random gripes from the chalkface
i have no intention of maintaining a regular series of blogs. this is purely an excuse to rant, vent off, or otherwise comment on various things that irk me. an 'grumpy old man' blog, if you like...
Tuesday 8 September 2009, 9:57 AM
new term, all change
so why am I not back in school, I hear someone murmour at the back.
put simply, teaching is a thankless job a lot of the time; there's only so many times you can be called a w**ker by some snotty little kid at the back of the class before the stress of trying to improve his/her future weighs down on you.
that's nott o say i don't love teaching; i do. but sometimes you need to take stock of your situation, and look for something new. which is what I am doing right now.
only problem is, having been teaching for 7 years now, my IT skills are only as good as the National Curriculum. no matter how up-to-date I try to stay with developments in industry, I only have enough time in the day to stay current with the requirements of the examination system. which means that I feel pretty fed up with trying to find a 'real' IT job, and the longer I stay out of work (7 weeks & counting..) the more i find myself gravitating back towards teaching.. which would be fine, if only I didn't have to suffer that little brat calling me a w**ker every 5 minutes!!!
PreviousComments on this post
azonei, you have my full sympathy. As someone who has been unemployed for nearly four months now, and has actually been looking for a job for more than six months, after having been in the same job for 21+ years, I know exactly what you mean about the difficulty of keeping your skills current. Whether it be teaching, or application development/support in a specific field, or whatever else, you are expected to spend your time and effort on the tasks at hand, and unless you are fortunate enough to have a very enlightened employer, keeping up with IT developments and skills in general is well down the priority list. Then, when become unemployed, trying to juggle the immediate need to find a job (and thus pay the rent, put food on the table, etc.), while simultaneously trying to "catch up", bring your skills up to date, is very difficult.
If I had only had the foresight to invest in some tea/coffee stocks, I would at least be contributing a tiny bit to my own holdings now!
jw
