How Stressful is the PGCE Really?

[DudeDudeson]

Hi, I have a place on a PGCE but have had cold feet about it ever since being offered it. I've been teaching English as a foreign language for too many years now and really want to get out of it as it feels like a trap. I'm decent enough at it after an initial few years of being absolutely rubbish at teaching. I've taught at university too while doing my PhD. I was ok at that but not great according to my former supervisor.

Anyways, long story short, I actually went and checked out two schools and it was ok? I mean the behaviour was pretty meh, nothing majorly awful. And yet I read a flood of stories about how awful teaching is the in the UK. My concern stems from this and also the workload. I'm ok with a steady amount of work but would not be able to withstand an avalanche of demands and zero work life balance. I also suffer from IBS and insomnia, exacerbated by stress which are not good for teaching. For reference I did teach full time in ESL, teaching 6 hours of classes a day but couldn't keep up with the pace. I'd get overtired and make mistakes. The reason I'm considering teaching is that it's a meaningful job and my CV is solely in education as that's all I've ever got jobs in.

I have an offer of an Instructional Design course as well, and am eyeing that but have major doubts about landing a job after it as many ID firms want corporate experience which I don't have. Conversely if I managed to survive the PGCE, I would be confident about landing a job. However, my lack of confidence stems from the actual surviving part. Given that my school visits appear to contradict what I'm reading on the internet, I'm at a bit of a loss in gauging just how demanding the course is. If it's fair, I think I can pass it. On the other hand what I'm reading is seriously spooking me and I can't afford another course that doesn't work out. I need to make whatever course I do actually result in a step up from what I've been doing for years.

Please keep well clear of a PGCE. Ofsted etc have created a culture of blame and negativity. How would you handle being told you hadn't reached the expected standard in one of the many observations you will undertake during PGCE? You have to be highly resilient to get through a PGCE with constant scrutiny and feedback. From your last few posts it doesn't sound like you are in a place where you could handle that scrutiny and criticism.

I would seriously consider tutoring.

I did my CELTA and tutored during my MA and PhD and through to the end of my first temporary contract as a lecturer. It’s flexible, interesting, and parents of boys especially are crying out for male role models in English.

They either failed the course or were asked to leave through sheer incompetence. They are not teaching in the halcyon lands of milk and honey which you seem to be imagining.

I would suggest that if this is truly "life or death", get over yourself, get the idea that your lineage means you must teach, or that teaching is your final option. Do something different. Go be a gardener. If you must have a "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" experience, don't do it in a sector which is already deeply overstretched and where you WILL negatively impact both colleagues and students.

I'm still tackling the issues caused by the last "free spirit" who decided that teaching would be a good way to travel the world.

I'm leaning towards this view as the thread progresses, although I'm generally pro-teaching for everyone and usually quite proselytist about getting people to switch to teaching!

You do have to be resilient to cope as a teacher. Also, I don't know how to phrase this better, one needs to be more emotionally buoyant than op seems to be.

It's easy to take it personally when you have a bad lesson or a bad day or an interview rejection etc. But you have to shrug it off and not navel-gaze, or philosophise deeply about the state of modern society/the economy/the British education system/[insert gripe here] contributing to your woes etc, otherwise you will be miserable quite often and it wastes a lot of time. This ties in with what I was saying earlier about the importance of not being perfectionist or inefficient. There's not much time for sociopolitical pondering in a busy school day!

Just get on with it and then clock off, that's the way to do it.

Flippantly saying do gardening is condescending. Not to mention I have no interest in gardening. If anything I think education needs to encourage a critical questioning of the status quo, not obedience to it.

I mean you could say that for any job but then you have record instances of mental illness, substance abuse etc because you're supposed to "just get on with it" and failure to do so results in the group stigmatizing the individual. Rather there should absolutely be a space for "philosophical navel gazing". After all it can lead to new approaches, a questioning of the hierarchy which is much needed and positive changes to structures which are driving people out.

I think you've posted this before? Last time you got a PGCE place, I guess? If so, it beggars belief that you have only spent a few days actually in schools.

The tutor option seems like it has possibilities. Would allow for many of your requirements. But I assume you have considered and rejected this already?

fwiw, I worked as a TA for years, loved it, considered PGCE, but was put off by seeing life as a teacher up close. I would not have survived it and everything you write suggests that you would not either. If you did not manage the PGCE or NQT years, please don't assume it would be a neutral experience. It could be very stressful and destabilising.

You sound very introspective. I don't think that leads to contentment in general or success in teaching. I get the impression though that you are not interested in having your world view challenged.

Well I could flip it and that lack of introspection is bad, but I don't. Everyone is different but I do notice historically that social systems tend to dismiss introspection as a negative thing, perhaps because it represents a threat to the group/tradition.

If anything, the best lecturers and teachers I had were introspective by nature. Conversely some of the worst teachers I had were extroverts who expected everyone to be cut from the same clothe.

I'm talking about being very introspective. That can place a person in their own way, which, I would suggest, you are.

Well I could flip it and that lack of introspection is bad, but I don't.

Well, you are doing so, by that very comment. Just in a pass-agg manner.

Be honest, you'd rather noodle along disagreeing with general concepts than discuss an actual way forward for your career?

Well someone in my workplace just got laid off right there and then. I think the security of teaching is very attractive to me right now. I think I don't have what it takes to survive in the cut and thrust of the job market and I'm looking for a job with meaning and purpose. The road ahead will be hellish but like Conan pushing the wheel of pain for 30 years, I can emerge stronger like a Nietzschean ubermensch.

To clarify, I mean myself, other teachers are totally marketable in the cut and thrust of the jobs market and can get any position they want, just not me with my weirdness and work history.

I really can't see your communication style working for a bottom-set year 9 class, or any class for that matter. Your choice of vocabulary and overall language doesn't come across as someone who can communicate to the masses in an engaging way.

High school students can smell fresh meat and they will seek out and exploit weaknesses and those teachers who don't actually want to be there or care for them and if you aren't thick skinned you will struggle.

Whilst academics and time-management are important the real key to teaching is building relationships and communication.

To clarify, I mean myself, other teachers are totally marketable in the cut and thrust of the jobs market and can get any position they want, just not me with my weirdness and work history.

Goodness, this 'I am especially damned and have failed in innumerable ways' stuff is getting old.

You're not special in your dissatisfaction. There are endless 38-year-olds despairing at their lack of progress in life despite promise.

Well I had lots of teenage classes that gave reasonably positive feedback (although Austrian students really seemed to hate me for some reason), but otherwise it was ok. So I guess I can communicate with them?

I'm teaching in primary so did a primary PGCE. I found the year quite tough, but it really does depend on your mentors and what class you're in. I certainly found actual teaching much easier than PGCE, even my first year.
I did enjoy some aspects of it though, certainly the days that I was in university were great, and I got on really well with the teacher in my final placement, so that really helped.

That sounds positive, I think that's a fair environment!

My favourite teachers were a little quirky and truly passionate about their subject. I don't think they were particularly socially adept extroverts. Enthusiasm for the subject is infectious. So maybe you could do a great job.

OK, but teaching bright kids in a private or grammar would be different. Isn't that an option after initial training?

I don’t think that poster was being flippant. They don’t literally mean you should be a gardener, just that you don’t have to limit yourself. I think you’re set on teaching because you’ve done similar before, but it’s clear from your posts that you don’t have much confidence in your abilities in that area. (You might have been great, but it’s not given you particularly good self esteem!) So do your research and don’t just settle on teaching because it’s what you know.

I got through being let go and told I "couldn't relate to adults but the kids liked me" (I taught adults and teenagers). I teach adults now with no major problem. My self esteem was rather destroyed by 15 years of job rejections in visual effects and academia combined along with some other fields.

Clever children who are very aware of what they’re entitled to can be worse!
And parents who are paying for the privilege expect the best.
Look, none of us know if the op would be any good as a teacher. Maybe she would be. My judgement comes only from the things the OP has said about herself.
But I stand by my belief that no children should have to put up with a mediocre teacher. And if you go into the job believing you’re just going to be ‘okay’ at it then maybe it’s not the career for you.
You need confidence and self belief to be a secondary school teacher because the 14 year olds will have you questioning yourself every day.

Well I don't have any major mental health issues besides a general ennui and existential nihilism with life which is 99% environmental. As I said during the pandemic, I was pretty content with life because it was a break from the human world.

As regards passion, another teacher on here said they don't have a passion for their job and do just fine. I have a passion for music but that's it. Just music. However, I can't spend 11 hours a day working on music, I'm just not mentally or physically able. I will tune out or the quality of the work will get incredibly spotty. It's not sustainable over more than a couple of days, errors will start to creep up, the music won't be played as well or with enough emotion or technicality. I don't have a passion for English, even though I have a PhD. I do find it rewarding however, but it's a slower and quieter burn type of thing, not like passion which is more immediate.

I think this word passion has been popularized and propagated by American corporate businessmen to get other people to rationalize the exploitative nature of their working conditions and it functions just as intended. You'd think there would be massive general strikes across the UK in teaching which there absolutely should be and ten years ago and yet here we are.