How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



I was head of Art and I got noticed

Within a year I got promoted

Faculty leader of creative skills

This is the part where it really kills

Building them up from deep rock bottom

With jealousy aimed at the job I'd gotten

A job that I had never wanted

That I only took because I cared

All of my decisions seemed to be haunted

By the ghost of a culture where they just don't care

Resting in the coffin of a lost tradition

Kids so bored they're turning white

Beaten down to bored submission

And everyone seems to have given up the fight

But they're still convinced that their way's "right"



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



We laid foundations, a team was built

The weighing scales began to tilt

But every time you made a shift

The goal posts seemed to start to drift

And this all caused a further rift

The final one I couldn't lift



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



Gossip and lies caused by others stress

Creates a catastrophic mess

Turns people's lives upside down

Gives off the sense that they're a clown

They're trying. They're just really down

Simply trying not to drown

Marriage ending

Friends unfriending

Children's lives are slowly bending

House and finance are up-ending

Mediation sessions need attending

Everything seems to need mending

And the pain seems to be never-ending



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



Professional life vs Personal life

Professional strife = Personal strife

Personal wife goes through professional strife

Personal strife =



"I understand what you're going through, but we need to think about the learners."



Stress in teaching is the expectation

Work life balance has no correlation

The pressures of a confused nation

Makes teachers into the poor relation



Goodbye btec, goodbye vocation

Hello Gove and his minds creation

Goodbye Gove and hello Morgan

Hiding behind a gritty slogan

Creating the pressure of pointless change

For teachers to correct and rearrange



How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?



"I need you to mark and enter all years grades

By the end of the week, I am afraid"



"I've got to take my daughter swimming

I've got to see my son try winning"



"Read through your teaching standards mate

And leave your children at the gate"



End of the week the books are done

But head and deputies are overrun

"We'll have to put these books aside

To push our children down the slide"



Let's flip it round and just imagine



"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm ill"

"You can't be ill the learners will fail"

"I need some patience, I need some time"

"The kids work needs to be sublime

Don't they deserve that? Don't you think?

Do you want to see your learners to sink?"



And there it is. The teacher guilt.

Because that's the way that we've been built

We care too much

We try too much

We give too much

We work too much

And we lose too much

Default 100%?!?

Like energy is heaven sent??

Like when your kids are down with flu

You just man up, there's work to do

We get ideas above our station

Of how this job is a vocation

When we stop and look around

The evidence just can't be found

Someone tells me what to teach

Someone tells me how to teach it

Someone tells me how to plan

Someone tells me when to plan it

Someone tells me how to mark

Someone tells me when to mark it

We work to targets, get appraised

Residuals to get profiles raised

It's industry. I rest my case.

How can you raise kids that are in good health when you don't see the lies that you're selling to yourself?

When she came into my life, I was missing hope
Just barely released from the end of my rope
And learning again, how to cope

No hope to be loved, no expectations of kindness,
But she told me not liking myself was blindness
And I hoped I could find this

She gave me hope to be loved and respected, reminded me of all of the lives I'd affected, helped me let go of feeling rejected, still without trust, her kindness I tested, to see if my trust could be safely invested... And it could... Entirely

Why can't I see what she sees in me?
Why can't I let go and simply be?
I'm there for her but I'm not there for me.
I'm not free.

My friend Sergio said "the most painful is when you have hope,
When you know it's impossible it's easy to cope,
But unless you're a man with conviction of a pope,
And you're cursed with the dream of a chance to elope,
Hope will eat you up"

Why can't I see what she sees in me?
Why can't I let go and simply be?
I'm there for her but I'm not there for me.
I'm not free.

But I don't want to let go of a hope to love you
I wanted to think that my dreams could be true
That someone could show me my worth like you do
Stay close when I'm a stressed
Remind me I'm blessed
My fears all confessed,
The time you invest,
To make me my best;
It made me believe in me,
And I love you for that
Because I can't do it on my own
Yet

She was my hope,
But I must let go of Hope.
I will miss that hope,
But hoping for hope is hopeless,
And hoping for Hope is just hopeful,
And I hope beyond Hope I can find my own hope,
Without Miss Hope.

I've made a promise to myself that I'll get over you.
I won't message you.
I won't call you.
And I will try my hardest not to think about you.
I don't know how long this will last
Or if I'll just eventually forget you
The way you forgot me.
But I will try.
That is a promise I have to keep.
Because you promised to come back for me....

You had your chance
I gave you time
You gave me rhyme
I went away
You didn't ask me to stay
I found someone new
He is someone you knew
He's been my friend
Loved me till the end
Now I love him too
And I'm over you

It's almost like I want to keep you tucked away in my shirt pocket
Not all the time but occasionally
Just on the days when their words are too sharp
Or when the mirror isn't kind

It's almost like I want to breathe you in
Your love and your warmth and your spirit
Everything that makes you lovely
Traveling along my bones, collecting in my fingertips
Purely you

I'm moving too quickly
My brain constantly set on fast forward with occasional rewinds
Just to stress over things I can't change
Let me know if it's too much
I hope you know how much I want you to stay

I cannot comprehend how lovely you are
Everything about you is like a dream
Bright eyes and dandelions
Soft skin and warm breath
You carry the kindness that this dull world needs