Lucy Kellaway: “A cool and noble thing to do”

Why I am Leaving a top job at the FT for teaching?

After over 30 years as a columnist at the FT, Lucy Kellaway (**) is quitting her job (well, almost quit…she’s still keeping a couple of irons in the fire!) to begin again as a maths teacher…..in a ‘challenging’ London school….oh, and at the complete bottom, as an unsalaried trainee teacher.

Not that, but she has also set up Now Teach in order to….

….encourage experienced leaders from the private and public sectors to teach mainly maths, science and languages (French and Spanish) in challenging secondary schools in London.i

At the recent Oxford Literary Festival ‘OLF’ (*), Lucy discussed her ambitions and motivations for taking this leap of faith

“I thought that if I made my career choice in a national news story, then there would be no backing out”

Lucy’s Motivations

I was bored with opinions, and I was bored  having them

• Maths was my best subject at school
• Nobody is ever afraid to say they are bad at maths – I want to try to change that perception
• My daughter had recently trained to be a teacher and said how hard/rewarding it was
• My father had recently died:

It’s often only when you’re recently bereaved, that you can do something you wouldn’t otherwise do!

 

From Teach First to Now Teach
Some facts & figures:

Teach First is the biggest graduate employer in country

• In 2016, 35,000 people trained to be teachers …however, only 71 were >55 yrs old!
• Hence, the application form and process is geared around 21-year olds, with the need for GCSE certificates….etc

We didn’t even have GCSE’s in my day!

Now Teach was set up in 2016 by Lucy, and was originally looking for around 50-100 applicants for its pilot year 2017/18

We want to encourage people to have another career

• Candidates are 50+ years old
• Focus on STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
• They are all based in/around London, to help ‘keep tabs’ on them as the project progresses
• In its first year, Now Teach had 1,000 applicants (Lucy had expected <100!)
• They have successful careers behind them (lots of corporate lawyers, bankers…etc), and usually own their own houses in London so the low salary is not a problem.
• They also have extensive industry contacts (for work experience..etc)
• They can bring their subjects to life….although as Lucy quipped, “I’m sure that quite a few of our prospective teachers helped to engineer the financial crash!”

 Q&A

Here are a brief selection of some of the questions posed (and answered!):

• Q: How do you select the prospective teachers? “We are both encouraging and discouraging – exacting selection process to make sure they’re right for the job”
• Q: What are you most looking forward to about teaching? “I’d like to think of being like a stand-up comic…when I stand up at the front of the class, and they all get it!”
• Q: What are you most worried about? “Hypocrisy. I’ve spent years tearing office politics apart and ripping corporate jargon to shreds….and now I’m entering a highly-politicised and jargonistic environment! Plus I’ll be the lowest of the low in Sep ’17…an unsalaried teacher!”
• Q: What are you not looking forward to? “Discipline…and behaviour…and having to learn the new vocabulary…and no time autonomy!”

Inspiring without being condescending

It was a delightfully funny, entertaining, and thought-provoking hour spent in Lucy’s company.

I’d only ever known her as a financial writer/commentator/wit, having loved her ‘Who Stole My Blackberry’ column in the FT, about the ego-centric Martin Lukes, who along with the Alex Cartoon series, seemed to have its finger on the zeitgeist of the City.

So, this is an incredibly brave and worthy leap into the world of education at an age when most people would be thinking of retiring, although as Lucy says….

“We’re going to almost live forever now – I’d be so bored if I gave up work in my late 50’s!

Other Reviews from the OLF

Nicholas Lander, Restaurant Critic http://www.nobleword.co.uk/suppose-cant-always-cake-eat/

Alexander McCall Smith, Author http://www.nobleword.co.uk/alexander-mccall-smith-oxford-literary-festival/

(*) The Oxford Literary Festival (Sat 22nd Mar – Sun 2nd Apr 2017) organised by Blackwell’s, features hundreds of authors speaking at venues across Oxford.

(**) Lucy Kellaway has been a lead columnist for the Financial Times for over 30 years. In July 2017 she will quit her job to become a maths teacher