How was teaching different 20-30 years ago?

[glamourousindierockandroll]

Inspired by a thread bemoaning the lack of marking of homework done by teachers nowadays, and nostalgia for bygone days when teachers would mark everything, I wondered what a day in the life of a teacher would have looked like when the parents of today were at school themselves.

I'm in my 30s and have been teaching secondary English and working in schools for over a decade now and I cannot fathom how teachers would find the time to write a comment on every single bit of homework. I'm interested to know what was workload like prior to the 2000s. What was easier/ harder? What constituted an every day decent lesson?

We used to go to the pub on a Friday en masse after work and my first hums department the HOF used to encourage us to go to the pub at lunchtime.

It was definitely a more sociable profession and 'wellbeing' equated to having a sob and then being made to laugh about it at Friday drinks.

'The number of SEN-related behavioural problems and associated EHCPs I encountered was far fewer'

This - when I started teaching 28 years ago we had 2 children who were allocated 1:1 support, both due to physical/ health needs. Same school, I don't know the exact numbers, but in my year group we have 5 children that have 1:1 50% -100% of the time.
The number of high needs children in mainstream has grown massively. I have one child in my Y6 class who is almost non verbal, and has the comprehension skills of a child in EYFS. I have another child who finds the classroom overwhelming, so spends the majority of their time in another area. I am expected to plan and resource for these children as well as the other 28 children in my class.
Both parents want mainstream, but I think we are doing these children a disservice.

I think “inclusion” has gone way too far, as above to what’s changed. There’s a space for specialist schools for the varying needs. Inclusion once meant giving everyone the chance to meet their own potential, what ever route that may be. Now inclusion means everyone should be thrown in together so that no one is different, no one stands out etc when in reality many stick out like a sore thumb and the process involved to make many children “included” means everything revolves around them and the rest are thrown to the sidelines. It’s a sad reality.

Virtually all decisions for my class and my other year group class in our two form school are centred round the needs of two or three children, and we are not alone. Where they play at playtime, going out in the snow today, equipment allowed in the classroom, reward systems, groups for work, timetable……a couple of them, in reality, need to be in a special needs school with the resources and staff trained to meet their needs because the fact is they take all the time away from the rest of the class and the mainstream curriculum is currently inaccessible unless they have 1:1 support constantly and everything 100% tailored to them. Parents want mainstream. “If the TA or you could just be with them during work time….” Yes and the other children who need support generally? I love all my class to pieces, I’ll fight for them to the end, but blimey the whole system needs a reality check and funding for more SEN schools or specialist units so everyone has a chance.

I think the biggest change is parental support. I was at primary school 23 years ago and if the teacher told me off and had to speak with my parents you bet I felt the full wrath at home and the consequences.

Now? Good god, half of my parents I’m sure will be on here in ten years time complaining that their teenage child is disrespectful, won’t listen, won’t do anything, is rude and rules the roost and will say they just don’t know what’s gone wrong. Thinking of the last couple of months, if your child bites the teacher, consequence at home, not a big cuddle and promise of a film with mummy upon collection. If they hit the teacher, consequence.if they answer back, nip it in the bud by consequence - remove their privileges. Recognise that your child being told off at school is not “traumatic” or “humiliating”. And don’t come pleading for school support to reign in your child’s behaviour and then not enforce it at home.

You can tell what kind of day I’ve had cant you!!!! 😂😂😂😂

@ChocolatemilkBertie Totally agree! I am assuming you are primary? I’ve heard all sorts from primary colleagues recently, What’s App groups to arrange visits to the head to ‘remove a PPA teacher because his voice was too loud’ and nominating a spokesperson to speak on behalf of the parents to complain about the most trivial of things as well. Then there’s the complaint emails, little Johnny’s self esteem has been affected because the evil teacher wouldn’t give him extra time to eat his cookie, asking the teacher to demand that a child is invited to another child’s birthday party and a complaint to the head that a parent didn’t feel she could trust the teacher because she refused to give her personal mobile phone number!
I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in primary with all this bollocks going on. I can count the times I contacted my DCs teachers on one hand during the entire 7 years they were there. One primary friend has already quit after 20 years for this reason and another is making plans to leave.

absolutely agree with you @ChocolatemilkBertie

Very much agree with recent post too.
Not so different in secondary. I've seen problems at all ages. A minority of children hijack the teacher's ability to teach. Some also severe SEN, chaperoned often by unqualified parents. They deserve better, and so do the rest of the class.

Often though it's just too many poorly behaved children who aren't made to acknowledge their behaviour and take fair consequences. As such they don't learn behaviour skills. Parents unaware or combative which obviously makes it all harder. SLT also seem to err so far on the cautious side so it often feels as if there's nothing you can do.
It's never been perfect I know, but I feel it's increasingly a mess compared to 20 years ago.

Agree, no email culture back when I started.
Fewer leaders and therefore fewer demands on your time.
Politeness seemed the norm back when I started.
Friendship, support, experience and expertise existed.
Skills and common sense and self-motivation existed.
Meetings were purposeful with gap tasks set now it feels to me like meetings for the sake of meeting.
Unnecessary data collection; this did not exist in my early career years.

The past ten - fifteen years have been the worst of my working life! Sadly I don't see things getting better. This is not a case of rose tinted glasses. I genuinely loved going to work once upon a time.

Until retirement, a few years ago, I found I was spending much more time writing about what I was going to do, how I was going to do it, etc., followed by reflections on it. In our department, each of us had four managers, all with different agendas, and all requiring acres of paperwork.

Meetings, or rather voice recitals. When I started teaching in the late 70s, we had one staff meeting a term; ditto departmental meetings. Now, it is four after school meetings each week: department, pastoral, full staff and 'staff training'. None of these is a meeting in the strict sense of the word, we sit there while people talk at us for a couple of hours.

I started teaching in 1994 in a tough secondary school in a deprived area. The Head and one DH were tools, but there were some lovely more experienced colleagues who were happy to mentor 13 NQTs and share their wisdom. My planner had to be signed weekly by my head of faculty who taught a completely different subject but there you go. I did 4 years there and got the kids and teaching sussed by then. I then worked as a HoD in a lovely school in a completely different part of the country til DD1 came along.

I have just completed 20 years in my current school. The kids there are lovely, but it is a very different kind of school to my 1st one. There are so many more mental health issues than there were back in the day. Lots of youngsters are now in mainstream who would never have been back then. There is so much more contact with parents. I remember hand-writing reports (once per year) in black biro. I remember walking through the smokers part of the staffroom to get to the main part. But we socialised together. Now, I don't even know all my colleagues. I did more cover then, including losing every free several weeks in a row due to colleagues' absence; now, I do perhaps 2 per half term. Reports are completed every term.

However, teenagers haven't changed that much. They want and need firm boundaries, someone to challenge them, but someone who will support them when they need it. Most love a laugh, most respond positively to praise and most really want to succeed. Colleagues have changed but that's because I've changed. I used to be the bright-eyed keen youngster. Now I'm the cynical old bat, but I try to be kind and supportive. Most of the colleagues/friends I had when I joined this school have retired, but a few remain and there are some lovely newer, younger colleagues too.

In 1995 or 96, my school's budget was slashed overnight due to LEA rules. There are many parallels now. What both times have in common is the governing party. When the Tories are in power, teaching is harder. There is no money for anything and you have to be really creative/keen to do things. I've run out of that now, and am counting down til I can afford to retire.

I've not read all the posts but went to school myself during 80s-90s and teacher of 18 years, secondary.

Now teachers work harder than the kids. No accountability for the lazy child not pulling their weight. Why has little Charlie not got their target of a 7? Because he does f all in the lessons and no revision.

Parents take the side of their offspring even if the evidence of their offsprings poor behaviour is irrefutable. Parents are generally unsupportive and believe that we are social workers, mentors, youth workers, careers officers, nurses, doctors, counsellors as well as teachers. Very little back up from parents. They are the custom and we provide a service.

Contractibility - our email addresses are on the school website and parents just assume we can type a quick email whenever we want. No protection anymore of sending an email via the Head of Year of Head of Department.

Inclusion has reached crisis level and on average in a class of 30-32, I have at least 2 EHCPs and then another 8-10 with other problems. Very hard for one person to manage these different needs all of the time. TAs are so poorly paid and their time is stretched very thinly.

Constant changes in curriculum and the examination of my subject. In the time I've taught, I think I'm on the 4 or 5th exam spec.

Back in the day, I could teach the class. Seating plans were only ever needed for the real troublesome groups. Now a seating plan is vital and a bit like the trickiest game of chess because there's always that one kid who could cause issues on am empty room.

Coloured paper required for visual stress. Not sure when this became a thing but within one class I can easily have a students who needs the worksheet on green, one blue, one yellow, one pink, one with font Comic Sans, one on A3 and one with font 20. Ok, exaggeration but it's not far off.

General low level disruption. The level of rudeness, disrespect for teachers and school staff is amazing to see. Arguing back. It's draining. Setting detentions, rescheduling when they don't attend or when mummy says they don't deserve it as so and so didn't get a detention for doing the same thing.

I could go on but I'm depressing myself!

I met "contactability"

If you were lucky you had an OHP. if you were really lucky it actually worked. We had lesson plans and not death by powerpoint. Learning walks had not been invented. Data drops happened when you dropped your mark book.

2004 and we had paper registers, no school email, roller chalk boards and one ancient computer in the classroom. There were also more textbooks and worksheets. Behaviour was generally much easier to manage and parents were supportive.

20 years here for me. No email was a real game changer. These days, I get 30 plus emails most days whilst I'm trying to teach. Ranging from urgent, must deal with right this second, to does anyone have a spare roll of sellotape. When I first started, people would come and speak to you or leave a note in your pigeon hole. People got on better as a result of these interactions and the fact we had a lunch 'hour'.

No toilet passes and movement breaks. If a child needed to go to the toilet you used discretion. There were no isolation rooms or on call. If someone behaved badly we'd just send for the head or the deputy. Certainly no 'pastoral' rooms. If a child was in school they got on with it. But then there wasn't the anxiety and SLT weren't tied up with dealing with social media bullying. Children came to school. There were no duvet days and non attendance was seen to be something you passed on to county level.

Schools co-operated rather than competing. I got loaned out when other schools had a crisis with staffing. There were county level subject advisors who ran regular training events - it was good practical help. NQTs got a weekend away at a posh hotel with lots of training and support.

Marking was brutal. The expectation to mark everything was far too much and one thing I'm very glad to see the back of.

There was one pot for photocopying and one pot for buying resources. The photocopying pot was always ridiculously tiny but there was always enough in the resources pot. These days I have no limit on photocopying (we write in school made booklets) but I can barely afford board pens from the departmental budget.

Staff were happier to be themselves. I shared a form with a teacher who would constantly take the Mickey out of kids but who was adored by them. He wouldn't get away with it now.

There was no email, if people wanted to send you a message they had to write on a slip and then put it in your pigeon hole. You might get one or two a day rather than the 30 plus I get a day now. There were no fences around secondary schools and the least interested students voted with their feet and stayed away. You would have a T.A in most lessons. Teaching from a textbook was considered acceptable. I didn't have to make 20 different conflicting reasonable (allegedly) adjustments each lesson. I used to have time to go and sit at staff table in the dining hall to eat lunch. If you have a kid a detention they went, and generally learnt from their mistakes rather than ringing their parents to complain about you.