In the words of Shakespeare, Carl Smith describes the reaction of people upon discovering one is a headteacher – “And every tale condemns me for a villain”.

To thine own self be true...

One of the best things about being bald is that trips to the barbers are short, just like the haircuts. A quick number 2 and you’re out of the door. My wife, on the other hand, must endure two hours in the company of a woman who once asked her how old Shakespeare was. “Err, he was born in the 16th century,” she replied. “Oh right,” came the answer, “so how old does that make him then?”

To be fair, explaining you’re a teacher, never mind a headteacher, tends to get an active response of one sort or another, and it’s not always sarcastic. Sometimes you just get the sympathy vote: “I bet that’s a stressful job,” or, “I don’t know how you do it, I couldn’t,” which is fair enough if you don’t know how old Shakespeare is (coming up to the big 4–6–0 if you must know).

Another response is to tell you what they were like at school. “Oh, I was so badly behaved at school,” they drone on while signalling that you should chuckle and suggest they didn’t turn out too badly in the end... even though they probably did. Celebrities do it all the time, presumably because they think it makes them sound more like celebrities, though for some reason they never explain how they went from being permanently excluded in Year 8 to starring in a BBC period drama, although something along the lines of, “I always was a bit of a free spirit” tends to be in there somewhere.

Tis the eye of childhood

The truth is most adults never quite get over their teenage years and since teachers feature heavily in the lives of most teenagers, they pick up the blame. They say you never forget your teachers, but what they don’t tell you is that you wish you could. Think about your own. For every one who changed your life, I bet there were a dozen others you’d rather see doing time – “For I am sick when I do look on thee”. And, presumably, you did well at school.

Face it, we’re authority figures at a time in people’s lives when they hate authority, and for that crime alone, we are condemned to eternal damnation. For headteachers it’s even worse. We’re the witchfinder-generals, distant unfeeling creatures who devote our professional lives to the task of making young people feel miserable. More Miss Trunchbull than Mr Chips.

Which is why you always get a reaction when you tell people you are one.

Your very presence returns them to a time when they felt awkward and angry, when acute embarrassment was their only friend, and when life felt perpetually unfair. You, or at least your predecessors, were the very personification of a cruel world that misunderstood them, and for that “Thou art unfit for any place but hell”.

Their adult brain may tell them this is all a bit over the top. They may look at the rather innocent figure standing before them and decide maybe they weren’t quite so bad after all. But this assumes they listen to their adult brain, and for some people that is an assumption you cannot make. In their eyes, there is a certain kind of person who becomes a headteacher and that certain kind of person isn’t nice.

So, what is to be done? Are we to hide the fact we’re heads in the hope nobody will notice or should we revel in our reputation? I think honesty is the best policy: “To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Carl Smith is Principal at Casterton College Rutland (CCR)

Want the last word?

Last Word always welcomes contributions from members. If you’d like to share your humorous observations of school life, email Permjit Mann at leader@ascl.org.uk ASCL offers a modest honorarium.

Designed with IMPACT

© 2024 Association of School and College Leaders | Valid XHTML | Contact us