My favourite party of the season — almost my only party — was with my fellow middle-aged teaching novices, who have spent the past four months in assorted London secondary schools. Everyone looked a bit different. Thinner. Tougher. But also, I fancied, a bit younger. Given how tired we all were, this might seem surprising. Possibly, being surrounded by the young (the teachers) and the even younger (the pupils) rubs off on one. More likely, this is proof of what all the studies say: that learning new things later in life is not only the best way of fending off Alzheimer’s, but it also keeps us young.
“It’s been an incredible journey,” one of them said, as he drank his warm prosecco from a plastic cup. Then he gave me a defiant look: he knows how I feel about the “J” word. Starting again as a trainee teacher is lots of things. It is tiring. Exciting. Humiliating. Exhilarating. Rejuvenating. Relentless. It is fabulous to have made it through to the Christmas holiday. But it isn’t a journey.
Alas, no one in my new world appears to agree with me. There seem to be even more spurious journeys in schools than in business — education itself is now supposed to be one. I listened to a maths professor give an otherwise impressive lecture last week which she spoiled by saying it was the job of every maths teacher to take children “on a mathematical journey”.