You Probably Won’t Change the World”

It’s not exactly the dream headline for a careers fair:
“You probably won’t change the world.”

But it’s the quiet truth I learned one grey Wednesday afternoon while standing outside a drama classroom holding a battered whiteboard marker and a stack of worksheets that wouldn’t survive another rain shower.

I’d moved to the Midlands after university with the kind of idealism only graduates and revolutionaries carry. My teaching placement was at a sprawling academy on the outskirts of town — not failing, but definitely fraying. Everything about the building looked exhausted. Rust-streaked radiators, corridors buzzing with fluorescent lights, and the same twelve chairs being fought over by two different departments.

Still, I was fresh, caffeinated, and convinced I was there to do something. I didn’t know what exactly — inspire? transform? ignite young minds? The kind of verbs people put on teacher recruitment posters.

But on this particular Wednesday, I was standing in a corridor, waiting for a cover lesson to start, wondering why I was there at all.

My “class” — a group of Year 9s who’d just come from a disrupted PE lesson — were mid-rebellion before I’d even unlocked the door. Someone had kicked a football inside the building. One student was mock-fencing with a rolled-up poster. Another, a girl named Alisha, was crying in a corner, whispering at her phone like it was a lifeline. No one had their books. No one was listening.

And honestly? I didn’t really blame them.

I called for calm. They laughed. I tried the seating plan. Torn to shreds. I confiscated a hat and instantly got accused of being racist. For a full five minutes, I debated with myself whether to call for help or just walk away and let them eat each other.

Instead, I sat on a desk. I took a breath. And I said something I hadn’t planned.

“Okay, look. Let’s just stop.”

Silence. A few confused faces. One “bruv, what?”

I continued. “I know none of you want to be here. And honestly? I’m tired too. So let’s not pretend this is going to be the best lesson ever. But maybe we can make it not the worst part of your day.”

Someone snorted. But they listened.

We didn’t do much. I talked about storytelling, about how drama isn’t just about scripts, but about making people feel something. I asked them if they’d ever watched a show or a film that made them cry, or laugh, or feel like they weren’t alone. And slowly, surprisingly, they started to respond.

One boy said Fast & Furious 7 made him cry. (“The one where Paul Walker drives off.”)

A girl said Encanto made her wish her family talked more.

We didn’t follow the lesson plan. We didn’t meet any objectives. But by the end of the hour, most of them had stopped yelling. A few had even written something. Alisha had put her phone away.

Before they left, one student — a boy who’d spent most of the lesson drawing on the table with a broken pen — asked, “Sir… are you a real teacher?”

I said, “Sometimes I wonder that too.”

He smiled. “You’re alright though.”

And then he was gone.


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Later, I found myself sitting alone in the staffroom, still holding that dried-up marker. I was exhausted. The lesson wouldn’t go in any portfolio. There’d be no stickers or shout-outs in the weekly staff briefing. But for the first time, I felt like I had actually done the job.

Not changed the world. But maybe changed that one hour for someone who needed it.

We don’t always get fireworks. Most days, the best we can do is show up and try to hold the line — between chaos and calm, between giving up and getting through.

Teaching, at its core, isn’t about being heroic. It’s about being present. Being the adult who doesn’t shout, the adult who stays. The adult who listens when nobody else does.

You probably won’t change the world.
But on a Wednesday afternoon, in a hallway with flickering lights and soaked worksheets, you might change someone’s world — just a little.

And honestly?

That’s enough.


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