我工作生涯中最丟臉、最刺激、最令人心力交瘁的一年結束了。學校（馬上）放假了，期末考試的成績已經出了，數據輸入進了電子表格，而教室裡的佈置也已收起。The most humiliating, thrilling and shattering year of my working life is over. School is (almost) out, end-of-year exams have been marked, data entered into spreadsheets and classroom displays taken down.
本週，我將參加在英國央行舉辦的一個晚會，和幾十位曾經的律師、銀行家和公務員一起，慶祝我們成了城裡歲數最大、可能也最奇特的一群新教師。This week, I will join a few dozen former lawyers, bankers and civil servants at a party at the Bank of England to celebrate us becoming the oldest and possibly oddest bunch of newly qualified teachers in town.
在經歷了戲劇性的一年後，上週授予我教育資格的場合有點令人掃興。這張證書進入我的垃圾郵件夾內時，我關在一間沒有窗戶的書櫥內用一卷透明膠帶修補破損的課本。當我把它拖出垃圾郵件夾後，我還是無法下載，因為我忘記了自己的教師參考號(Teacher Reference Number)，又不知道該如何弄個新的。After the dramas of the year, the awarding of my own teaching qualification last week was a bit of a let down. The certificate plopped into my spam folder while I was incarcerated in a windowless book cupboard repairing damaged textbooks with a roll of Sellotape. When I fished it out I could not download it as I had lost my Teacher Reference Number and had no idea how to get a new one.
即便如此，我還是為我現在可以自稱教師而自豪不已。更讓我自豪的是別的Now Teach實習教師。我與其他人共同創辦這家慈善機構的想法是，讓年齡較大的專業人士重新接受培訓，以便在具有挑戰性的中小學擔任教師。可我沒想到會有超過1000名申請者，也沒想到會有近50人在去年9月和我一起開始接受訓練。最令我意想不到的是，會有這麼多人堅持到底。Even so, I am beside myself with pride that I can now call myself a teacher. I am even more proud of the other Now Teach trainees. When I co-founded the charity with the idea of getting older professionals to retrain as teachers in challenging schools, I never expected more than 1,000 to apply, nor nearly 50 to start training with me last September. Least of all did I expect so many to last the course.
今年春天的一天，一位心力交瘁、銀行家出身的自然科學實習教師給我打電話說，他要退出：他權衡了自己的選擇，決定寧可在印度洋上的遊艇上呆上兩個月，也不願再向8年級學生解釋光合作用了。我不怪他，也不意外；真正讓我驚訝的是他這樣的只是少數。對多數Now Teach參加者來說，忍受培訓的恥辱是可選的：我們不必這麼做。One day last spring, an exhausted ex-banker-turned-trainee-science-teacher called me to say he was quitting: he had weighed his options and decided he would rather spend the next couple of months on a yacht in the Indian Ocean than continue teaching Year 8 photosynthesis. I did not blame him and was not surprised; what did surprise me was that he was in a minority. For most Now Teachers, putting up with the ignominies of training is optional: we do not have to do this.
然而，在47個參加培訓的人中，只有6個人退出——原因包括他們發現這份工作太辛苦、壓力太大、太苛刻、太孤獨等各種原因——或是因為通過更近距離的觀察，他們發現自己不太喜歡青少年。還有幾個人暫停了培訓，以應付各種各樣的家庭危機。50多歲的人在生活中遇到的糟心事要比20多歲時更多。Yet of the 47 who started a mere six have quit — variously because they found the work too hard, too stressful, too relentless, too lonely — or because on closer inspection they decided they did not like teenagers much. A further handful have put their training on hold to cope with miscellaneous family crises. More bad things in life happen to people in their 50s than in their 20s.
我們其餘人都通過了培訓。一些人開始吸菸，很多人瘦了不少，但幾乎所有人都已經當上了新任教師，從9月開始上崗。The rest of us have made it through. Some have taken up smoking, many have lost a lot of weight, but almost all of us have landed jobs as newly qualified teachers starting in September.
更好的是，約有80名新學員報名參加了明年的Now Teach計劃。他們的背景甚至比第一批學員還要豐富。其中仍然有很多來自埃森哲(Accenture)和谷歌(Google)的前銀行家、律師和難民，但也有一位景觀設計師、一位賭注登記人、一位獸醫流行病學專家，以及一位從自己創辦的軟件公司中賺了大錢、如今想教孩子們學計算機科學的人。Better still, about 80 fresh Now Teach recruits are signed up for next year. Their CVs are even richer than the first bunch. There are still plenty of ex-bankers, lawyers and refugees from Accenture and Google, but there is also a landscape designer, a bookmaker, a veterinary epidemiologist and a man who made a fortune from the software company he founded and now wants to teach computer science to school kids.
上週我邀請所有人來我家吃晚飯，向他們道謝，並（再次）告訴他們明年會有多艱難。當我洋洋得意地站在院子裡的一張桌子上發出警告時，我可以聽出來自己的聲音不夠堅定。Last week I invited all of them to supper at my house to say thank you and tell them (again) how hard next year will be. As I stood triumphantly on a table in my garden to issue the warning, I could hear the lack of conviction in my own voice.
教師培訓有點像分娩：當時會極度痛苦，但一旦過去了，你就會忘記當時的感覺。我已經在1月份談到了一切有多艱難。當時我自己的授課體驗似乎越來越糟，有6個Now Teach的同事威脅要退出，還有幾個人在和他們的學校打仗。但現在一切似乎都很好。Teacher training is a bit like childbirth: it is excruciating at the time, but the minute it is over you forget what it felt like. I have already glossed over how hard things were in January. My own teaching seemed to be getting worse, half a dozen Now Teach colleagues were threatening to drop out, a few were at war with their schools. But now all seems fine.
從一開始，Now Teach就是一個實驗。讓年紀較大的人進入教學工作是一件大膽的事，因為論資排輩的話他們將處於底層。我有時對自己的狂妄自大感到佩服。雖然我的對策是加倍努力而不是輕易放棄，但我被自己的大錯特錯驚到了。From the beginning Now Teach was an experiment. It was a bold thing to put senior people into teaching jobs where they would be at the bottom of the pecking order. I have sometimes marvelled at my own hubris. Even though I am doubling up rather than quitting, I am struck by how much I got wrong.
我的第一個大錯是低估了教學需要多少技能。結論是遠比寫專欄要複雜得多，而且現在我仍然不太擅長。我一生中至少花了2萬個小時來研究如何寫出像樣的專欄，而到目前為止，我授課的時間只有300個小時，因此我的絕望是完全可以預料的。但我不喜歡做不好事情，現在看我恐怕至少還需要一年時間才能研究出如何像樣地授課。只有到那時，我才能對大家都在問的問題——“你熱愛教學嗎？”——給出一個令人信服的“是的”。My first big mistake was to underestimate how much skill goes into teaching. It turns out to be far more complicated than column-writing, and I am still not much good at it. I have spent at least 20,000 hours of my life working out how to write decent columns, and so far only 300 hours in front of a class, so my hopelessness is only to be expected. But I do not like being bad at things, and now fear it will be another year at least before I work out how to teach adequately. Only then will I be able to reply to the question everyone asks — “Are you loving it?” — with a convincing yes.
第二個錯誤是，我曾經十分肯定，憑藉我們豐富的經驗，Now Teach參加者會成為比22歲的年輕人更出色的實習教師。迄今的歷史證明事實並非如此。我們中的很多人都比年輕的實習教師起步更慢——最初的衝擊太大了——儘管到了今年春天，我們全都在迎頭趕上。我不再認為我們會比年輕教師更出色，但我仍然認為我們會有所不同。Second, I was pretty sure Now Teachers would make better trainees than 22-year-olds by dint of our wide experience. History is so far suggesting otherwise. Many of us made a slower start than younger trainees — the initial shock was too great — though by spring we were all catching up. I no longer think we will be better than younger teachers, but I still think we will be different.
我還錯在認為50多歲的教師會給教研室增加多樣性（大多數教師都在25歲左右）。我們學校沒有教研室，而我的同事們太忙了，根本顧不上我有多大年紀。也許孩子們更多地注意到了這一點，雖然並不總是通過好的方式。我曾在一所小學實習了一週時間，其間一個7歲的孩子在操場上走上前來對我說：“老師，你為什麼這麼老？”I was also wrong to think fiftysomethings would add diversity to the staffroom, where most teachers are about 25. At my school there is no staff room, and my colleagues are too busy to care one way or another about how old I am. Possibly the kids notice more, though not always in a good way. During a week’s placement in a primary school a seven-year-old came up to me in the playground and said: “Miss, why are you so old?”
我的一些擔憂被證明是錯誤的：我曾擔心我們可能會懷念我們過去的地位，但我並不後悔自己不再收到盛大活動的邀請——反正我太累了，無力應付那些事。一位前高級公務員稱，她的地位比以前還高：她的朋友之前從來不問她的工作，但現在她遇到的每個人都渴望聽她講述教室裡的“戰事”。Some of my fears have been proved wrong: I feared we might miss our old status, but I do not remotely regret the grand invitations I no longer get — I am too tired to go to anything anyway. One former top civil servant said her status was higher than it was: her friends never used to ask her about her work but now everyone she meets is agog to hear her war stories from the classroom.
我還錯在，擔心我們難以聽從年齡不到自己一半大的人的命令。現實更加複雜——我們壓根不喜歡接受命令，尤其是當我們與領導們意見不同的時候。命令有很多：學校是等級森嚴的地方，而我們這代人在扁平化組織內呆了太長時間，這種轉變完全是個衝擊。I was also wrong to fear that we would struggle taking orders from people who were half our age. The reality is more complex — we do not like taking orders at all, especially when we do not agree with them. At school there are lots of orders: schools are hierarchical places, and my generation has spent so long in flat organisations that the shift is a shock.
不過，我在三件最重要的事情上判斷完全正確。我認為我會喜歡和青少年相處，這是對的。我認為重新開始是一件美妙的事，這是對的。我認為社會上還有很多人和我們有同樣的感受，這也是對的。Yet on the three biggest things I was entirely right. I was right to think I would love working with teenagers. I was right to think it would be wonderful to start all over again. I was right that there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way.
去年8月，我所在學校的校長警告我，所有的實習教師都會在入行第一年的某個時候落淚，Now Teach的參加者也會一樣。我很自豪地報告，我從頭到尾都還沒流過一滴眼淚，而且大多數人也是如此。Last August the head of my school warned me that all trainee teachers cry at some point in their first year, and that the Now Teachers would be no different. I am proud to report I have remained dry-eyed throughout, and so have most of the others.
帶著這種自鳴得意的情緒，我剛剛問了一位年輕同事，她在實習期間是否哭過。她回答稱，沒有。可之後她說的一番話，卻給我即將開始的漫長暑假蒙上了一層陰影：“但是我在成為正式教師的第一年裡確實哭了。第二年更加艱難得多。”In a spirit of complacency, I have just asked a young colleague if she cried during her training year. No, she replied. And then she said something that has cast a shadow as I depart for the long summer holiday: “But I did cry during my year as a newly qualified teacher. The second year is way harder.”
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