“In the beginning Mr B created his very first blog post.”
My name is Mr B and I am a passionate and enthusiastic Modern and Ancient History teacher. I am enthused by planning and creating engaging and inspiring lessons and resources that encourage a love of learning, especially for history!
Studying history is crucial as it allows us to understand our past, which consequently allows us to better understand our present. If we want to know how and why our world is the way it is, we need only open a history book to seek the answer. People often say that “history repeats itself”, but if we study the causes and more importantly the consequences of humanity’s mistakes, we may, ideally, be able to learn from our past and prevent future atrocities and hardship. Studying history can provide us with insight into our cultures of origin as well as cultures with which we might be less familiar, thereby increasing cross-cultural awareness and understanding.
Now, propaganda aside, let’s shift our focus back to teaching. The life of a teacher can be extremely demanding and many of us have thought about quitting numerous times. Teaching is not so much a career… but a lifestyle. I’m not trying to make it a cliché but it really does take over your life, but I wouldn’t say that’s a negative thing for the most part. As a teacher, your social life definitely suffers and it can be straining on your relationships. The late nights planning and marking test not only your resilience but also that of your partner’s. The workload is heavy and it could take up every minute of your day if you let it. Ultimately, however, it is a very rewarding career choice and I’d like to encourage others to stick at it. When you’re teaching it really doesn’t feel like you’re working and that’s truly a gift…to be able to go to work and not feel like you’re going to be totally demoralised by the end of it by working a job where there’s no real cause or thanks given. However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The work is tough and there’s a lot of it.
In my fourth year of teaching, I, by no means, have all the answers but I am willing to share some of my ideas and the lessons I have learnt along the way in the hope that it might help someone out there, whether it’s a potential teacher, PGCE or a colleague who’s been teaching 20 years.
I intend to post about: planning methods; useful resources; lesson ideas; lifestyle tips; organisational suggestions; current affairs with education and perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a glimpse into the terrrible sense of humour I possess (which my student’s call worse than dad jokes).
If this blog can inspire even just one person out there to either join this fantastic lifestyle or give someone a new technique to use in the classroom or to help lessen the workload then I’ll be absolutely over the moon!
Thanks for reading.