The Twilight Zone

This is the academic twilight zone. The still point of the turning year. Neither up nor down, neither from nor towards (and do not call it fixity). Exams have been sat and sent off, coursework has been marked and moderated. There is nothing to do but wait. Until August 18^th, that is, when all will be revealed – at least for A Level students. Like contestants on Noel Edmonds’ TV monstrosity “Deal or No Deal”, they will open the box of their results envelopes to find… Well, for some, the prize of the grades they need in order to get that place at a top university. For others, not the exact grades they hoped for perhaps, but enough for a place somewhere. For still others, disappointment, the grind of Clearing, the despair of dreams dissipated and ambitions re-adjusted.

But that’s for the future. Right now, there is only the wait. For both students and for that other constituency in this, teachers. The students just want to pass and get what they need to progress. For teachers, there is an altogether richer set of feelings at work.

An A Level student once accused me of not caring whether she passed or failed. She was wrong, but the truth is that if, as a teacher, you become too emotionally invested in your students’ outcomes, you risk a nervous breakdown every summer. On the other hand, your students are people you have worked with, watched develop and got to know as individuals; you want them to succeed for themselves. It is a genuine pleasure to see a student achieve what they set out to achieve and to start looking forward to the next step.

On a slightly darker note, you also, as a teacher, are aware that you are judged on the results gained by your students. This enters your thinking so profoundly that it is hard not to refer to “my results” whenever you talk about how your students have done. Seasoned teachers, of course, know that that formula is only to be used when results have been good; in years when results leave something to be desired, they become, “the group’s/class’s results” or “the results obtained by the students taught by myself and [insert name of any teachers with whom you may have shared the class here]”.

At this point in the trek through the twilight zone, it is doubtful that too many teachers will be worrying about their classes’ results. But worry they will. Only the most idealistic will delude themselves that their students will all have over-performed as a result of their teaching. The most fervent prayer will be, “Please God, don’t let them do worse for me than for any of their other teachers” because, as much as teachers want their students to do well, they also always want to avoid that bane of any professional’s life, Awkward Questions.