Hope for the Classroom Wreckers

Being a teacher in Scotland requires infinite reserves of hope.

Of course we have hopes for ourselves.

Hope that all the pupils on our new timetables will, against all odds, be winsome wee weans who adore learning, not half-tamed savages who adore wrecking classrooms and dreams.

Hope that our older pupils will pass their exams, that even the ones who only managed to drag themselves into class a handful of times all year will have some sort of divine educational epiphany in the week before and will, somehow, hoover up all the knowledge and resources laid before them like some intellectual Dyson before setting foot in the exam hall.

Hope that we can singlehandedly and effectively support a class of 32 teenagers when two can’t speak English yet, three have ADHD and are bouncing off the walls, four have significant dyslexia and processing difficulties, five have attendance issues and only come in once a fortnight, six have anxiety and won’t tell you when they’re stuck and burst into tears when you try to help them, and...and...and...

Hope that you can get through the year with only this small pile of resources, because that’s all there’s money for.

But more than all this, there’s the hope that gets us out of bed every morning, that keeps us up at night writing feedback and modifying lesson plans. It’s not the hope for ourselves. It’s the hope we hold, fiercely, stubbornly, maddeningly and desperately, for them.

Hope that they are going home to a warm house, a warm meal and a warm hug.

Hope that they will realise that their worth is so much more than their appearance.

Hope that the quiet, awkward ones will find a kinder, more tender corner of the world away from the cold, cruel predators of school playgrounds.

Hope that those predators will grow softer in time, once away from whatever makes them so hard and hurtful, will come to understand the pain they caused and bring their own children up to do better.

Hope that they will have the sense to make their own good choices in life, sense enough to know where the fine line between fun and danger lies.

Hope that they can see how blessed they are to live in a country where education remains free and the transformational effect it can have on their future if they work for it.

But most of all, always, underneath everything – hope that they know how much we care about them.

Even those wee classroom-wreckers.

Even after the bell goes.

Even after their final day.