[Applause]
allow me to tell you about two different
stories from two very different lives
one of a teacher an educator me and one
of war and fear and desperation of a
little boy that I once knew allow me to
tell you how those stories have
overlapped and interweaved and became
one a story of stilettos and of mud of
explosions in refuge refugee camps and
of strength in the face of adversity of
Dunkirk spirit story one starts with a
gobby girl from Watford who found
herself teaching in an education system
a system increasingly in turmoil hearing
stories of lost hope cultures of fear
diminishing faith a system that causes
one in four of our newly qualified
teachers to leave the best job in the
world in the first few years of their
career and one in ten to flee our
profession every year increasingly many
in search of a better work-life balance
fleeing wars are not won by evacuation
but sometimes the urge to escape
dominates whether it be a classroom or
the war zone there’s always the quiet
promise of a better life elsewhere of
hope of sparkling if less than movie
tomorrow’s of just being somewhere else
I’m a teacher it’s been in my blood
since I was a child and yet after 16
years of inspiring young minds or at
least trying to
I found myself joining those statistics
disheartened by a system that
increasingly trained dancers with fetch
regimented routines and steps rather
than building humans with the ability to
freestyle or to dance like nobody’s
watching and so I made the difficult
decision to quit
unable to align my values and ethos to
the system I found myself in I walked
away
I didn’t walk away I staggered suffering
from anxiety attacks panic
attacks and utterly heartbroken my whole
identity was lost because what either
Natalie who always wanted to teach but
could no longer step inside a classroom
and running parallel but in a totally
different life is Story number two I
call it a story I’ve used a bit of
creative license there because I don’t
actually know the beginning or the
ending the truth is it’s a series of
snapshots memories of one little boys
journey a collection of photographs that
now I hold close to me to stop me for
getting him completely story T is a
story born of war of the 65 million
people who were forcibly displaced from
their homes in 2015 one of 25 million
refugees story to belongs to spider-man
a six-year-old from Kurdistan a boy with
no real beginning or ending a timeless
transcendent boy a boy who will forever
be six years old wearing that red and
blue jacket and in that camp he loved
the color yellow and he loved dinosaurs
but more than anything he loved
helicopters and we’d be sat there in our
tent and it’s here the way before I
would and he’d jump up and he’d be out
and our lesson would be destroyed with
him beckoning and pointing pointing up
at Dunkirk skies that once were full of
world war ii fighter bombers and
Spitfires but now were home to his
helicopters of hope and I’d follow him
gazing up at infinite possibilities and
with twirl and we’d spin like rotor
blades or propellers gliding dancing
laughing all children deserve an
education it’s a fundamental human right
and yet Spiderman had never been to
school before I met him in fact only
about 50% of forcibly displaced children
of primary age are in full-time
education and these statistics get more
alarming the older these children get
there’s only a 25% chance that
spider-man will ever be in secondary
education and there’s only a 1% chance
that he’ll ever get to higher education
to university and some of these children
found their way or were carried broken
limbs clothed in desperation to Western
Europe to the refugee camps of northern
France and this is where my story and my
path cost with his maybe there is
another way a way to fall back in love
with teaching and a way to provide an
education for these children who are
amongst the most vulnerable in our
society another way possibly to look at
the current retention and recruitment
crisis in education how about we shift
the focus to a humanitarian crisis an
unprecedented human tragedy an
international disaster then one day I’m
sat there on my site when I receive a
call Natalie we both know what you get
like when you sell pieces you’re one of
the lucky ones he said come and see for
yourself he said and so I did I traded
my stilettos from wellies and off I went
to the refugee camps of northern France
the camp that I met him in that we met
in no longer exists but it’s where he
remains it’s sadly duplicated across the
whole of our continent in France Belgium
Greece Macedonia Turkey little children
are living in illegal squalor
the camps are unsanitary uncivilized and
totally unsafe the icy air stank of
sewage of human excrement and you’d
tread in it slip in it you’d get it on
your clothes and on your hands and they
weren’t showers and toilets there was
very little running water to be truthful
I remember that camp in Dunkirk a place
historically synonymous with war and now
it was home to a new generation of
people who
frantically battling and fighting for
the hope of a better life
I remember shivering my nose running my
lips painfully cracked I remember
teaching lessons whilst gunfire echoed
in the distance whilst the tents next to
ours went up in flames the air filling
with a thick black smoke I’m in but oil
cans exploding around us in Europe not
the Europe I grew up in but Europe
nonetheless Europe today and whilst my
lucky students at home fail to see how
privileged they are to study Shakespeare
or Blake spider-man and his peers were
desperate to learn way more than just
the ten thousand euro price tag they’re
being smuggled to are glittering Shores
I thought illness really poorly children
I admit I turned a blind eye at times
sometimes they disappear I don’t know
where without warning we’re out trace I
stopped
double taking at the little ones who’d
score and poo outside our school ten and
at the well-meaning aid workers who try
and train them the children to use those
little plastic bags that we in civilized
England reserved for our animals dogs
yet the unwavering hope of humanity the
strength of childhood innocence
penetrated and sliced through the bitter
reality of that camp in Dunkirk I met
some of the most beautiful brave and
resilient children who I have ever been
blessed to teach little superheroes and
while our media insights racial disgust
and hatred telling me that he is just
one of us warned a sponger a violent
migrant who needs restraining with angry
barbed wire fences a little boy who
without doubt will grow up to be a
terrorist I just remember his smile and
his tinkling laugh his sprinkling of
mischief
I remember a precious little boy who’s
seen things that I hope I never will
a boy who might have made a helicopter
engineer or pilot in another country
another world another life another time
he loved those magical flying machines
but passion and fascination education
will never be enough to change his life
he taught a cynical ex teacher a broken
and battered communicator of me the true
power of education he reminded me of
what had led me into the profession in
the first place
when I was teaching him inspections and
marketing policies and data analysis and
performance management all paled into
utter insignificance
I taught him because I wanted to and he
then one day he vanished and I never saw
him again and I wish that I could hold
his little broken fingers in my hand
once more to watch him quietly tracing
their alphabet and numbers onto his
muddy page I wish I could tell him that
he changed the course of my life but he
was the reason that I then eventually
came back into education that’s the
change in him for my silent and scared
little boy to a boy who literally
wouldn’t shut up who loved learning
inspired me and reminded me why I teach
I’d like to tell him that he featured in
my blog a blogger that then won an award
truth be told I think because of him
because people who read it all felt just
desperately in love with his story he’s
he taught me that behind every headline
in statistic is a person a child a
student a teacher with a story that a
relationship the gentle touch a kind
word of reassurance is far more powerful
a weapon than fear or control so in
these times of turmoil in these shifting
sands of political and educational
change we must remember that education
is the key to a better life for us all
we measure teachers on how well they
choreograph these routines of knowledge
and recall and knowledge and we call
knowledge and Rico and we judge our
student from very little else other than
their exam results but what if instead
we taught them to measure by the deeds
that they do the true value lies in how
you treat your fellow man what if we
could teach our children in the UK and
Europe and maybe even beyond that’s
showing kindness in the face of it
tolerance or ignorant is the way to a
better world what if and once they nice
progressive and traditionalist teachers
could for once stand united with a
collective voice against the fighting
Venna phobic wings of our time what if I
don’t know but what I do know is that
sometimes life doesn’t take us where we
thought it would but sometimes we walk
that path in a pair of fantastic heels
and other times we trample through
in our Willy’s but so long as we keep
going I figure that’s fine because
without darkness we never appreciate the
Sun and there’s very little that helped
us to value our own lot more than seeing
humanity at its most desperate I didn’t
end up where I thought had been never in
a million years did I think that I’d
tread in the mud of a camp or back into
a classroom or here onto this stage with
you but each of us has just one thread
of a life and it’s a thread but we sow
or if we sow into a tapestry with others
become so much stronger
I’ve shown my story to spider-man’s any
of our journey can help to rebuild faith
in disillusioned teachers or to build a
brighter future for some of those
children that lost generation of
children so desperately in need of
education or even do that just for one
then I reckon I’d be content with that
so remember please that out of the mud a
lotus of Hope can grow and out of the
flames of exploding gas cans a Phoenix
of a teacher can rise and be reborn
education is little more than inspiring
young children so if you are a teacher
who is feeling like the battle has
nearly been lost
then please spend your last bit of
energy looking for your spider-man and
if on your travels you happen to see
mine please tell him I’m still searching
for him that I want just her a twirl and
spin with him once more to watch him
learn to teach him and I want to thank
him because I owe him my career thank
you [Applause]