh, none of them. Because you know what? No one cares about it. No one cares. They just care that their child is valued and loved. That's what makes a good teacher. And I'm already, I'm not going to rent yet, but I'm already getting into. I'm just, I'm so I'm just really annoyed at the moment. And I think I feel like you feel the same as well I do. Maybe you're trying to hold back a bit, but we'll talk about it in a minute.

10:41 But I tell you what, before we do, because I know you've got some, I think you've had some funny things happen this week. I want you to tell some stories, lighten the mood a little bit before I spend 45 minutes going off on one. Well, one thing I was going to start by saying is we're reading Varjak Paul and every single time we're reading this on the podcast, I just feel like I need to talk about it. OK? Because SF Saeed, who's the author, he's I've seen interviews with him. He he just comes across as such a lovely guy and he just loves writing. And he's like one of them people who said everyone's a writer, everyone's a reader. If you're a reader, you're a writer, you can do it. It's just quite inspiring listening to talk and when you read his book, their kids love it and it's still link, link to what we're saying. Again, what do we really care about? It's those moments for the children that's the most unbelievable part of it.

11:22 And again at Parents Evening, sometimes the children came with them and multiple times the children would say, I love Vajpay and OK, cool, this is what matters. Reading really good text with your children, engaging them, getting them to enjoy a story. And do you know what it's it's a story that a lot of them with independent reading wouldn't be able to access properly. And there's those children who I know wouldn't access this book are getting so much out of as just cordoning off some time to read the story. Can I say something cool because you don't know this, but our school recently, it's good for the listeners as well to know you can reflect on this with your school. But our school recently has made big changes to English and we have really scrapped massively those kind of lessons where you just go over test style techniques all the time for reading, like reading comprehension tests.

12:04 This is how you get 2 marks in these. Yeah. We've really just just streamed back on that because that's gonna come. Yeah. Do you know what? We'll do a little bit of that every now and then because actually familiarising the kids of the test is probably sensible and like, yeah, whatever. But we've really taken it back and replaced it with, should we just read really, really good books though? Like really. And just, And actually, like you said, cordon off time to read really good books all the time and see if we can get the kids passionate about reading so that they go home and books that they like and read. And that's what our school been doing for a couple of terms now. And I know that our SLT were a little bit panicked because they were obviously rightfully nervous. Like, oh, we have just cut back tonnes of this test style stuff. And we do get judged on tests though. So I'm a bit worried about this. We had our autumn, autumn data come through and our highest across all four year groups in years, above average and everything where before we're typically a little bit below average across like a particular, it's not national, but it's like a big group that we yeah.

12:53 Sure. Called Pixel and I could just see the relief on our SLTS face and they're like OK, maybe maybe this maybe this is OK. And I was so pleased because I, I would have been gutted if if it wasn't that and they started then justifying or maybe we should go back to just doing loads of test style. Stuff do a teacher waggle and then do some questions from the teacher waggle which. You've written as a teacher, I thought you don't know that yet and I thought you'd be pleased. That's weird that the kids it is working kids just enjoying reading. Really simple model. Read good books and get them to enjoy it and talk about it is actually helping them read. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree, Completely agree. And I just wanted to say that to people out there, like, don't dismiss that time. Don't be convinced by the people. And a big part of what we're going to talk about later is you're a professional person. I'm a professional teacher.

13:35 I've done it for 10 years. OK, leave me alone. 9. Is it 9? You're you always think you're me. I'm. I've said decade for the whole year. I know I like decade. I'm going to stick with decade. I'm going to count my training here. I was teaching. All right. So yeah, I've been teaching for a decade. Sounds so good a decade. Doesn't it look like leave me alone? Like don't come up to me and tell me, Oh no, you shouldn't be reading that book. Actually, you should be doing this. Leave me alone. Like I'm just going, do you know what I'm going to do? Because it's the most important part of the job in these six hours. I'm with these kids. These kids are going to bloody love school and they're going to really enjoy being here and they're going to be engaged in what they're doing. Leave me alone. Don't don't tell me what honestly, honestly, I don't care. I don't care at this point. I'm just like, we can have a discussion about like which what you think is better and stuff, right? But you're not always right, you know, just because you're outside of the classroom forever. Yeah, yeah.

14:25 But you're not all. I get that you're in some position maybe. So do you think there's any? Because what you're saying to me sounds like everyone did. If everyone acted like you, they'd be anarchy. No one would follow any. We're all doing exactly what we want. I'm a mass. Lead and we put say use White Rose. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is if I went into a room and someone within a lesson had decided today they're not going to do a White Rose small step. They're going to do an investigation where the children are looking at all possibilities and they've got some printed out ice creams that they're looking at. I'm not going to say to that teacher, oh, but we did all agree that we're doing White Rose all the way through. When the kids are enjoying. It Yeah, the kids are loving it, they're engaged, they're doing maths, they're learning stuff, right? There's not one way to learn stuff is my point. If you come in and we're all reading Vajatpur and you stay for 10 minutes and we're just reading a chapter and I've not asked the leading question in 2 minutes, So what is my point? But those micromanaging is what I'm talking. Sure.

15:13 The the you know, I've been told to teach. Watch out for. Yeah. So obviously I'm not talking about I'm gonna do whatever I want all the time. Yeah. I'm saying within the confines of a classroom as a professional. But I said we're just gonna read a book for 20 minutes. Yeah, we're just gonna read a book for 20 minutes. OK, so scenario then the kid, it's 2 hour afternoon, yeah, you're one hour 45 minutes into it. The kids are are bored and knackered at this point, right. You've been doing, I don't know, some geography and then they're just. Always geography. I'm sorry, John, it's. Just such a boring subject. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry, John. We're. Going to get some pushback here. I'm joking. It's not a boring subject, but it can be. It can be, depending how you teach them what you're teaching do. You want to do 2 hours on latitude. Not longitude on latitude, just latitude. Because we'll do 2 hours of longitude exactly. And you? Know what? And you as a teacher, as a professional, like you said, who's nine years in as a notice, notice that the kids are flagging, they're bored of this now. And you've got this one last task that you could do. They've done an hour and 45 minutes of it and you decide, you know what, just not gonna do it? School policies that you gotta finish it, you gotta finish that.

16:08 They gotta have this, they gotta have that self reflection at the end or whatever it's. Because if they didn't write it down, they didn't possibly learn it for an hour. And 45, you go now I'm gonna read the book. So you're saying in that scenario of an SLT can leave in it and goes, no, don't be doing that, you need to be. They haven't done their self reflection. I can see they've done this hour and 45 minutes of work, but they haven't done this bit and that's the policy to finish that you'd be like. Yeah, I would say, look, I'm a professional. Here are my reasons for doing it. OK, accept them, please, because I'm not some player, but off the street, like on a genuinely like if you've picked up a profession off the street in a different career who's well switched on, I think they could probably deliver a lesson you plan for them. It wouldn't be the best thing in the world, but they could probably go through slides and be like, oh, I've got to do this next. Got to do this. Yeah, formulaic, formulaic, clunky. Fine, they'd get through through it, but that's not what I am.

16:49 I'm a teacher, so leave me alone. I'm going to read to the kids now because they want to listen to the rest of the story. They're going to be inspired by it. They're going to maybe make them pick up the next book. The amount of children last year who came back and had the second Vajrac Paul book because we wrote the first one that was never have happened. You know what all I'm saying is on these micromanaging parts of it, just let me do it. I'm going to finish off with a really quick story. It's it's really heart warming. It's it's quite funny and it's one of my favourite stories to come out of teaching. Recently, we were doing English. We were looking at root words. OK, so we, we were given a word and we were discussing with the children how you can add a suffix to the end of a word, how you can add a prefix. And the idea that from one word, if we learn that spelling, we can kind of learn lots of spellings from it.

17:30 So we're doing Ed for past tense, we're doing ING. We're thinking about how that might change the spending of the word, etcetera. So we're putting it all into one kind of lesson now. And for example, we'd give them the word like and then the children around like would have to write all the words they can think of with that root word liking, liked, likes and then dislike. And we kind of realised after a few together that it's harder to think of a prefix than it is a suffix because we're doing loads of spelling rules, so and they tend to be suffixes in general. So I was saying to the children, OK, look on this next one, I want you to really think hard. Can you think of a prefix, something to go before OK, right. The next word is appear. And again, that's a good one because you've got loads that go in the end appearing appeared like appears. But this to me, I thought quite a very obvious prefix disappeared.

18:17 So I thought loads of children, I think of that. That's great. So they were writing stuff down. I was going around the room and I went back to the front and I said, OK, I've seen loads of words, lots of suffixes still, but can anyone think of a prefix for appear? And there wasn't that many hands up. They were really just thinking about I was like, God, I really thought someone would get this appear And one of my children at the front, his kind of eyes lit up and his his hand shot up straight away. And I was like, yes, cool. And he went, I know, I know. And I yes, what do you think? What's your prefix for appear? What's your new word? And he went on a matter appear. He's like reappear or something like different like Oh well done automatic is. Like, Oh my God, that is 10 out of 10.

18:59 Unbelievable. Like even no automatic. I was like, you thought you've gone back to time 1 when we did poetry and we, we, we talked about automatic beer and he was so, so impressed with himself. And I was like, mate, I honestly, I laughed and he laughed and then we all thought it was funny. And I went, I said to him, that is an unbelievable answer. I was like, that is such a good answer because you know what? It has the sound of appear at the end, doesn't it? And you've put in the front on a mat. I was like, Oh my God, it's so good. I got to explain to him the spelling was off, but Oh my God, it cracked me up so much. I just wasn't expecting it. Yeah. And my TA was doing something else, so I just said, oh, miss, and we've got a really good idea here for a beer. She was like, oh, yeah. And I was like, yeah, someone said on a mat appear, she was just like, cracking up as well.

19:42 But the kid, like, absolutely loved it. He could tell. Do you know when children pick up something's funny? Yeah. And they know it's made you laugh in a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all he said. For the rest, I. Was gonna say did he just keep saying Oh yeah, remember, remember, Yeah. Do you remember that from 10 seconds ago on about the pier though? That's funny, wasn't it, Sir? The. Kid next to him. You've seen that I'd laughed because it was nonsense. He started going I've got one, I've got one. Hello. Appear I was. Like no ruined it. Just say. Yeah, they have to just jump in there, try and get some still some of the limelight. So on a matter beer that's pretty new spelling and an APPEAR much easier to remember. I presume you didn't then go and model how to spell that word on the board, so it is impossible to spell. No, I was like on a matter put the vowels on some kind of.

20:25 Order. It just smells exactly how we said it. Yeah, you're right, actually. You know what, kid? Actually, kid, you're right. Because I don't know. Well, it's just honestly, I, I, I was like, that's the story I'm gonna remember. Forever. Yeah, they never. One of them failed to amaze them, if you ask me, like, what do you think? What prefix? I never in a million years would have guessed on a matter. Never. I would have. I was literally thinking like this real. I was not that many. Years. No, but I just thought, you see a peer. I just thought the kids will think. Disappeared. Yeah, I thought, of course. The obvious one, that's brilliant. Love that. Right, let's we've had our little calm down, thanks. For attempting to cheer me up. I did try. We are going to now crack on with teacher martyrdom, guys. We're going to have a go at ourselves here a little bit in terms of profession.

21:05 So just buckle up. When we spoke to Omar last week, he touched upon teacher martyrdom. And for a lot of people, they know that term and something straight away comes to mind or someone, Right? Yeah. But what I think's interesting is I think people have different definitions. I know you and I differ on what we think of straight away. So before we get into this whole conversation about what teacher martyr it is, how it's, you know, ruining the profession in a way and how it's really, you know, impacting the job, let's try and define it. So I want to hear when I say teacher martyr, what do you think? OK, So OK, I think a teacher martyr is someone who obviously in teaching, in education, education thinks that they're only worthwhile in this job if they make considerable personal sacrifices. So they have to make sacrifices outside of the job to consider themselves as a good teacher, as good at the job. And and I always think that those people probably look at look at other people who aren't doing that and think they're they're not as good teachers as me. They they really, really have gasoline themselves into thinking I'm only a good teacher if my work life balance is terrible, if I'm burning out, because that's what good teachers do.

22:09 They sacrifice themselves for the job. That's what a teacher martyr is to me. Is your definition a bit different? Yes, I guess slightly I, I get what you're saying. I don't disagree with it. But to me, I think what's important when we think about teacher martyrdom is I think they actively relish in feeling annoyed. Like if it feels to me when I think of teacher martyrs, they're the kind of people who will sit and moan about something like, oh gosh, yeah, I'll go. I took these home the other day. I did, you know, you did, you did 10 hours on mark and I did 11. And I like they relish in the fact that they are bad. They've got it. Worse. Yeah, they've got it worse. And they think, gosh, aren't aren't I really putting myself out there? And that's where your definition comes in, I suppose. Aren't I an amazing teacher? Because.

22:49 But it's not always even that. It's just the people who seem to want to let everyone know how much they're letting this job take over their life and wear it almost like a badge of honour. To me, that's what a teacher. I guess that's quite similarly. So we're really just in the whole, we're talking about people who do, who basically sacrifice their own time at home. They think they should, they think they have to, and they wear it as a bit of a badger wanna and yeah. So when, when, when I say teacher martyr, people listening now might be thinking of someone straight away. I, I have a very specific set of things in my mind when I think about it. So before we go on to, you know, why it's a problem, the impact it's having in a job, What does it look like? What does teacher martyrdom look like? Because we, we need to try and cut it out.

23:30 So let's define first, what do we see? Because the first thing I think of is touching upon what we just said it. You'll know who a teacher martyr is because they'll tell you they took their marking home. They'll let you know that. Oh, God, yeah. I left at six the other day and I had to take all my marking home. Why, Yeah. Did you had to? Did you? Did you mean to say had? Yeah. You had to take away your marking. I don't think you had to take away your marking home. You choose to take away your marking because I'll tell you what, mate, I didn't. Yeah, I agree. Teachers that take home them, I was it. It was me. I was that person. Like I'm not going to pretend. I'm going to sit in my high horse and be like, yeah, everyone's like this. And I've always been not like this. I was like that for years. Absolutely a teacher martyr. And I totally relished in it. So I know it's true. I totally went home and I tell my mates who had other jobs because I thought my job was more prestigious than I'm working jobs that I didn't think it were as prestigious because I was in my early 20s. Oh yeah.

24:19 I can't come out tonight, mate. Can't come out. Do you know why? I didn't ask? Do you know why? Can't come out tonight, mate? I was a markings dude. I'm a teacher. Did You Know? I help kids, I love kids. Do it for the money. Don't think so. I do it for the money. I'm bloody good at it though. Now do you know? Do you know how you know? I'm good. Got all those markets do tonight. Can't come to the pub. See you later mate. I live that and I think that is a huge sign. I think there's a big discrepancy here. Then we're going to come on to this, I think, in a minute and have a real discussion about this. To me, there's a huge discrepancy, and what makes a martyr is someone who doesn't stop going on about it. I know some teachers who go above and beyond every day, like way more than they need to in the job. And they'll do marking at home, or they'll, they'll take stuff or they'll do something, but you will never know about it. Yeah, you only know about it because you've seen them do it. They'll they'll never, ever, ever walk through and say, I've done this.

25:02 By the way, to me, they're not martyrs. Yeah, that's a different problem that we're talking about there. A teacher martyr is someone who honestly like, wears it like a badge of honour. Yeah, you will know they're doing extra because they just won't ever stop talking about it. Yeah, yeah. OK. Listen to some more things that define it because I really want to build a picture. I want people to who listen to this to understand like, oh, those kind of people. I get it now. So another sign of a teacher martyr is someone who undermines others who do less. So it's like when someone is actually trying to stand up for themselves or I don't know, just has a lot, has an appointment to go to. It's just that just has a life outside of teaching, right? Who says something and then someone else, rather than just letting them be that person, they have to say something.

25:43 It's like, oh, well, I don't know. I wouldn't do that. I don't think I do that. I tell you what, I think it's more important that we that we put the kids first. So I will be doing this work that you just said you can't do. It's those kind of people actually. I've, I've got, I've got to share this with you because I know you don't always like me sharing posts from Facebook and things, but this I can't not I can't. Keyboard warrior unlocked. You know, I'm trying so hard at the moment to just not get as involved. So there used to be a proper keyboard barrier. Get involved in everything. But don't you find before you go into this, don't you find that it's I, I I feel helpless. Yeah. And and annoyed. Yeah. Because when I bring stuff up, the teacher, master them crusade come out and say, oh, aren't you a good teacher, don't you? But what do you mean? You care about this or you want money or you think you should get time, blah, blah, blah.

26:27 Yeah, shut up. It's like, honestly, no, sorry, but just shut up. Like leave me alone. It does not define how good I am as a teacher because I'm not willing to sacrifice my evenings to do stuff, which I think is pointless because like I said before, I'm a professional and I know it won't have an impact on the children. So you've got some. Ready to link? I purposely not showing you this because I wanted to rile you up. Remember old section is riling you up on the podcast very early days. I purposely leave things just to get him annoyed. So someone just asked a genuine question right on on this group it's about mass leads right? And it says can I just ask if I'm not paid for a TLR to be mass lead, does it mean I'm accountable? Basically when off to come in am I ultimately the the most accountable person? I'm not being paid a TLR, just a genuine question. The answer is the answer is no.

27:09 The answer is no, and it's a it's a hard one because the real answer is you're responsible because you have literally got the job title and that is what you're doing. So you're if you're the person who has been named responsible for organising maths and monitoring books, then yeah, they're going to talk to you, but you're not ultimately accountable. Good for the outcomes of it. Yeah, that's the that was the real. That's what I wanted to know because it's quite clearly. So if if it is a. Responsibility. If only we had some kind of teaching and learning responsibility. Money. I know, I know. It's like honestly, in my opinion, as soon as you're not paid the TLR, yeah, teaching and learning responsibility. In my head I think it's fair enough to say no, it's not my responsibility. Do you know what? I might help. I might accept being masted. Lots of people in small schools probably shouting now going, well someones got to do it, sure. But you know what?

27:53 Someones also got to say no at some point and then we'll realise the system is broken completely built on goodwill. I always think of the bar someone's got to do, OK, someone's got to teach, but we all accept we get paid for that one. Exactly. OK. If they took that away, yeah. Would you accept someone saying, well, someone's got to teach the kids? That's a good point. So I will have to bloody do it for free? No, you wouldn't. So why do we just have a weird bar? Someone's got to scan the groceries at Asda. Yeah, well, yeah, of course they do. Yeah, that's a society. Get over it. We live in a society where you need to be. You've given money for what you're doing. Someone's got to do this job. Yes, we have job. We pay people to do jobs anyway. So this person and I couldn't, I couldn't not buy. I ready. Someone, someone replied.

28:33 Commented on this person's post right I was thinking that the suitable The only thing that people should be commenting on this is an answer with either yes or no and why sure this person put here we. Go. I know it's going to. I can fill myself. Yeah. Ready. I've been a mass lead since I was on M2M2. For those that aren't in teaching, is a pay scale quite early on in the pay scale. Two years in, two years into teaching, still on main pay scale now and also key stage lead. Proud to be in a position of responsibility and only want to do the best for my school. Whether it's Ofsted or my day-to-day kids, they'll see the best of me and my school. Happy to be held accountable for the work I do. That's teacher Marta. That's teacher Marta. Exactly what it is that is wearing it as a badge of pride. That's my whole point.

29:15 And do you know what? Really? Do you know what annoyed me even more? It was the most liked response on that whole post and there was loads of interaction. OK, I'm going to play devil's advocate slightly, OK? Because do you know what? I know we think the same thing about this, but is that a bad thing to say? You know, why is it a bad thing to say specifically? Because if someone wants to do that, if someone feels like, OK, look, I am actually, I'm proud, why is that problematic? OK, because pride doesn't pay the bills. Pride doesn't pay the bills and it sets a rubbish example to others. If, if, if we want to, if we collectively agree that teaching is dire at the moment, it's in a dire state that people don't want to do it. People are leaving the job.

29:55 If we agree that that is a problem and it's a problem we need to fix. We just can't accept opinions like that. We can't. We can't have people coming in with smarmy high horse opinions to people who are just asking a genuine question and say and not even answer it and just be like, I wouldn't even ask that question because actually I just do it because I love it. Yeah, it's like, no, it's not acceptable. So I'm I'm very much of the opinion of no, it's not. That's not OK to do that. I actually replied, I'm going to read my reply. And I put you could also just do it not for free, though. We should all set the example that our time is valuable and not to be taken for granted and pride doesn't pay the bills. And I thought, I'm going to say it. And you know what? I know people disagree. And then someone underneath it commented and I thought, oh, maybe they're maybe they're agreeing with me and said it's so wonderful to see your level to the the original person, your level of commitment and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, budgets in schools just don't allow for TLRS.

30:42 Thanks for going above and behalf above and beyond. Yeah, cool. What do you mean? OK, so we're all accepting it then, are we? Unfortunately, we don't have money anymore, but we still need to do the job. So we're all going to do it for free. Yeah, unbelievable. What are you talking about? And there was something in there, I can't remember what it was now, but towards the end it kind of it. There's a huge inference in what he said there, which is I I care about my kids. Yeah. Yeah, I care about my school. See the best of me, they'll see the best. Therefore I'll do this. And what that infers is all well and good. You want to go up and beyond, right? Yeah. But don't you dare put comments like that in a teacher group, which is essentially inferring if anyone has any kind of inference schools, which I hope you do as a teacher in a teacher group, you are honestly saying, therefore, if you don't, you are not on my level of caring. Yeah.

31:27 Martyrdom completely. If you don't do it, it is that first thing I said. It is that like, you're only worthwhile if you make personal sacrifices, and therefore if you see other people who aren't doing those same sacrifices, you think they're not as good as you. I hate it. Completely. And that's kind of the other end here of what we're going to say in terms of like teacher martyrdom. There are two types. They're that type where this guy's just happy to do it, still a martyr. There's the other type where they they, they're burnt out because of it. They let themselves get burnt out. They know it's bad for them. They complain about it, but they still wear it as a badge of honour. They still say, but you know what? I'm tough, stiff up a lip. I'm going to wear it like about I am burnt out and I know it's a problem, but you know what? I'm not one of them quitters. Yeah, yeah, we talk about retention crisis, but I'm not one of them quitters. I'm burnt out.

32:09 That's so unhealthy. It's so unhealthy. That badge of honour is probably our next identifier, isn't it, of what so we're going through right now What? How can you identify someone who is this martyr, Right? And they take home, they take loads of homework regularly, all the time, and they always talk about it. Like you said, they mention the fact they do that they undermine others who aren't martyring themselves for some reason rather than just letting them be or even sticking up for them. And also they wear their burnout as a badge of honour. Another thing they do is they don't remotely try and solve the issue, so they all moan about the stuff. So a teacher might just think about it. I'm sorry if we're like hitting home with this and maybe you do some of these things. I certainly have done all these things in my career. Of course, I'm not sat here in my high horse, I promise you. But people who moan about stuff to you as another teacher. Teacher.

32:52 Oh, God, have you seen SLT have done this now? As if we haven't got enough work going on. Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan. SLT. Come along. Is everyone all right? Yeah. Doing great. We're fine. We're absolutely fine. Completely fine. They don't say anything. It's like, what do you want then? It's like, it's like that, that mean the whole thing of like you're in a staff meeting. You're like, are you going to say it? I'll say it if you say it. I'll say if you say you're going to say something about it. Yeah, I'll do that. OK, no problem. All right, guys. So that's a new initiative. Any problems sat there silently? Yeah, no, Listen, be a professional. And do you know what? Solving the issue. Again, you're talking a lot about people who moan about it. I think after hearing that post, we need to include the people who don't moan about it. They're almost more toxic, genuinely. Like, I get people in moaning and bring people down and not fixing. That's really frustrating.

33:35 At least you feel like you can kind of be on the level and kind of maybe you can work together with them to say, let's, let's, let's try and solve this then. Maybe that's your voice. Yeah, completely. Maybe. And they're just a bit, maybe they are nervous about speaking up. OK, it's still a problem, still problematic. The people like that person on the post, they're more of a problem because they are championing at it. They're saying no, no, no. This is what teaching. Putting you down for. Yeah. And and what winds me up, I'll make this. It's a slightly separate point, but it's linked to what this guy's talking about. It's that kind of attitude where people who aren't in school will look at it, congratulate it, say well done, that's right, that's why you get into teaching. We need more of the. Amount of people who've said to me, why did you get into teaching if you're worried about the money, What do you why you might well do you not care about the kids?

34:15 And I'm just like, you're so toxic. You are. This is a job. What you're doing is horrendous. I'm a human being. I've got a family, I've got interests. This is my job. OK, get over it. The fact that I am not going to sacrifice my entire life because I like children. Why should someone who's in a job like teaching nursing, being a doctor, being a public servant, doing a job which we all collectively agree is really important and goes above what other jobs do? Why should that person then as a result of that also be put in this benchmark of which means you don't care about money or you shouldn't be like represented. Well, you shouldn't be given money to like because you've gone above and beyond. What an insane dichotomy we have. Yeah. Yeah. Where we we all agree being an insurance broker and A and a quantity surveyor.

34:58 We all agree. Oh, yeah. I couldn't be a teacher. That's like you. That's the love for the job. And nurses have worked to the bone. But we then also collectively agree. Yeah, you should be. Yeah. They get much more money than a teacher. What are you talking about? Of course we should stand up for ourselves and get paid for stuff. Yeah. No one's walking around a building site with a badge going. I'm a builder. Someone's got to build this nursery. Yeah, they have. And you should get paid for it. Yeah, of course you should. Yeah. Tell you what, that doesn't happen anywhere else. Is it exactly Someone's got to pay there, Someone's got to be an accountant to sort those bills out, haven't they? Yeah, yeah. And you'd never do. And I'm proud of my work. Yeah. Once again, I'm going to mention this bargain because I feel like it's the easiest analogy to get through to people, right? It is just whatever you think you're. But if you are a teacher martyr, if you agree with that person, that's like, well, you know, like the one that said, oh, there's no budget for the TLRS, OK, All right, Suddenly we're in a new world now. Ready.

35:45 Oh, there's no budget for teaching anymore. It's been halved. Will you do your job? I'm asking you, the listener, would you do your job? Whatever it is, if it's teaching, whatever for half the pay right now, cut in half, would you do it? If the answer is no, which it probably is, OK, maybe have some envy for those other people who are just higher. They just have a slightly higher bar than you who are thinking, no, I won't also be a mass lead for free on top it needs it's a part of the job is extra. I need to be paid for it. Oh, well, you know, you get paid a lot as you. You just do what you can. I'm, I'm proud of what I do. I just, I don't know. It drives me crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. I completely agree. And and on that, do you know what all you need to think about is the strikes. I keep going back to the strikes and this lifts ramp free in my head.

36:27 OK, think about your score, right. If you're listening right now, think about when you went on strike last year, if you did or not, whatever. But think about that process when people were deciding whether to go on strike or not. OK, so there are three, There are three camps. They're the people who decided not to go on strike. You know what, at least they're holding their head above and say, no, I don't want to go on strike, blah, blah for the kids. We can fix it. I can have a debate with you. At least I don't, I don't agree with you. Obviously there's the people like us who from the offset, as the second group were saying, OK, I'm going on strike. Of course I am. This is completely broken. I'm going on strike. We're going to, I'm going to hold my head above the parapet. I'm going to lose hundreds of pounds out of my pay packet because I want to make the point that this is completely broken and we need to fix something. Now think of that third group.

37:10 And that third group of people were the ones who didn't really talk about strike, a bit more reluctant. And it might be for a lot of reasons, by the way, not just because they're a martyr, might be because they're struggling with finances at home, all, all legitimate reasons. But just think of that third group. And within that third group, I bet you find the martyrs. I bet you find those martyrs who. Yeah, OK, some of them might be the ones who didn't go on strike, but at least they're holding their convictions and that you can have a SO. Make this group really clear. So these are people who who are not. Sure. Yeah, unlike us who still went on strike in the end, right? But these are the people who were waiting to see what everyone did, OK? They're the people. I bet you can all think of someone who went up to you or other people in the school went, are you going on strike? Because that was the thing they needed to decide themselves. And if everyone said no, these people probably would have said no as well.

37:54 If everyone said yes, they said yes. So they're kind of on the fence and they don't. They need that. And that's why a lot of schools, 95% of the teachers went on strike or 10% of the teachers went on strike, because that middle group, the ones who can be swayed for collective action, are the ones because that needed to be LED a certain way. And in there, I can think of people who I know of from other schools, from my profession, I see on online all the time who I know went on strike but now do absolutely nothing to try and reduce their workload and almost thrive in it and say, oh, it's just a job, isn't it? So you were willing to lose hundreds of pounds from your pay packet. Yeah. And the face of going on strike and saying this to me, the ultimate action to say that this is a completely broken system.

38:35 Yeah. But you're not willing to now say, oh, actually, I think that thing you're asking me to plan out the weekend is a bit too much? Which I've been on strike for last year. Completely. I think it's insane. And I think if you if you go to the level where you're going to lose hundreds of pounds every month because you're willing to go on strike, yeah. But you can't then say to your SLT, I'm a professional and this is not acceptable. What on earth is going on? And it comes down to that collective action. Yeah, yeah. The power of collective action. I think we've kind of defined what teacher Marthas are they? Look, I think we should move on to why? Like really why it's a problem? Because when we said we're ranting a lot and I really want to get into because. Someone. Yeah, go on. It's not, it's not just that. It's not that me and Dylan are on our high. I keep saying high horse, but we're not that we're on a high horse and we're like, we don't want to do the work anymore because we've got children now. So we think everyone should be like us. I, I think it's deep, way further rooted than this. Not being a martyr is a huge problem in general. I think we should just break down why it's a massive problem to education, to all of us as a collective. Look.

39:30 Look at the fact of retention, right? Look at retention right now, OK? It's a huge crisis. We all agree there's not. I don't think there's a teacher out there who'll say retention's all right. Because if you don't, you are literally disagreeing with a number. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not remotely meeting the needs of how many teachers we have and need. So that what that comes down to for me and what teacher martyrdom does is it sets such an unrealistic bar. And the biggest issue I have with wearing like a badge of honour. Is it then becomes so much easier for it to become the norm. And if you, especially if you're too faced about it, especially if you wear it as a badge of honour and, and say and, and to the people above you, you're like, yeah, I've done that. I've done that straight away for you. So well done.

40:17 But then you go to your team and moan and moan and moan. Yeah, yeah. Listen, don't moan at me. You're setting the bar for me. Don't talk to me about how crap this is because you're doing it, OK? Don't come to me as like, I'm your comrade. Isn't this crap? Yeah, Yeah, it's crap. Did you do it? Yeah. Don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The amount of times I've said to people don't do it. Yeah. And they've gone. Oh. Because what it does is it ruins your opportunity to say something about it. Exactly. If if, if eight members of staff out of 10 do the thing and they all moan about it, the two members of staff that were thinking before they did it, ah, we all don't want to do this thing. Let's go and tell SOT. Actually, this is unreasonable. It loses all power when 8 of them actually did it, though. You go to SOTI, don't want to do this, what all your colleagues did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

40:58 But they didn't want to. Well, they didn't tell me that. And they. Did and they did it. So, yeah, this is kind of what I meant, right? Let's start the episode when I said I'm losing the will to live as a teacher. The reason I'm losing the will to live as a teacher is because it is like fighting an uphill battle. And my enemies are the literal people I'm trying to help. It is you guys. It is the, it is teachers that I work with and love and respect who are just in the way. They're just, they're just, they're saying one thing. I don't want to do all this work. This is crazy. This job isn't. It's getting mad how much work, what's really impacting my life. And then they're doing it anyway. And then when I try to say anything about it, it's well, we all did it. Why aren't you doing it? You look bad in comparison. And you know what? People like me quit. I'm a good teacher. I think I'm a good teacher.

41:39 The kids because like me that we get, we get on well. They learn lots of things. I tell you what though, I'm going to quit this job if it carries on because I can't. I feel like it's just a losing battle. This is what I mean. Losing the world to live because teacher martyrs, setting on an unrealistic bar that I'm not willing to reach anymore because I don't think you need to reach it to be a good teacher. Said, you know what, if I can't reach it, I'm going to get penalised for it. See you later. Find someone. Else And the craziest thing about this bar is we all collectively agree it's too high. Yeah, like how? What on earth is going on when not one person thinks that bar is acceptable, yet we still will have to magically reach it? Stop it. Say no. If you all agree as professionals that it's not having an impact. If you're spending an hour and a half doing something every week that you know is having such a negligible impact on the children, right? It's not worth that nought point, nought .2% rise that you're gonna get out the kids if you're spending an hour and a half doing it.

42:28 Yeah, if you're going home and you know, you know, prepping stuff for the children, like I'm in math every day, I'm just going to do the margins for them because it's such a faff. And you know, it'll save 2 minutes at the start of maths when we write our margins and our date and stuff, I'm just going to do it for them. And it takes you an hour to do that and you've saved 2 minutes of the lesson. That's insane. Yeah, that is not cost effective of. Course, you shouldn't do that. And then because you've done that, guess what, you're taking your marking home that evening of it's it's half five and I've got to take my market home. Yeah. But do you know why? Because you did something insane earlier that you did not have to do. Yeah. Stop doing it. You know, you know what you're getting at because we've kind of mentioned sort of this in the past. It's prioritisation when we've when we've talked on this, but we don't always just run the moment. By the way, guys, if you're a new listener, go back and listen to songs where we're positive and we think about solutions.

43:11 Yeah, but sorry, very quickly, negativity and realism has been morphed. You know, it's true. I think we're we are. Maybe we do sneak into negativity sometimes, but we're just realistic about. It so sorry and a bit fed up. I think it's probably the better way. It's not even negative really, We're just fed up and trying to highlight issues. Yes, tore up priorities. You know, one of the ways we said we could tackle workload is actually just on us as well, which is just prioritise properly, be more efficient with the time that you spend. Like think about what is going to have a big impact, what should be left or last. What teacher masters do is they have no priorities. Their priority is get everything done at all costs. That's the problem, they don't prioritise at all. They just think I've got 8 hours of work to do and I've only got 3 hours left. Their next thought is guess I'm doing 5 hours tonight rather than what should I prioritise and what can I drop, what can I leave, what can I leave for another day? All of those questions are coming to head. So that's that is why being a martyr is a problem because once again it sets the bar.

44:04 It shows everyone else that oh work life balance isn't necessary because you can get everything done if you just sacrifice your entire life. They don't stand up for themselves. It lowers the morale across the whole school because everyone else is thinking oh God they've got it all done. I need to find a way to get it all done now, otherwise I'll look bad by comparison. So do you know what a classic retort to that is? You know, if I was to bring that up, yeah, people have said this to me before and we've we've talked about ourselves. We know it's important that when you bring up a problem, you have a solution. Sure, right. That's really important. So my my point though is that's right. OK, let's say, let's say we have a problem with our with your mass planning in a school, the mass curriculum just it honestly just doesn't hit the national curriculum and you bring up that problem, you say we're not hitting this. You should come to that with so let's try XYZ, right. My point to people is, you know what, sometimes the solution is to not do it and people don't like to hear that. So it will say, OK, I've got 8 hours of work and I've only got 3 hours after school to do it in. OK, well what's your solution then, Dylan? What do you mean?

45:02 Yeah, I've got to take five hours home. What's your solution? If you're just going to moan about it? My solution is to not do some of it. And people don't see that as a solution. People are so warped by the fact they've got to get everything done that a solution to them is doing something differently or doing something at a different time. And I just want to be here to say, do you know what sometimes the solution is? It's to not do that thing. Do you know what if you turn around and say, well, it's school policy. It's school policy to change the fonts on the SMART because we decided that's a new policy now. It's the school policy that displays get changed every six weeks, every time. That's the school policy. Do you know what the solution to that is? The school policy is wrong. The solution isn't okay, let me do it anyway and maybe we'll give a teaching assistant some time to do it. No, no, no, no. The solution is get rid of it, get rid of that expectation, be allowed to say, as a teacher, no, no, I don't need to do this thing anymore, erase it.

45:53 That is sometimes a solution that. The problem comes and there is this horrible grey area right where I'm sure teachers are in this situation, where part of that extra work that they've got, that they've got to do that night is something essential, like they've got a plan, tomorrow's lessons. But, but my point is usually that comes because something's been pushed back. So, so one of two things with that, OK, let's say that you you're you're a teacher. There Monday night. You're a bit of a martyr. You're like, oh, well, I'm just going to get it done because it's Monday. It's half eight and I've got to do my planning. OK, One of two things. One's in your control, 1 isn't. So I really want to make this clear to people. I don't anyone sat there thinking they're in a toxic school. Huge expectations, no budget, no wiggle room. It's not your fault. OK, then we made that really clear. So there's there are go and listen to other episodes like you said, because we talk so much about other external factors. We're talking today about things we have control over. So the two reasons you might be planning on a Monday evening is because your school has unbelievable expectations of you.

46:42 You've got to plan from scratch whatever reason it is and. You just can't get it done you. Just can't get it done because you've got too much you've got to do. You might be in a small school. The the the school just don't care that you're doing it at half eight and then watch pack on doing it. I'm not talking to you right now. I know loads of teachers like that. It's crap. There's, there's other, there's other problems going on. The other problem, and I see this and I know this exists, so let's not pretend it doesn't, is someone has to do some planning at half eight that evening. It's because in school they've chosen to do something else that they feel like they've got to do in school, EG they spent an hour and a half doing a display. OK, so you can't, you can't do a display at home. So you look at this job, you look at your list, you've got, I've got this huge display to do in the corridor and I've got this mark, this planning for tomorrow. OK. What a teacher martyr will do is say, well, I've got to get both done.

47:26 I can only do the display in school. So I do the display now and I'll take my marking or my planning. Yeah, yeah. What a realist does and what we have to do as a profession is say, well, I'm, I'm, I'm stopping working at half four or five, wherever it is. So, oh, it doesn't matter that only one of these can happen in school. That's irrelevant. I'm going to do something now. And the only thing that matters out of doing a display or planning my lesson for tomorrow with the children to educate them, which is my job. Let me think which one I'm going to do. Don't do the display plan at home. Don't take anything home. Oh, but, but I can't take my, I can't take my display home. There's a solution. Don't do it. So when someone says to me, what can I do? What's the solution? Take it away. Don't do it. Shove what you were going to do in the evening to your time after school, which we will do for extra anyway, Gets forgotten. That's already extra.

48:09 That's past directed time past 3:45, But we forget that. You know the extra hour we do every night after and before, which works out two hours a day? That's already extra. Don't feel bad that you're not taking stuff home. You're already doing extra. The solution is to not do it, and the teacher martyr won't accept that. Yeah, I agree. That was a good analogy and it kind of hurts back to the whole priority prioritisation thing, doesn't it? If you're not prioritising and doing anything, you're setting a bad example. It makes everyone else feel bad. Being a martyr also blocks collective action. I mean, that's another huge thing. And it kind of your strike analogy was quite good for that as well. You know, like a lot of people are swayed by what everyone else is doing. And if there's enough martyrs in a school, right, it completely blocks anyone in your school who's at school who's actually trying to fight for your rights and work life balance because there's not enough of them.

48:51 Genuinely, if you martyrs stop that happening, you need collective action is the only way we can make change. Genuinely. I truly believe that now after spending years trying to convince even my closest friends who are teacher martyrs to stop doing it. I can't. I can't do it. I literally can't convince the closest people to me who I respect and have really nice relationships with to stop doing it. Can't even do that. It needs to be collective. Like I'm convinced now that there is nothing I can do by myself. I need eight people versus two people who are martyring themselves to say, hey, wait, you're going to stop doing this because it's it's bad for all of us. No one. There's no badge of honour. You've made it up. No one really cares. The second you quit this job, they'll replace you with someone else. It's not real.

49:32 It's an illusion in your head that you have to be a martyr to be good at this job. I tell you what, I know martyrs who are rubbish teachers. And I know people who go home at 3:45 every day who are unbelievably good teachers, but they are hated by their SLT because they don't get XY and Z done all the time. But you know what? The kids love being in their class, you learn the most, the parents love them. And it's like there's, it's just a complete illusion, this idea of tying work life balance and time with being good at this job. And that's what we need to stop. And we can only do it with collective. Action you're absolutely right. A martyr will equivocate all parts of this job. They will see them as equally important. They will equivocate everything. A realist looks at what's important and says I'll do that really well.

50:12 Your time with the kids, your impact you're having on them, the relationships you build with them and their parents and the impact you can have on them is so much more important than whether you've ticked a box to say you've got a display up in the board or you've put something in an assessment sheet which is for no one. Or you've made your worksheets look a particular way because at your school, the policies we do it. But the green border they. Always have a differentiation. The green board is differentiated and it has to fit into a column rather than a whole. What do you mean? What do you mean? The slides on your smart presentation? Not this exact colour. How will the kids know this is reading comprehension? What do you mean? Of course they will know. It's reading comprehension. When I say we're going to read some questions and answer that, what are you? They're not confused. It's matched. It's not green. Are you? Insane. There's so many little things like that. Insane.

50:55 Yeah, Don't you do it. And I feel like I've maybe mentioned this before, but I'm coming back to it. I make it really, really clear. But again, this whole collective action thing, right, it blocks it. It blocks SLT from knowing the problems as well. Because you know what, there are actually some really good. There's so many great SLT, but they're out of the classroom. It is so easy to be disconnected with what your teachers are doing. Like that's one of the biggest criticisms of SLT in general, especially toxic SLT, which is they are totally, totally disenfranchised. They have no idea what teachings like anymore. They've forgotten it and and therefore they make terrible decisions. But you know what, sometimes SLT do care and they do want to do the right things. But when they've got 10 staff and eight of them are martyrs all going, yeah, it's all great and not say anything and only two of them are owning, do you know what their reasonable conclusion is? Is well 8 versus 2.

51:43 Those two people are probably just being a bit. They're just not. They're just not really doing it. They're not really working very hard. It's fine, but the others are all doing it, so it's clearly fine. It blocks SLT actually understanding wider issues and therefore you don't even let them. Doesn't give them a chance. How can you moan at SLT for not trying to fix a problem that they don't even know exists? Seriously. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. So I want to, I want to finish with a bit of a debate because I know you think slightly different to me. OK, so thinking about why teacher martyrdom is a problem, from what I understand, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Your your approach there to what we're talking about is you honestly shouldn't be allowed to do it hours and hours. I said that in that episode, didn't I before? But but you know that I know that is your idea. So I just want to come at you and say no right now after all of this chat, OK?

52:25 Part of my solution, and we'll come onto the solutions quickly in a second, is I don't think you should tell people no. No, you literally can't do that. That person who's the mass lead who did that post, right? I would not say to that person, you're not allowed to take on mass lead for no TLR. You're not allowed to go above and beyond, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what I would say from my line is you should be one of the loudest people defending people who don't want to do that. Well, that's good. That's a good. Thing that's what I'm saying here is OK, I don't mind. People go above, beyond. It's like I said earlier in this chat, there are two different types of martyrs to me. One aren't really even martyrs because they just crack on and do loads and you wouldn't even know about it. And they're the first person to say no, of course, that's fine. Yeah, go home, go see your baby.

53:06 I'm going to stay for an hour and do this because I want to, but I'm going to be the first person. If someone moans at you, I'm going to be the first person to say no. No, they don't have to do that. I'm choosing to do this. Don't judge their books. It doesn't look as nice as mine. I'm sat here for an hour doing the books. So don't do that comparison. That's completely unfair, but they they need to do that because if, if they're going to go above and beyond, I think it has to come with a caveat of you need to be one of the loudest people to say no, no, no, no. This is not the bar. Don't set the bar to me. I'm doing it because I want to. Whereas you, you, I feel like you kind of, I think I'm a step. Further, I think I'm a step further and the reason I'm a step further than that is because I've spent 10 years feeling like that and seeing it not exist in reality anywhere in the world. Genuinely, it doesn't exist. What you're saying is to me is idealistic. I don't think any. I don't think they can exist.

53:47 I think those people that are going above and beyond that, that they know that the only thing they can get out of this is at least a bit of recognition and praise. And if we, and if we're saying no, no, don't even accept that, Tell everyone else not to do what you're doing. I think people, I don't think they can exist, coexist. I think people, it's just never going to work. People aren't going to be selfless enough to say, I've done all this extra work, but I don't want any praise for it. And actually this is not the bar that's I just don't think people will do. That I I I I'm going against that because I think I've seen that. I think I've seen teachers I can think of teachers I've worked with who to me fit the bill where I wouldn't say they make me feel bad for what I do. OK. I think lots do. I'd say there are some teachers out there, though, who just, they live and breathe the job.

54:27 It's part of their identity. I'd never want to discredit them as what I'm saying. I think what you're saying hits 78% of martyrs. Yeah, Yeah, in a good way. OK. Who have like, not vindictive, but who have them the aim of like, no, no, everyone should be like me. I'm talking about protecting those people who don't say everyone should be like me, but simply like, you know, people who volunteer at a food bank after they go to work, right? So it's the same kind of idea to me. If I, I might not know you go and do that, but I would never say no, no, don't do that because then I might feel like I need to go to a food bank. I, I feel like I need to do that. It's like, no, no, no, no, of course not. Of course, amazing volunteer work. I'm not going to discredit that. It's not a race to the bottom. Like no one does anything anymore. Do it, but just don't make someone else feel bad for not going to the soup kitchen. You know, I'm going to define what I mean because we kind of we kind of glossed over what I'm even saying here because we obviously know what I think from previous episodes. So let me just really define it.

55:13 And I think it's a good comparison, but I'm not going to fully accept it. The whole volunteering because first of first of all, volunteering at a place that's exclusively made for volunteering and built from the ground up as a voluntary to me, it's very different to you go into a job and you're gaslight into thinking you have to volunteer to get the job done. I don't know, it's different. It's slightly different in my head, but my, my opinion is this. I, I don't think the teachers are going to help themselves. I'm being pessimistic. And I think the only thing we can do now from like almost like a top down approach is literally tell people to stop doing it and not celebrate it at all. So if someone goes above and beyond, we're going to call it, it sounds really awful because it sounds like a great thing to do above and beyond. If someone does loads of extra workload, right that way more than they should have done. What more than that paid for?

55:57 I think we should actually, the response from SLT and anyone top down should be oh crikey, what happened there? Oh dear, that's not good. Okay, let's look into that. Let's have a meeting next week and find out why. Why you take you book Simon 6. That's what I think. And I think it should almost be seen as like, oh, slap on the wrist. Sure. I don't think it should be the way around. Yeah, Yeah, I really do think. I know. I know that almost like punishes people that do just want to go and do the extra things for their kids. And I'm not saying they shouldn't shouldn't be able to do it, but what I'm saying is we need to have such a firm approach of this isn't the bar, not just from them saying this isn't the bar from from a leadership government, everyone else from top down saying this is not the bar to so much degree. This is how serious we are about it. We're gonna have meetings about it. And if anyone goes above this, then there's a there's a problem in your school like, and it has to be totally LED from the top down, not celebrated at all.

56:44 And until we fix this culture, I think it needs to be quite draconian. And like that. I really do think that because the culture is broken, when a broken system, do we want teachers or not? If we do, we need to fix this and we need to be hard on it, put our foot down. Nope, you can't do that anymore. You are not being efficient. You are not a good, good role model for other teachers. Loads of other teachers now are going to have a really rubbish time because they're, they're seeing you do all these things. They think it's expectation, whether you say it is or not. So we're going to stop you doing that. Like I I know it's harsh but I just don't see any other way of fixing. It I guess we you absolutely yeah. No, it's really interesting. I don't I don't think I disagree with you. I really don't. I just, I wouldn't want to discredit someone who's just doing something out of the love of their own heart. Do you know what the problem? You're right.

57:27 The toxicity comes when it's expected from everyone. And I get what you're saying about we're too far down the road where we need to force it. I guess we've kind of creeped into the last section here, which we'll go through quickly. It's just like, OK, how can we solve it? Can I just do one? I know you want to move on. Can I do one last analogy? Is this something that really happened about eight years ago? Right. And it's a really good example of exactly what you just said, goodness of your own heart, not discrediting it. I know a story in which someone and I don't what you feel about this where someone got discredited for doing something out the goodness their own heart because it made everyone else look bad, which was I know a teacher who many, many years ago, smiling as you probably know what it is, who brought in an Easter egg for every child in that class, Right. Really lovely thing to do. They went and spent their own money and time after school bought an Easter egg for every single child in their class. But it was a massive school and no one else did that. It wasn't the expectation.

58:07 And by comparison, every other child in the group that wasn't in that class was like, oh, why do they get that? And some of your parents even said, my child, oh, I don't think you, I don't think you realise, but my child didn't get one of those Easter eggs. I was like, yeah, they're not in that class. And that was to me, it was a really good example of and I didn't know where I felt about that because that teacher was almost punished for doing that. And I was like, oh, I don't know. Because part of me is like, yeah, that was a bit mental. They shouldn't do that because you know what it did set a bar, whether they like to think it or not, it did. But they were being just being kind. This is but this is where I'm now like, you know what? It needs to just needs to be a foot down. I'm sorry. It's going to hurt some feelings something. But oh, but I want to be nice. You know what? Cool. You want to be nice. But you know what? I want teachers to stay in the job. And that is more important to me than you feeling good about yourself. Honestly I don't care, just I'd rather we just had teachers in the job.

58:50 No, I can't disagree with that. I think you're absolutely right. And that's one big part of what we're saying. How to fix it is top down has to be stringent and I think really clear expectations because I think we're wishy washy. I think the government are wishy washy. I think leadership can be wishy washy because you know what, if I'm getting more out of someone, why would I stop them? That's very much a kind of idea, OK. And, and that idea that some leaders have where they're like, you know, if you went to them and said, you know, I've got too much on, I'm not going to get this done. And the leader's like, oh, no, of course that's fine. That's, that's lovely. That's really nice. But then, but then when what happens, there is no one else gets told that information, it builds resentment. It does like, and if you're a martyr and you're thinking, OK, I'm, I'm kind of on the side of the martyr here.

59:32 If you see that you're going to be with resentful, you're going to think you've got to do it. And you might not think as someone who's turned into a teacher martyr, you're just doing your job. Maybe you're just doing everything that's expected of you. Why is that my fault? Of course it's not my fault. Everyone else should be doing it. It's our job. It's like, OK #1 the top down needs to be really clear because if it's OK for someone else to not do it, then it's OK for everyone to not do it. You can't just, you can't just say again, oh, the goodness of your own heart, I'm going to get more out of this person. It's obviously not OK. We've talked about top down government, top down SLT. I want to talk about two other groups. OK, I'm going to, I'm going to keep going with people who aren't themselves a martyr. So this, the first group I'm going to talk about is teachers like me and you, teachers who don't mind standing up and saying, no, I don't think we should do this.

1:00:16 I think this is wrong. What can we do, do you think? Would you say in terms of, OK, there's teacher martyrs in our school? Because I'm quite hopeless. I, I think, I think there's some you can get to. I think you, you can't do other things. So is there anything we can do to be like, OK, look, it's impacting me at this point, so can I try and solve this? Problem. Oh, I don't know, do you know what we, we can, we've said these things before. I think you can take a bit of more control of your own workload. That you mean you've mentioned prioritising already. I mean, a really good example. We talked about parents evening, right? We had parents evening last night. Our parents even started literally 5 minutes after the kids went home and it went on for six hours. OK should anyone be expected to mark in those lessons, those lessons for that day? Sorry, honestly no.

1:00:56 Do you know what you mark after school? And if it has to be marked for the next day, it's totally unreasonable and and I feel like all teachers should have the common sense to be like it's completely acceptable. I don't mark and no one would even challenge that honestly because anyone arguing differently I'd say I was at work till 9:00 PM. Do you know that? Oh yeah, you were sorry. So at what point did SLT not have to say something? It's just like, come on, guys. I know. So I do agree that I do. I actually think it's more impactful than SLT. So should come in and say have rule like really firm expectations of oh, by the way guys, it's parents leaving this day. I know you're all working from three till 6:00 PM after a day of work. It's clear expectation here. Nobody marks today's work exactly everyone, none of you are to mark today's work. What you did, you don't mark. It oh, but I want to because I love my kids. Nope, stop it. You're in trouble. That's not coming back in now.

1:01:37 No, don't do it because you're setting it. You're setting a really bad example for everyone else here. Did you know that that's what you're doing by going above and beyond, you're setting a really bad example of everybody else. Stop. It so that situation next next step along teachers who aren't martyrs and who are like very happy to do that. You would say in that situation we should be saying to other people is, you know, should we be vocal is what I'm saying? Should people like like what can we do then? Like should we be the one to say to him, no, don't do that. Or are we just barking up the wrong? Tree No, definitely. Do you know what people are scared to stand up for themselves. So people people that are OK like us to just go and say something, absolutely use your voice. Get as many people on side as you can to say sort of certain things. You can have a target on your back sometimes when you do that. Yeah. Like, do you just have to build thick skin? Is that what?

1:02:20 You're saying. What do you think? I, I, I personally feel like I'm getting to the point where I'm rubbing people out the wrong way because I'm so consistent with saying listen no. And, and my my view of it is if you've, if you get annoyed at me for doing that, that's your problem. I'm going to carry on doing it because to me it's more important. I think. I think you have to build a bit of a thick skin as a teacher who's saying no, Yeah, I think you have to get over the fact some people won't appreciate it and some people, some people will think you're a worse teacher. Yeah, yeah. OK, they will. I suppose the blurred line here is we're not excusing being a bad teacher. Yeah, because you know what? It's not like every, every. I'm not going to say every teacher is fantastic because they passed a course. Some teachers aren't very good and they need help, right? Not many, though.

1:03:04 Most of us, we know exactly what we're doing. And what I'm not doing is excusing, oh, if your, if your SLT are telling you that you need to, that your, your lessons are completely inadequate and you're not even teaching the right curriculum. I'm not saying, yeah, just tell them, no, I'm not one of these. Right. Exactly. There are some things where it's like, no, actually you are accountable for your job. But if, if it's your SLT telling you to do all of those clerical things that we've literally said of the government have made a list of things you don't need to do anymore. And your SLT are saying, or can you do these things still? No. And yeah, like you said, you gotta have thick skin. You've got to stand up for yourself. And you know what, you're then the role model to that some of those martyrs might convert. We need to convert some of these people, people like used like they converted when we striked because they found out enough people striking so they weren't alone. If enough people are saying no, actually we're not doing this anymore, some of those people might then convert as well and be like, oh, actually, yeah, I can say no, I can.

1:03:48 I can have a life if I want to. I don't have to live and breathe this job. OK, so last thing, we're going to talk about the martyrs themselves. If you're listening to this and you've gone through all this and you think you fit the category of the people, basically we've spent an hour ranting about ranting, ranting, ranting. You might be thinking, Oh, well, that's a bit, I feel a bit crap now. What? What can they do themselves? What, what? Because to me, OK, this is all well and good saying top down in this exact situation. We're talking about where you've been very clear. We're not talking about toxic schools. We're not talking about things you have no control of. We're not talking about, you know, teaching and learning, which is really important. We're talking about those extra stuff which pushes people over the edge that you still choose to do.

1:04:28 For me, 95% of it has to come from that person themselves. I've seen it myself. It's like whacking your head against a brick wall sometimes telling someone to not do something. It's a top down and bottom up approach. It really is like the people that master at the bottom. You have a you can't just wait for people to save you. Honestly, it's because it's not working. There's too many of you. That is the that is the old problem. There's too many of you. It is. It's ruining this profession, totally ruining this profession. The government can even come in with a list and literally say you don't have to do these things anymore and you'll still do them. It's like what is wrong with? What is? Wrong with us. So at what point do we have to just say it's on us? Yeah, it's on us. It's on you. Stop doing it seriously. And I'm hoping, you know, I can't imagine. We've got many people, I think the audience that we get ironically listening to this and or not typically those people. But if if we do.

1:05:09 But share this, give this to someone. Tell them because you know what? I want to talk to you as well. Talk to me, message me. Tell us. We're wrong for some, like for some reason in here. If you've got no, no, no, it's not acceptable, talk to me. We can debate. We can be adults. We can be proper like grown-ups. And there will be nuances 100% there'll be, there'll be, there'll be fringe examples where it's like, oh, this just doesn't apply. And you know what, that's fine. But actually, but on the whole, this is the problem with education. There are too many teachers martyring themselves for this job, so many that people that don't want to do it and actually want to change it for you so that you can have a better work life balance don't have a voice. There's not enough of us. We don't have power. We need collective action. Unionise, you know, unions help. I've heard of some schools that have unions, union reps in school who take that role really seriously. And they will have, you know, group chats with everyone. They'll have staff meetings that are just for all the union. People and I like that they'll vote on something. Yeah, where they'll all say, do we all agree that this is completely mental, that this decision that our bosses have told us is completely mental?

1:06:06 Do you all agree? Yeah. Cool. Well, OK, there's twelve of us here, so do you know what? We're all going to go say we're not doing this thing and they'll. Bloody. And do you know what, even when what I love about unionising, which I would strongly tell everyone to do, if you have a vote and they'll say it's seven to five, the five say, OK, yeah, of course we lost the vote. And as a 12, they still go together. It's not like, you know, this whole point of a union, you don't just like vote on it and then six, go away and do something. You're part of the union. You back each other up. If you think something's too far maybe or not, OK, let's do a vote. If your unions voted to do something, you do it. So even if you voted no, do you know what? No, We've got a voice of 12 teachers here who are saying no. Let's do. And I think if you want to be serious about it, there's, you know, you might get, again, thick skin is what you need. People are going to go after you if they don't want unions. Like that's obviously going to be a thing. But you've got to, if you really want to change it, you've got to try and do it.

1:06:56 Yeah, definitely. Nice one. It's been an interesting episode. It's been very ranty, but like you said, it's not negative. It is. It's reflective, it's real, it is the problem. If you can't see that this is the problem. I don't know what world of teaching you're living in, but it is a problem. And as I said, losing the world to live, can we please change it so that I can see some hope, Because I am. There is no light the end of the tunnel for me anymore. I just can't. You know, we've done this podcast a year and a half. I can't even change the minds of the people closest to me by myself. The next step is it has to be collective if we're going to change this culture. Wow. OK, let's wrap it up there, shall we? Yeah. I mean, it's truthful. And you know what a lot of people tell us in messages, you're saying what we think and there's not a voice out there saying this. You'll very easily go out and find a voice that says this new pedagogy is really good.

1:07:40 We should spend 7 hours doing CPD to learn all this stuff because it's really good for the kids. Awesome. Do you know what? I'm realistic. I'm a normal man. I'm a teacher. I love my job. I'm good at it. This parts mentor, we're gonna talk about it. We're going to call it out. And if we're gonna change it, this is how we can. Do we're talking to you, so please do write in. Dylan loves it. I love it. He sends me all the messages we get through. I really love reading them and especially if you challenge us as well. You know what it makes us think and that's what we had to do. We think on this podcast and look forward to hearing from you all. But mainly if you want to give us some praise. And and a lovely Spotify review. And yeah. And anything like that be great. Lovely reviews in general. Leave as a comment. If you listen on Spotify, comments get automatically published. Now you can save you one. Just appears. Guys, thank you so much. You see them, see you, then see you next time.