Oh, so I don’t exactly have a career. Whoops. In fact, this year, turning 46, I’m supposed to return to Uni to learn to be a teacher. That feels the equivalent of training a chef who only has a mild interest in food. The main part I can identify with are the ingredients- in my case Biology. But the methods of teaching and the teaching itself? Hmmm.

I think my reticence comes partly because I wasn’t the kid at school who was dying to be a teacher. I was more the kid who couldn’t wait to leave school. Guilty reveal too: I was the kid who thought a lot of the teachers were there because they’d failed at the careers they intended to have. That they were there because they’d fallen back into the teaching role.

Ohh karma. You are a thirsty bitch. Maybe I thought it then because I knew it would happen to me. Mental note Hannah: you can return here.

But I don’t mean to be rude to teachers. I know there are some who positively are drawn to this role. Who find it a calling. You usually know because they say, ‘I always wanted to be a teacher.’ Or, ‘Nothing else drew me as much as teaching.’ or something equally scary.

I wish I could be as nice as these people are. I wish I could nod and say, ‘Yes, me too.’

Instead, it’s more like, ‘Excuse me; where do you go if your career failed? Line up here? Aha. Thank you.’

Still, I’m hoping I’ll make peace with it. The conflict I know, is the one within myself. And there are some things which help me. I do have a lot of fun with my own kids. By the time I get into a classroom, I’m hoping teaching will be thirty versions of this. That would be ok. And I live with the Ormerods too – so I am used to naughty. To wilful. To conflict resolution.

Then, there’s the other thing. I’m looking forward to teaching because – and I’m squinting because it’s painful – I like to serve. I like to be of service. Quite simply, it makes me happy.

Does this make me a dreaded ‘do-gooder’? Yes, it probably does. Dammit.

Most of all though, I’d like to combine teaching with working with nature. And to communicate it. As a scientist, I noted so much good work was happening in research and development – at the conference level. But unless we hear it as stories and with love, people don’t seem to care. Not many of us are programmed to hear dry information. If I could help to change this, that would be my dream. I just need to find out how. Back to school for me then. Again.