Sapere Aude: Dare to Know

When I first came across the Classical Association tweet advertising the NEC bursary for teachers, I must admit, I had my doubts. As if I had the time to do an actual A level. Who was I kidding? And yet something about it tugged at me and wouldn’t let go. I’d always had a casual interest in the Greek myths – a leftover from a bookish childhood, perhaps – but that passing curiosity had deepened into something far more serious when we started writing our English curriculum and David Didau introduced me to Simon Armitage’s translation of the Odyssey. I’d already listened to and greatly enjoyed Stephen Fry’s Mythos and Heroes the previous year, which felt like visiting with old, beloved friends. But this, this was something different, something vast and circuitous and difficult. It got into my dreams, absorbed my thoughts, at once deeply familiar and intensely strange. Once I read Armitage’s dramatization, I picked up Emily Wilson’s translation and I was hooked. I dithered and doubted my way through an application for the bursary, convinced myself there was no way I would get it… until suddenly an email appeared in my inbox saying quite the opposite. And so began eighteen months of fascinating, challenging study.

Of all the things I’d hoped I’d get from studying an A level in Classical Civilisation, probably the least expected, the most surprising, has been the heady joy of falling back in love with academic study. 30 years since I last took A levels, and here I am, properly nerding out over Homer and Virgil and, of all things, vase paintings. I have countless tabs open all the time, all filled with little segue ways and rabbit holes in Classical Studies, whether the social purpose of Attic tragedy, or a virtual reality 3D ‘map’ of Augustan Rome, or modern performances of comedies in ancient Greek. My wall above my desk is papered with post it notes and handwritten reminders, with dates, names of battles, lists of prescribed sources, quotations – one in Latin – and more recommendations for books than I’ll ever be able to read. Immersing myself in this vast, vibrant world has brought technicolour back to my thoughts, and reinvigorated my intellectual life in ways that I honestly couldn’t have imagined. In the same way some people do crosswords, or listen to complex music, or go for a run, studying Classics has become my way to unwind, something I look forward to each day and find myself impatient to get back to when the real world inevitably intrudes. I’ve finally found ‘my thing’.

And it strikes me in teaching that we so often lose our ‘thing’. It’s hard to remember our passion for our subject, or for intellectual study itself, when Year 9 won’t stop dabbing, or Year 11 constantly shout out, or Year 8 are just being very Year 8. It gets even harder when you add the duties, the pressures, the paperwork, the data, the results, the policies. Teaching is often cognitively tiring, but it’s not always intellectually stimulating. I would finish long school days emotionally and cognitively wired and wound up, but it wasn’t until I started the Classics A level that I realised the value in doing something intellectually stimulating as a way to unwind.

Professional well-being so often focuses on our physical wellbeing, whether that’s afternoon yoga or going for a walk. And whilst those things are certainly helpful, how often do we focus on our minds, on our intellectual, interior life itself? It’s certainly been my experience after twenty odd years in the profession that my inner life, my thoughts and my mind, have all too often been squeezed by my work. Sometimes that’s been incredibly exciting and enriching, but sometimes it’s because I can’t stop worrying about whether 9×3 have made enough progress, or if a certain lesson will go better tomorrow than I fear. And that’s a quick road to burnout. Turns out, doing more with my brain, finding something stimulating and interesting and different is the best way to turn off those unhelpful worries. Despite twenty years in teaching, this has been a revelation. In the eighteen months since I started the A level, I’ve found it easier, not harder, to switch off from work. Half an hour of Greek tragedy in an evening has made a far greater difference to my mental wellbeing than scrolling on my phone ever could.

And so, as we approach the summer term, and – eventually – the summer holidays, what if you found your thing? Or focused on it more, if you’re lucky enough to have already found it. What if you found that thing that doesn’t feel like more work, that invigorates instead of diminishes, that fills your cup when school has emptied it, several times over – whether that’s pottery or South Asian novels or quantum mechanics or the life cycle of certain kinds of jellyfish? And if you think your thing might be studying Classical Civilisation (and why wouldn’t it be?!), I urge you to apply for the bursary with the Classical Association – you never know what treasures you might find, deep in this labyrinth. If we want to be the best teachers, and the best people that we can, it’s time to dare to know.  

To find out more about our bursary scheme with the National Extension College, click here and apply now using this form.