Everyone wants to be a chef

One of our local schools is recruiting for a chef. The queue of applicants is out of the door.

Another school is recruiting for a deputy head. There is no queue.

Why is that?

Maybe it’s the narrative.

Teachers, and particularly head teachers have enormous workloads, are assessed continually, have restricted budgets and get caught in any crossfire between parents and authorities.

Chefs are cool. Every other tv show features a chef, or a gardener. They are glamorous, creating culinary and horticultural works of art that last a short while, and transitory pleasure in consumption.

Celebrity chefs get to make their living serving other celebrities.

Teachers grow people. The work they do lasts a lifetime, and their capacity to deliver positive change is huge. Their “added value” over a lifetime is incalculable. They make their living, for the most part, working for the benefit of people you will never hear of.

Yet, as a society, we lionise chefs.

Strange.