Anonymous #300

Submitter information

Name

Anonymous #300

Where are you located?

Victoria

What type of area do you live in?

Metropolitan

Are you an education professional?
(e.g. teacher, school leader, learning support assistant, teacher’s aide)

Yes

Which sector do you work in?

Secondary

What is your occupation?

Teacher

Elevating the profession

The actions proposed recognise the value teachers bring to students, communities and the economy.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Creating a system where teachers are awareded "teacher of the year" and given medals compares us to the armed forces instead of treating us like the professionals that we are.

Teachers spend years, sometimes decades in education (I studied for a PhD) and are experts in their field, but not all of them are going to work with student demographics who value education, and thus their data will reflect that. Creating a reward system will put teachers in competition with each other instead of fostering teamwork, collaboration, and cooperation, which is necessary to teach well. Schools are collaborative environments.

Furthermore, the standard of literacy in Australia is low compared to many places in the world and you have decided to preferance STEM in your campaign. If you want to create a nation of people who read and write at a year 9 level when they are pushed through the system to graduate in year 12, you are succeeding. It this is not equitable or ethical. Because we live in a democracy, it is necessary for people to have strong literacy and critical thinking skills in order to make informed choices about our country.

I strongly urge you to reconsider any action plans that moves Australia closer to an American education model where the majority of teachers need to take up a part-time job just to make ends meet and pay their bills. If you move towards performance pay, you are basically telling everyone in this profession that they don't deserve fair compensation and that they have to earn it (as if they are not already earning it).

Here is how you tackle the teacher recruitment and retention problem:
1. Change the respect for teachers, make the ATAR entry into education degrees higher.
2. Change the tendency to celebrate mediocracy by making education a lucrative career and PAY us for the amount of education we have and the amount of work we do.
3. If you are going to insist on treating teachers like glorified baby-sitters and forcing us to jump hurdles for fair pay (or awards), pay us baby-sitter rates: $70 per child per hour... four face-to-face hours a day ($280), 25 children in a classroom equals $7000 a day.
4. We are not a circus.

Improving teacher supply

The actions proposed will be effective in increasing the number of students entering ITE, number of students completing ITE and the number of teachers staying in and/or returning to the profession.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

I do not think that awards will address the causes of the reason that teachers are leaving the profession. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, unrespected. The respect that Australian society has for teachers is reflected in THEIR PAY. If you ask any student what they aspire to be when they grow up, they usually say that they want to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything else where they can make a lot of money. The only students who say they want to be a teacher are the ones for whom money is not a concern and for whom altruism and working with children is a big motivator, and those people who mistakenly think that the school holidays are NOT a time for recuperation and planning (once they find out that it is, they quickly decide to leave for a job with a better work-life balance). Because of this, you are not attracting the best and brightest people into your profession.

I am also concerned about the metric by which you will judge a teacher worthy of an award. Is it... publication? Then, you are turning primary and secondary education into academia and that is not an area of growth -- as you know, many academics experience food poverty. Is it student achievement data? If so, then you are discounting the thousands of dedicaded, hard-working teachers who work in low-income schools where sometimes getting a student from an E to a D+ is a very big achievement because the student has to overcome financial insecurity and family instability... and a culture where they are expected to leave school at 15 to work. Is it teachers who develop enrichment community outreach programs? Then, you are treating us like charity workers.

Teacher rewards are not measurable. We work in loco parentis. You might as well give out a parent of the year award... and until you do, this proposed action is insulting.

Strengthening Initial Teacher Education (ITE)

The actions proposed will ensure initial teacher education supports teacher supply and quality.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Make the bar for entry into education higher, and do not keep trying to test the teachers that are already in the workforce -- they have learnt through years of experience.

Make teacher retention better. We do not benefit by driving older teachers out and trying to fill the gaps with new recruits who have barely completed their VITs. Those teachers are going to see that this is not a long-term career if their older colleagues are leaving because they are fed-up of the system.

Change Australian culture. Fund the arts. Improve the quality of your media. The problem with education comes from outside the education industry.

Maximising the time to teach

The actions proposed will improve retention and free up teachers to focus on teaching and collaboration.

Somewhat disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Smaller class sizes are better for teaching and collaboration.

Work-places that focus on cooperation and collaboration instead of competition will support teachers too.

Better understanding future teacher workforce needs

How effective are the proposed actions in better understanding future teacher workforce needs, including the number of teachers required?

Not effective at all

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Again, I don't think an award is going to attract more teachers.

Better career pathways to support and retain teachers in the profession

The proposed actions will improve career pathways, including through streamlining the process for Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) accreditation, and providing better professional support for teachers to retain them in the profession.

Strongly disagree

Would you like to provide feedback about these actions?

Explain in detail how a HALT accreditation will benefit ALL teachers and keep ALL newer teachers in the profession.

This is like saying that we can increase the chances of people taking up novel-writing as a profession in hope of one day getting a Prime Ministers Literary Award. Except that award makes more sense because novels are usually not a collaborative effort.