More than half of Australian teachers plan to walk away from the profession, saying they are undervalued and overworked.
New research from Monash University reveals three in five teachers feel they are underappreciated and the hours they put in outside of the classroom are not recognised.
These feelings of under-appreciation persist, despite surveys of the public revealing 93 percent of people feel teachers are trusted and respected.
Dr Amanda Heffernan, lecturer at Monash University’s Faculty of Education, said reasons for teacher dissatisfaction were surprising.
“The pay wasn’t as much of an issue as we expected,” she told 3AW’s Ross and John.
“What really came through was the work load and the subsequent flow on effects in terms of health and wellbeing.”
THANK YOU!:
I recently donated 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, from the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. Thank you for your support! This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
Tomorrow is my first day of the new school year and I am petrified.
It’s nothing new. This day torments me every year.
Whilst you can lose your students any day during the year, if you lose them on the very first day you are in a world of trouble.
I’ve done it all. Nailed my first day and botched it.
And there’s no script that one can follow to guarantee success. Every class is different, just as every individual is different. This uniqueness gives us great variety in our job but also challenges us to make a quick determination of what their needs are and how they want to be taught. Some are looking for more room to grow creatively whilst others want a more uniform approach.
And this determination has to be worked out on the first day.
It is quite upsetting that 19 US states still allow corporal punishment in their schools. Below are some damning statistics from the said states. Of equal concern is the ratio of black and Hispanic children being the subject out this outdated and inhumane form of punishment.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
What are you doing? Don’t lean against a wall. That’s cheating!
If you want to improve the behaviour of the classroom you could do worse than treat your students the same way as you wish to be treated. Just like I find sitting on the mat utterly uncomfortable I try to minimise the amount of time my students are on the mat. Just like I can’t sit still for too long before feeling under duress, so too I allow my students to experience active lessons that mix learning with some movement.
The truth of the matter is that kids are bound to their seats or the mat for way too long. It is unhealthy and bad for the brain. Don’t take my word for it.
Angela Hanscom, a therapist in Maryland decide to get to the root of the reason why students couldn’t sit still during school and what she found out shocked her. Angela recounts her experience by stating “I’ve been sitting for the past 90 excruciating minutes. I look down at my leg and notice it is bouncing. Great, I think to myself, now I’m fidgeting!” Angela realized that she couldn’t even sit through the same classes that students go through. She’s the example that people can’t expect kids to sit through 90 minutes of nothing but listening when adults can not even do it. This proves that the school system must change to prevent students from damaging their maturing bodies and having been put on medication that they don’t even need.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
It is rare to find a Primary teacher with a mathematics background. Usually, Primary teachers are far stronger in the Humanities (Liberal Arts), than Maths and Science.
It is for this reason that many opt not to teach 6th Grade math. By that stage, the concepts are too challenging for them to explain (that is if they can solve them at all). It is not uncommon for brilliant teachers to request never to be placed in a 6th Grade classroom, specifically due to the overwhelming nature of the math curriculum.
But there is a hidden challenge in being a 6th Grade maths teacher. One that doesn’t get nearly as much recognition and affects even the most confident of maths teachers.
What do you do with kids who simply don’t get concepts he or she have been taught every single year along the way, with no success?
How do you teach equivalent fractions to a child that’s already had it well explained, has already been shown it on a Fraction Wall and has already been exposed to manipulatives?
The same goes with telling time. If a child doesn’t know how to read an analogue clock by Grade 6, it isn’t because teachers haven’t practised skip counting by 5 and described the function of the minute and hour hand.
In fact, it is very unlikely that the teachers along the way have erred in their explanations. So going into the year thinking your explanation is going to be so much more effective than the previous ones is perhaps a touch conceited.
Some may just settle for explaining the concept once more in the hope that another shot maybe all the child needs to become successful. And if it doesn’t work – “Well, at least I tried.”
I believe one is compelled to find a new and fresh, sometimes even unorthodox way of teaching the material. There needs to be a completely different style of imparting the skill in order to break the gridlock. An outlandish game or activity can sometimes do the trick.
Of course, this is easier said than done.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
Confession time: I walk into the classroom with my phone (on silent) in my pocket and my smartwatch on my wrist.
Should my kids get sick at school, or an urgent matter arises, I am the contact. I need the reassurance of knowing I can attend to serious family matters quickly.
This has come in handy. Like the time my wife went into labour, or the time my daughter’s ride failed to turn up, leaving her stranded outside the school gates.
I inform my students that I have the device not to look on eBay or scroll Facebook, but to respond to family matters in a timely fashion. They get it and don’t make a big deal of it.
But I am hardly the first teacher to have a phone in class, and although it isn’t a problem in my workplace, I would guess that there are plenty of teacher’s out there who aren’t as disciplined with their use of phones in class. My daughter constantly speaks of the addiction her teachers display with their phones, even answering social phonecalls during class.
So, the inconvenient truth needs to be raised. If students are forbidden to bring a phone to school, should a teacher be as well?
With just 10 days until kids return to school and the ban kicks in, the Sunday Herald Sun can reveal some schools are preparing to take a hard- line approach.
Under the ban, all phones must be locked away for the duration of the school day and smart watch and tablet notifications switched off.
Penalties for not complying with the new rules will be left up to individual schools, and some are expected to take a “three-strikes-and-you’re out” approach where students would be given detention for a second offence and could be suspended on strike three.
Public primary and secondary schools across Victoria must enforce the government phone ban from January 29.
The teacher’s union will ensure that teachers never have to follow the same rules as their students when it comes to technology. You can imagine the outrage if such a rule included teachers as well.
But students see right through the hypocrisy and teachers can never expect to command respect when they spend minutes every lesson checking their Instagram accounts.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
Whilst I think Sex-Ed should be primarily the responsibility of parents, I can appreciate the reason why schools feel a responsibility to educate students about safe sex and relieve some of their students’ concerns.
If I were teaching Sex-Ed, I would begin by going over some of the most popular questions asked by children to reassure students that their questions are neither unique nor childish or ignorant.
The following fascinating article addresses some of these questions:
Regardless of whether they grew up in the ’80s or the aughts, kids of certain ages always ask versions of the same questions, Roffman has found. For instance, middle-school students, she said, want to know if their bodies and behaviours are “normal.” Many older students ask her at what age it’s normal to start masturbating.
High schoolers routinely ask about romantic communication, relationships, and the right time for intimacy: “Who makes the first move?” “How do you know if you or the other person is ready for the ‘next level’?” “How can you let someone down easy when you want to break up?”
But some contemporary questions, Roffman said, are very different from those she heard earlier in her career. Sometimes the questions change when the news does. (More than 30 years ago, Roffman started reading two newspapers a day to keep up with the rapid pace of news about HIV and AIDS; she’s maintained the habit since.)
She said she received a flood of questions about sexual harassment after the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in the early 1990s. The same decade ended with a spike in student interest in oral sex and behaviors that had previously been considered more taboo, such as anal sex.
Sometimes changing student questions signal broader cultural shifts, like the recent surge in student queries about gender identities. “There would have been questions 20 years ago about sexual orientation, but not about gender diversity,” Roffman said. But one recent eighth-grade cohort submitted questions like “How many genders are there?” “What does ‘gender roles’ mean?” “What is the plus sign for in LGBTQIA+?” and “Why is ‘gay’ called ‘gay’?” She finds a way to answer them all.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
They tell teachers to avoid showing too much personality and that a teacher’s humour can be seen as a weakness. It can lead to a chaotic and uncontrolled classroom.
But I don’t care. I’ll take my chances.
Humour, is essential to who I am as a parent, teacher and now, writer. I don’t seek the laughter of children in the same way as I seek their happiness, security and academic progress. But I certainly don’t believe in withholding humour from the classroom.
Watching the clip above, I couldn’t help but reflect on the amazing impact of a child’s uncontrollable laughter. One of my great joys has been sharing my book, My Favourite Comedian, and watching kids laugh throughout.
So, no, I am not shutting shop on laughter any time soon.
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
When I was a school kid, I didn’t merely think “play” was a human right, I thought “playing up” was a human right.
As a teacher, I certainly value the benefits of allowing my students to experience pleasurable periods of healthy play. However, I am also of the belief that kids who waste class time risk losing some of their own downtime. Actions must have consequences, and consequences must involve the loss of something important to the child.
Child author, Michael Rosen, would probably be quite disappointed in me:
Play is a fundamental human right, Michael Rosen has said.
The children’s author and poet said that play should not be seen as an “add on”, or an “extra” as he urged adults and children to “get out there and play”.
Rosen’s comments come in a video by the British Psychological Society (BPS), which has said it is concerned that break times are being eroded.
In the video, called Right To Play, Rosen, a former Children’s Laureate who is best known for books such as We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, says: “Play isn’t an extra, it isn’t an add on.
“Play is a fundamental human right.”
Dan O’Hare from the BPS division educational and child psychology said: “Children’s break time has been reduced by 45 minutes a week in recent years, and one of the results is that eight out of 10 children now do less than one hour of physical activity per day.
“We are grateful to Michael Rosen and the children in the video for helping us make the case that play is vital for schoolchildren. Because play isn’t just a means to an end: it’s fundamental to children’s development and wellbeing.”
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
Being snubbed is par for the course in education. Experienced and highly capable teachers are often overlooked for leadership roles at the expense of rawer and less experienced colleagues. Teachers are also often kept on one-year deals when they have their heart set on more permanent arrangements.
Students also get snubbed. Some miss out on scholarships and awards, whilst others are left bewildered and dejected when they find out they aren’t school captain after all.
I guess that’s life. Disappointment is a reality of the world we live in. Not everything has to make sense to us.
It then becomes a question of how we deal with the disappointment.
Adam Sandler has issued a lighthearted reaction after his critically acclaimed performance in Uncut Gems was snubbed by the Oscars.
This year’s set of nominations has attracted criticism for its lack of diversity, and for overlooking a number of films that received rave reviews from critics.
Among them was Sandler’s role as charismatic jeweller Howard Ratner, who works in the Manhattan diamond district. The role was widely held as proof that Sandler was capable of more than just goofball comedies.
In a response, Sandler joked on Twitter that he was happy he no longer had to wear suits to awards ceremonies, and also shouted out his former Waterboy co-star Kathy Bates.
“Bad news: Sandman gets no love from the Academy,” he began. “Good news: Sandman can stop wearing suits. Congrats to all my friends who got nominated, especially mama.”
Special Announcement:
I am donating 100% of the royalties of my hilarious new children’s book, My Favourite Comedian, during the month of January to those affected by the devastating bushfires in my country, Australia. This book is perfect for children aged 9 to 14 and the ideal class novel for Upper Primary students. Please leave a comment to indicate your purchase. You can buy a copy by clicking on this link.
Topical Teaching 