When I was in my very first job I thought back to my own school days and the extra curricular activities I was involved in, giving me opportunities and experiences I would never have otherwise had, involving all manner of sports, including table tennis, cricket, football, athletics, swimming but especially rugby with annual tours and 2 or 3 day 7-a-side tournaments, a 3 week foreign language exchange, a 10 day educational trip to Italy, drama, even foreign language movies. The spiritual, intellectual and personal enrichment but above all the self-confidence I gained from my involvement in those activities made my teenage years bearable, my early adulthood fun and they continue to influence my life.
What made all of these activities possible? dedicated teachers who freely gave up their time sharing their knowledge and imparting their passion for things they loved beyond the curriculum. I remember with tremendous affection every one of those teachers to this day, not just their names but their faces, their voices, their quirks, their laughter. In my 2nd year of teaching I started a lunchtime club and have been doing them pretty well ever since in every school I have worked in full time.
For the last 25 years I have worked pretty much full time in primary schools, sometimes in 2 schools on part-time contracts, sometimes on supply and wherever I could I have organised at least 1 after school club- I gave up on lunchtime ones in about 1983, there was just too much to do, even then. My busiest extra curricular years saw me running 4 after school computer clubs for different year groups, all with a waiting list, as D+T coordinator I assisted and funded a Nursery Nurse setting up an embroidery club and another a keyboard club. Even when I had a sabbatical leave spread across a term I did not miss a single club, sometimes only going to school at 3:30 after a day in pursuit of my research project. At that time I was the only teacher running regular all year round clubs. A member of senior management ran one lunchtime club for a few months round about the time of inspections and the PE coordinator trained a couple of seasonal sports teams but that was it.
Why? why did I do it? why did I never look for or expect payment? when some NOF funding became available which could have paid me I got the school to use it to buy equipment. Two answers emerge in the TES forums: I was merely doing what is expected in many schools and all teachers should do it or I’m an idiot for threatening my work/life balance for no payment. A scene from the movie Yakuza with Robert Mitchum springs to mind, where Tanaka Ken explains to Dusty the Japanese concept of giri – the relevance is not that I think running an extra curricular club is a duty, obligation or even a burden, it’s more the idea that if you don’t feel it, you haven’t got it. I don’t owe it to those distantly remembered teachers who gave up their time to enrich my life, rather I wish to honour and emulate them because of my admiration for and appreciation of their love of what they did, their generosity and dedication towards their pupils.
If anyone tried to make me do a club I would steadfastly refuse and fight them to the death but I will carry on doing them until I retire mainly because I love doing it.
3 comments:
Agree with lots that you have said. However over the last year or so it seems that some schools expect staff to provide these clubs or insist on it. Staff should only do so if they want to.
Nels
If a school arranges their directed time so that all staff have, say, an hour a week to run a club, well done to them. Apart from that, clubs in schools covered by the STPCD remain purely voluntary and the school can expect until they are blue in the face, teachers don't HAVE to do it. As indicated in the blog, I would personally always do clubs voluntarily but refuse to meet any expectation that I do so.
Well said!
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