2010. New job. New government.

 

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself? 

 

I was head of Art and I got noticed

Within a year I got promoted

Faculty leader of creative skills

This is the part where it really kills

Building them up from deep rock bottom

With jealousy aimed at the job I'd gotten

A job that I had never wanted 

That I only took because I cared 

All of my decisions seemed to be haunted

By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care

Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition

Kids so bored they're turning white

Beaten down to bored submission 

And everyone seems to have given up the fight

But they're still convinced that their way's "right"

 

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself? 

 

We laid foundations, a team was built

The weighing scales began to tilt

But every time you made a shift 

The goal posts seemed to start to drift

And this all caused a further rift

The final one I couldn't lift

 

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself? 

 

Gossip and lies caused by others stress

Creates a catastrophic mess

Turns people's lives upside down

Gives off the sense that they're a clown

They're trying. They're just really down 

Simply trying not to drown

Marriage ending

Friends unfriending 

Children's lives are slowly bending

House and finance are up-ending

Mediation sessions need attending

Everything seems to need mending

And the pain seems to be never-ending 

 

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself? 

 

Professional life vs Personal life

Professional strife = Personal strife

Personal wife goes through professional strife

Personal strife =

 

"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."

 

Stress in teaching is the expectation

Work life balance has no correlation 

The pressures of a confused nation

Makes teachers into the poor relation

 

Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation

Hello Gove and his minds creation

Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan

Hiding behind a gritty slogan

Creating the pressure of pointless change 

For teachers to correct and rearrange

 

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself? 

 

"I need you to mark and enter all years grades

By the end of the week, I am afraid"

 

"I've got to take my daughter swimming

I've got to see my son try winning"

 

"Read through your teaching standards mate

And leave your children at the gate"

 

End of the week the books are done 

But head and deputies are overrun

"We'll have to put these books aside

To push our children down the slide"

 

Let's flip it round and just imagine

 

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill"

"You can't be ill the learners will fail"

"I need some patience, I need some time"

"The kids work needs to be sublime

Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?

Do you want to see your learners to sink?"

 

And there it is. The teacher guilt.

Because that's the way that we've been built

We care too much

We try too much

We give too much

We work too much

And we lose too much

Default 100%?!?

Like energy is heaven sent??

Like when your kids are down with flu

You just man up, there's work to do

We get ideas above our station 

Of how this job is a vocation

When we stop and look around

The evidence just can't be found

Someone tells me what to teach

Someone tells me how to teach it

Someone tells me how to plan

Someone tells me when to plan it

Someone tells me how to mark

Someone tells me when to mark it 

We work to targets, get appraised 

Residuals to get profiles raised

It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?