Once upon a time, I was asked to speak at the graduation of a fine group of SCITT trainees who were about to 'embark on their journey' in teaching.

Now, as an English teacher, I cannot resist a metaphor.

So this is what I told them:

Our story begins with a little tugboat. Now the tugboat is not the most glamorous boat on the water: it does not have the shiniest paint, the swankiest deck or the comfiest cabins. The tugboat doesn't have one of those inspirational names, like 'Excelsior' or 'Queen of the Horizon'; the tugboat is called 'Huff'n'Puff' or 'Boat 1' or 'Dave'.

But, my-oh-my, the tugboat works hard. And what it lacks in glamour, it more than makes up for in strength and in heart and in sheer determination.

Now, all boats graduate from the builder's yards, just like you're graduating from your SCITT training today. And the little tugboat has lots of other boat friends, who graduate into lots of different jobs. Some of the other boats at the graduation will become speedboats, zooming about the open waters in such an exciting fashion, with loud music blasting and champagne corks popping for the wealthy and fabulous circles it moves in. The speedboat works late into the night, yes, but in such a vibrant and exciting world. 'Oh, to be a speedboat', think the other boats.

The tugboat also works night, but it is less fabulous, more arduous work. There are no 'premiers' or 'corporate tickets' in the tugboat's world. Just pulling logs. And the tugboat looks at its speedboat friends and notices the tugboat's life isn't as exciting as the speedboat's life. And the tugboat feels sad.

And the tugboat also has friends who graduate as leisure cruisers. The leisure cruiser seems to glide effortlessly through the smoother, shallower waters, playing it's own tune and travelling at a its own leisurely pace. The leisure cruiser smiles more and stresses less than the tugboat, and indulges in hobbies and holidays.

The leisure cruiser sometimes looks over at the tugboat and thinks 'why do you bother?'.

The tugboat sometimes looks over at the leisure cruiser and thinks 'you lucky cruiser'; especially when the tugboat is working very, very hard. And it is easy for the tugboat to feel very, very sad and very, very envious. It is worryingly easy to hate the leisure cruiser. Sometimes.

And sometimes, at around 11.32pm on a Tuesday in November, the tugboat has had enough, and says "Why do I do this stupid bloody job!" and slams down the screen of their little tugboat laptop. "I could have been a speedboat, like Alison. I could have been a leisure cruiser, like Paul. But no, I'm a bloody tugboat, and I'm stuck here between a pile of debt and a pile of marking, with a stupid bloody 'teaching review' week and my mentor busting my chops for 'engaging starters' when I haven't even got a clue what it is I want the kids to learn," says the tugboat, rather departing from the metaphor.

And, just when the tugboat feels like giving up on this ridiculous 'tugboat' idea, it looks over its shoulder.

And the tugboat realises that it is pulling along many, many logs. And each of those logs is important: they will become the tables that great meeting happen around, or the tables that families and friends will sit around and laugh; they will become the joists that support great buildings and institutions or a beautiful grained post-office counter; they will help to care for and cure, to build and protect; some of them might even become the timbers of new tugboats - yes that would be nice.

And when the tugboat thinks of logs it is pulling, of the importance of their job, and how none of the other boats could pull as many logs as them, it decides to carry on pulling.

And the tugboat bravely sails out into the choppiest of seas. There it will be buffeted by enormous waves and thrown by the wake of massive cargo ships with names like 'Multi-Academy Trust' which blast their way through the ocean so tall and proud that they don't even notice the tiny individual boats far below. And the tugboat will need to weather the roughest of storms out at sea, which these names are given names like 'Deirdre' or 'Francis' or 'Ofsted' or 'several years of real term funding cuts'.

But the tugboat will carry on: it in the nature of the tugboat to carry on.

And, over time, the tugboat will become better at pulling logs and weathering storms and, before too long (although it will feel like a very long time), the tugboat won't have to work so late into the night, and won't be so worried about the big waves and the storms. It will become a 'natural' tugboat. The timbers it pulls along will buy it nice gifts at the end of the journey and sometimes the hardest, knottiest timbers - the ones who have been bloody difficult to pull along - will say ' I couldn't have done this without you, Tugboat, thank you'. And the tugboat's engine room will feel all warm, and it will think 'that's right, you couldn't'.

And one day, the little tugboat will bump into the speedboat (which has now lost a bit of its shininess following a 'burn-out episode' and is now thinking of becoming a canal barge on the Norfolk broads) and the leisure cruiser (which is now working for a large multi-national accountancy firm and is no longer a leisure cruiser, but a 'Junior Underwriter' working all hours to maintain a massive mortgage).

And they will look at what the tugboat has become. And they will see what the tugboat can do.

And they will say "Wow!"

And the tugboat will say "I know!"

And they will say "Do you think we could be tugboats?"

And the little tugboat will look over it's shoulder, at the magnificent load it has carried, all the hopes and dreams it has shapes and created, all the lives it has touched and changed and improved.

And it will look kindly at the other boats and say:

"No."

The End

The Little Tugboat

Dave Taylor

Ethiopia May 2018

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