In the turbulent, chaotic, eventful times that are known as “End of Semester Report Writing”, on occasion, I have been thinking a lot about what I could do with additional resources. Not money (which would be excellent) or Sleep, but the simple idea of time. I have come to think of time as my most important resource. I have discovered (at least on a personal level) that time is resource I need the most, as it can provide solutions to all other resource shortfall; well at least the resource shortfall that are not consider insurmountable such as lack of air.

I have found, that given enough time, I can work around most problems I run into while teaching. The obvious ones are things like lack of sleep, work life balance, health, lack of patience and so on. All easily solved with time; typically, easily solved with sleep, but that is not the point. I have been more thinking along the lines of things like classroom resources – Money for materials and equipment; an ever-escalating work load; marking; classroom preparation. If I have the time, I typically find a work around to the challenge that I faced, or on rare occasions an actual workable solution.

Time has become a critical resource. I never seem to have enough. Far too often I must preform metaphorical triage on problems, applying band-aid solutions that are only short term; always promising that when I have time I will fix it properly; that close enough is good enough for now. While writing this I realized that we teachers often use future adjectives constantly; things will be done. I’ll get to it later. We’ll look at that next term. See me after………

We constantly are trapped in the now, which is full, so we push stuff in the future. Our time is spent before it even happens far too often. We are always looking for more and ever have enough.

This brings me full circle in my thinking; back to my original point. What could I do with more of this resource called “Time” (now with a capital T, since I’m going to treat it as a named object). To steal something, I remember from a piece of poetry or philosophy, source long forgotten in the cobwebs of my mind.

Time is infinite and finite; It is unlimited, but you can never have enough of it.

I have found that I am always time poor. I must prioritize and choose what comes first and what get my time. I always have more to do than I have time to do it in. I constantly decide what is important and what is not, not based on their true value of importance, but on how much time it will take to do, and how soon I need. This has resulted in ideas being shelved, projects being abandoned and things being left by the wayside. So what would I do with more Time?

First, I would sleep. Yes sleep. It is something that I have found as the semester ends I never have enough of. The candle gets burnt at both ends, with late nights and early starts the necessity of life. It would be wonderful to be able to get enough sleep and have time to do all the other things. Next, I would finish some of the things I have left unfinished; the projects that are good enough but not truly done. Those little things I am always working on, because they are interesting but externally a side project. For example, my research/exploration into VR as a classroom tool; the concept of gamification and applying it to the classroom; learning a new programming language; writing that app I want to make.  All those little side projects.

The final thing, would be spend more time with my family. Slow things down, and not cram in all the fun into brief hours, but actually have quantity and quality time instead of one or the other.

All in all, Time is something that seems to something I am wasting thinking about it. Which, all in all, not a bad thing. Best thing about time, is even wasting it can result in something.

I was reading this article, discussing how many early years’ teachers are teaching outside of their teaching methods. It talks about the statistics around this, touching briefly on the need due to timetabling. It doesn’t really seem to get into the meat of the matter, as it is article based on a report which was looking at the numbers, not necessarily the reasons behind them.

I have been teaching 4 years, with a year off between my 3^rd and 4^th years to be a stay at home dad. I have taught outside my methods, almost every year until recently. When I started teaching I had English and Information Technology as official methods.  In my first 2 years of teaching I taught; English, History, Geography, Information Technology, Religious Education, Automotive, and VCAL. And these were across the range of 7 to 10, with the exception of VCAL and RE which were year 11 subjects.  I should note, these were not as a CRT, extras or short contracts, but subjects I had for at least a term or two.

I was happy to give them a go, as I was young and ready to take on any challenge. I may have been naive as a fresh faced graduate, but I wanted to teach and would have said yes to almost any subject that would of but me in the classroom. I was not in a position to say no to work, and felt that I could take on any challenge. Some of them were big asks; Auto especially, which was luckily for a term and all theory and design. It was hard work, I was lucky enough to be “old” (I was 32) by first year teaching standards, and had no desire to have a social life beyond watching some TV with my wife. I devoted myself happily to the preparation and work that I needed to do to deliver these subjects. I never felt pressured to teach anything, but could see how you could easily be pressured into doing that, especially as an early teacher, who is desperate to just have a job.

It is an easy thing to forget, that secondary teachers are trained as specialists. We know our methods; we know the content and the pedagogy that surrounds those methods. We know about classroom management and general pedagogy. We typically are pretty limited outside our methods though! For example, I myself have 5 teaching methods; Information Technology, English, Humanities, Food Technology and Business Management. I admit that this is unusual and due to having too much time on my hands playing stay at home dad for a year, combined with my circuitous route to teaching. I can confidently teach in my methods. I’m also pretty comfortable teaching junior media, religious education, economics or accounting. Beyond that, I have pretty much no clue; there are some areas I won’t know where to start teaching in. I won’t say that I could not learn the content and how to teach them, but if you dropped me in cold, into a class out of my method areas tomorrow, I would have countless hours of work to take on the challenge. And the truth is, I would not be the best person to be teaching the subject. Take math for example. I am ok at math. I work with business math and computer math fairly regularly. I still actually use algebra, but I am not mathematically minded. I don’t understand it at a level that lets me see the how things are done. I cannot explain it in different ways; I am not a math teacher. No matter how much time I spend training and studying, I don’t think I will ever be a good math teacher; it is not my specialty or within my personal capacities. On the other hand, I am an English teacher. I understand English; the structure and function; the complex rules; the different styles and methods of writing. I can explain them in many different ways, and if needed figure out new ways to help a specific student understand what I am on about.

At a junior level, 7-9, there is a valid argument for everyone teaching everything. At year 7, most of us will have enough general knowledge to teach most subjects, except maybe math and LOTE (and the new IT curriculum, but that I’m saving for another post all by it lonesome). Through in PE and Technology subjects and the list starts getting long, but that is why we have specialist teachers; secondary education is about developing mastery in subjects not general learning.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with teaching outside your area, but I for one have never said “yes” to teaching something that I could not really teach; I’m not a math or science teacher; nor a PE or art teacher; I can’t teach wood, metal or plastics; don’t even ask about a language other than English or textiles. I know I cannot teach in those areas, because they are so far out of my personal context and skill set that I would do students a disservice in attempting to teach them. But this is me, not you. Some of the best teachers I have ever worked with or had, were in fact teaching in an area that wasn’t their method, but something they loved anyhow.