It’s Friday and almost the end of November (although the temperatures wouldn’t imply that’s the case!) I read an interesting post on LinkedIn earlier this week which talked quite freely about how, despite its purpose of being a professional networking site, it was seemingly becoming the Instagram equivalent (I do not have an Instagram account by the way). Everything is wonderful, and everyone (else) is celebrating this award or that achievement. So what is the purpose of this form of social media? Or even social media at all? Should we think twice about celebrating all of our achievements, showing only the ‘sparkly bits’ or should we embrace the ‘reality’ and show everything? I didn’t grow up with social media and didn’t even hear of Facebook until I was well into my professional career around mid-2000. Suddenly it was everywhere and many were more bothered about their number of ‘friends’ than whether they had met for anything longer than the time it took to connect. Now, several years on, there are so many more platforms and so many more ways of sharing. However, my question remains the same… How much of oneself is it appropriate to share and in what way?
I still remember vividly being given the advice of ‘Don’t smile until Christmas’ when starting with a new class or at a new school. The relationship between teacher and student was very much an us/them and there should be a void in order to protect the teacher from giving too much away of themselves; knowledge is power, and the power was definitely in the hands of the students to use at will to undermine or ridicule the teacher at any opportunity. Looking back, I still wonder whether it really was that times were different 20+ years ago or whether just not enough of us teachers were our authentic selves and the students picked up on that, using snippets of information as weapons or sticking to preconceived ideas. I will never forget the younger sister of a close friend saying, ‘You can’t be an RE teacher… you’re alright!’ High praise from a 13-year-old.
Fast forward and I was an NQT in a large Doncaster comprehensive school teaching both English and RE. I taught the same 3 Y7 classes for both subjects in the same classroom and was undoubtedly a better RE teacher than I was English (my timetable had nothing to do with my skill set other than ‘excellent, you have an A Level in English, you can teach some of that’). However, my relationships with those same children differed between subjects. In RE lessons, gone were the interested, keen and eager learners who were eager to please and wanted to know more and instead they were replaced with sullen, disinterested, monosyllabic children. I was still ‘me’ but they had changed. Or was that really the case? Was I ever ‘me’? Did I ever actually give anything of myself to those students? I know, looking back, I took myself way too seriously and my natural disposition to be open, kind and caring with colleagues appeared fake or sickly. I was naive and my personas were divergent between staffroom and classroom.
So what does this have to do with anything? Now, in 2021 we are increasingly bombarded with images and lifestyles of the rich and famous, ‘influencer’ now appears to be a career. Maybe I’m not as flexible in my thinking as I like to think I am because I would have said that we as teachers were very much influencers but I’m not sure we are talking about the same things. Is what we see on social media or on ‘the internet’ peoples’ real, authentic selves? Do we really see the person behind the persona, or have they genuinely become that person now and that is the ‘real’ them? I have never (and don’t intend to) watched an episode of KUWTK, but am certain we are being shown what they want us to see. I have never watched a full episode of Big Brother but remember the very first series when people entered the house because it was a brand-new social experiment and something genuinely interesting to do. Oh, how that changed.
As I have got older, I have become more at ease in my own skin, accepting who I am and, at times, liking myself for it. I will never be liked by everyone or get everything right, but I am confident that, as long as I continue to be my authentic self I will be the person closest to who I want to be. Thnaks, Piglet, for reminding me that “The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.”
Music today is from Youtube… Stop Overthinking - Slow Down An Overactive Mind - Calm Down And Relax – Meditation
Happy Friday everyone and enjoy the sunshine!
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