Teachers today face an avalanche of meetings, ticking boxes and writing policies and reports. I feel I’m bounced around classrooms like a pinball in a huge educational arcade game. That’s why I need to look at my balance as a teacher and ask myself what it all means. The question of meaning has come up a lot since I was promoted, now I teach less and do more administration. I needed promotion desperately but I’m really sorry to see my face-to-face contact with young people diminish. When I began teaching I wanted to make a difference to young people’s lives. I enjoyed teaching, it all made sense. Lately I find I am asking myself why I am doing this? I now have to dig deeper for the answers.

Part of the answer to the meaning of teaching, for me, lies in the school as a community. I realised a long time ago that the deepest things young people took from the school were not actually on the curriculum. Friendship, honesty, respect and forgiveness were what mattered as much, if not more, than exam passes and league tables. I realise that the quality of my relationships with everyone in the school, with colleagues, caretakers, catering staff and the pupils all help to build a kind of mesh of meaning in the school community. That meaning has to do with the dignity of each person and the need to recognise their contribution, celebrate their lives and help them to grow. Administration and meetings won’t go away. I have to build that Salesian belonging and meaning through the way I operate in staff meetings, the way I deal with discipline issues, the way I treat parents. My responsibility extends beyond the classroom.