At the chalkface: The glass is half full

I fear that I’m becoming a bit of the proverbial whinging teacher, a bit of a grouch, pessimistic, nay, apocalyptic. I must be a more glass-half-full, sunny sort of fellow. Mind you, wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said “the basis of optimism is sheer terror”.

That’s my default position. Still, I must perk up these columns.

After all, you could be sitting slumped and knackered on a staffroom armchair, feeling as if you’ve just been clobbered by a railway sleeper after a thoroughly dispiriting day of hell – of punishing targets, head-breaking paperwork, yards of pointless marking, a couple of screaming, asinine parents, a maniac pupil who should be incarcerated in a high security psychiatric facility, a management who point shiny suits at you, peddle market values and talk only in a supercilious, ludicrous verbless cant, and a government who are either Machiavellian or thick, or both.