A week can be a really long time can’t it?
Well, for my primary teacher cousin Gemma Dunne, it’s been a long, sad and somewhat surreal week.
Here’s how it panned out –
On Friday her 15 month old Golden Retriever puppy, Charlie, was unwell – lethargic, breathless and sick.
Saturday, she took the dog to the vet hospital to be told he had a huge tumour pressing on his vital organs.
Later that evening he was put to sleep.
On Monday back at school she told her P5 class her sad news. At the end of the day one of her pupils, Callum, pressed this into her hand.
On Monday evening her daughter posted a photo of it on Twitter and that’s when it all kicked off: the story was retweeted by some big names, went viral and was covered by media all over the UK and even in the US.
On Friday morning , a whole week later, Gemma and her class were on This Morning, the morning magazine show in the UK.
Phew !
The point is this:
Teaching is really the only job where you can have that kind of impact on a child. Charlie will have been mentioned in the class dozens of times, his antics and funny stories shared. The teacher’s sad – I’m sad, I’ll try to make her feel better…
And in all the testing and exam frenzy that exists today, we’ve lost sight of the importance of a teacher in a pupil’s life.
I think it was this that the media was picking up on.
Our job is important. It’s impactful. And we don’t need to be in the classroom to have that impact.
Tutoring online as well as face-to -face tutoring brings a lot of responsibility. We underestimate that at our peril.
With talk of guns in the classroom and all sorts of government interventions that just wear us down, know that there are alternatives to classroom teaching.
Online teaching is all the best bits without the bad bits. Like you’ve made up your own dream job.
And Equally Impactful.
I’ve got a new FREE Masterclass showing you how I’ve done just that – it’s here
