Despite training in citizenship, I am employed as a humanities teacher. This has meant that I have had to go from being a specialist, to an “all-knowing” geography, history, citizenship, politics and religious studies teacher. I say “all-knowing” in the comic sense, although most of my students do expect me to know every single fact about everything that has ever happened in the world. It can be exhausting.
Of course most of the time, I just tell them I don’t know. I run off some spiel about how interesting the question is and how it would be great for them to go away and research it so that they can inform the class next lesson.
Some of these students I teach for three different subjects, yet they still expect me to know all the facts. I suppose I should take it as a compliment that they actually believe I could know everything.
Although most of the time it is fine, I do sometimes wonder whether I am completely qualified to be teaching all these subjects. I know I can teach, I know they are learning, but shouldn’t my general subject knowledge be better?
For geography and history, I get by, lesson by lesson, reading the right pages in the text book and then creating a lesson using just what they need to know that day. That’s why this week, lacking the time to research the entire history of the British monarchy, I stuck to Tudors (which is what’s on the scheme of work). The head of history assured me I had enough knowledge and that they would be satisfied with my explanations.
That’s all well and good, but apparently the students in my class are a little more curious. The lesson was on the Wars of the Roses. I’d spent ages getting my head around the to-ing and fro-ing of the warring sides and I was ready to teach it. “Who was the first ever King?” and “Why are their symbols roses?” were the first two questions I was asked. I couldn’t answer either. It’s not that I feel that I should have known the exact answers off the top of my head, but I do sometimes feel a little defeated when I can’t answer questions that they expect me to know.
The same thing happened when I was teaching about weather systems in the UK. Who knows, they may be asking me really hard questions that only a professional meteorologist would know, but I don’t even know enough to judge that!
They always seem to go away satisfied, but it does hurt my ego a little bit every time I realise I don’t know the answer. I suppose it is a big ask to expect to be an expert in history, geography and religion when my degree was in the politics of the Middle East and Africa. I haven’t studied those subjects since I was in year 9 myself.
On the plus side, my pub quiz knowledge is going through the roof with all these random facts floating around my head!
I am sure it is also a positive thing for my career in the long run. My heart is with citizenship and politics, but I know that there’s only so many schools that teach citizenship and take it seriously.
Having experience teaching other humanities subjects will definitely boost my CV and I have managed to convince my head of department to send me on some CPD to improve things. Fingers crossed the person in charge of the CPD budget agrees.
- SecEd’s NQT diarist this year is a teacher of citizenship, RE and humanities at a school in the Midlands.