I'm told that the job I want will mean forget having girlfriends, forget having a regular place to live or anything like that, for years, but I'm happy to make that sacrifice. There are pockets of enthusiasm for public service, mostly among those who say they would be teachers or hospital staff for almost any money, because they can never remember having wanted to do anything else. So they think - well, you better be a good teacher because it's my money, and I'm paying taxes. You don't get credit for being good. This doesn't seem like selfishness - more like a refusal to accept that ambition and service need be antithetical.
Some pupils are nightmares.
When Bournville and Hillcrest students go to the movies, as often as not they end up at Warner StarCity, the sprawling megaplex on the outskirts of Birmingham that is Britain's largest cinema complex. Well, if most teachers taught for a year and then went off to be Nick Hancock, they'd probably find it rewarding too. Similar recruitment drives elsewhere in the sector meet with equally withering responses. For me, that's patronising, the idea that you have to be of a certain colour for them to really want you. It's just not going to work.