A Ponderance

[Burgs]

AAAHH!!! Now I know what you meant Fulv

Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

Dick: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

[fulvio sammut]

Well. I'm not out to steal from you your good name and make you poor indeed, Burgs.
The quote I had in mind went along the lines of "methinks [you] protesteth too much".

[Burgs]

Ahh, that old chestnut

[Cowboy]

An addendum to Gigs, the vast majority of teachers to come through the two schools in town would be a) first year placement, b) female & c) by legal definition alcoholics. Not in a socially unacceptable way, but after having their idyllic notion of changing lives in the bush beaten out of them by the disgraceful behaviour of feral children in Term 1, they turn to longing for the weekly parties and the end of each term.

Well I've had a bit of a think about their behaviour and have come up with this.

Young teacher leaves university where they usually have an established social network
which also offers support when it is needed. They end up in a rural community where they feel like an outsider. They are also only used to socialising with people who are in their own age group and there is relatively few of them in the town. They have not developed self confidence in their own ability as a teacher yet. As a society we have a tendency to question our own people in positions of authority and their students will certainly do this.
We know that stress is a fight/flight response, but there is always a thought and fear that triggers it first. A young teacher in this situation is probaly going to be afraid the community won't accept them and that they won't be able to do their job or control the classroom. As a result they are stressed.
The other teachers around them are also important. Alot of the married and more experienced teachers will have families of their own and this leaves the younger ones who are all in a similar position with each other. One of the ways stressed young people cope in our society is to let their hair down with a party, and it's something that they have already practiced before at leavers and uni.
Exicitment and stress are identical in terms of brain chemistry (they are both fuelled by adrenaline) so when a stressed person parties they really can party. There is also another complicating factor to their behaviour when they party. Since they do not feel like they are part of the community they don't feel like they have any responsibility or that there could be consequences to their behaviour (this also explains why people take risks they normally wouldn't when on holiday and the player behaviour problem the Force have had). We probaly all know from our own experience that alcohol and adrenaline are a pretty heady mix.

As a society we have expectations of behaviour from others and as parents we expect the teachers of our children to behave in a manner that we want our children to grow up to copy. Rural towns also have no secrets. As a result the teachers feel like they need to get the hell out of town on the weekend to destress and start to feel like it is us (teachers) against them (community). In short a seige mentality develops, this is a repeated pattern in our society and one we fall into out of familiarity. By the end of the year the young teacher can't wait to get the hell out of town and the following year we get to repeat the pattern again. Everyone loses in this cycle. There are probaly more reasons why the teachers are stressed but the main point is to understand the cycle and that one belief and behaviour reinforces the next one.

What we can do to break the cycle.
When a young teacher arrives into town invite them to participate in some of the towns social out lets. This could be one of the local sports teams (and we don't care if your shite just come along) or if they turn this down try a bookclub or something else more intellectual, just get them out and into the community. It's okay that they will also socialise with their workmates but we have got to break the them/us cycle so that it becomes only us. A teacher who knows they have the support of their community will do a much better job of teaching our kids and even if we are unsure of ourselves to invite them out, think of your kids benefit and it gets easier.
For towns that don't have other social outlets to sport I would say start some (music, art whatever, there are often people with a broader range of experience in rural towns then most people expect. Try to make use of them and get some govt support). There is a time and a place for everything and even though in other parts of our country the people participating in some activities become far too self important, it doesn't mean they will in your town. Lastly while you are out socially it is not the time to be discussing work. Parent teacher meetings are the time to discuss your child and if you see someone you know doing this try to get them to understand this as well.

Lastly make it clear to your children that common curtesy also applies in the classroom. Respect for others also applies to teachers, but we also need our teachers to command repect and know that fear and respect are different things.

[Burgs]

That sounds 100% correct (ie breaking the cycle) for the situation in the ag region and larger communities such as Kalgoorlie, Karratha, Broome etc however generally, by a policy of some sort, the first years have to do their country year before getting permanancy and that rarely means any of the desirable locations.
So you get young adults in small towns (and remoe communities) where generally the other young adults are parents and all their peers except the Principal are first or second years.
On top of that, before the School of the Air moved to Gero, you had the ridiculous situation in Meeka where the town teachers and the SOTA teachers didn't really talk to each other, therefore shrinking their pool even more.
Generally I believe the system is wrong where they combine the least experienced teachers with the most remote schools with some of the worst behaved students.
It is a diservice to the teachers and to the students alike.

[GIGS20]

I think a fair bit of that will be getting addressed by the current teacher shortage Burgs. There are plenty of good jobs available in the city and Graduates are getting them hand over fist. I would think that anybody who goes country these days is pretty committed to it, since you only need a pulse and a WACOT number to get a job in Perth.

Unfortunately that basically means, all the tough schools in the country (essentially anything that isn't in a regional centre or 100M froman awesome fishing spot ot surf beach) will probably be suffering a teacher shortage next year.

[Burgs]

Unfortunately they already are, so it will only increase the problem as it will become the handful of "dedicated" ones and the shit first years that can't even get a plum job in a shortage who are left out here.
Meanwhile education in the bush plummets, associated antisocial behaviour/crime sky rockets and any kids with a brain and a parent to support them will centalise to the better education providers or bust their arse to put them through boarding schools.
No easy answers to all that, but the current system is broken.

[GIGS20]

There's a very simple fix Burgs, but nobody who can fix it wants to hear how.........Money! I'm not saying that teachers don't get a good wage, actually considering we can live a (fairly) comfortable (not flash but comfortable) existence on one income attests to that, but Kids don't want to teach and don't enter Uni in enough numbers.........if you pay teachers enough, Kids will line up to get in, it's all about getting the balance right, you want to attract the quality people to the profession which is churning out our future doctors and rocket scientists, not the dross who can't get into anything else at Uni!

I'm jumping off this soapbox, because it appears I'm hijacking a very valuable thread on a great topic (which isn't actually the woes of the education system) Sorry Cowboy/Burgs. You were saying?

[blueandblack]

A ponderance.

Why does Pad Thai smell like puppy dog? Is it a direct translation from Thai to English?

[Thaied_Up]

A ponderance.

Why does Pad Thai smell like puppy dog? Is it a direct translation from Thai to English?

Does it? Change restaurants.

[Cowboy]

I'm jumping off this soapbox, because it appears I'm hijacking a very valuable thread on a great topic (which isn't actually the woes of the education system) Sorry Cowboy/Burgs. You were saying?

Don't worry mate, the only reason I have taken my time is that my internet service was down till today.

So how do we want to attract teachers and improve the quality of the teaching they deliver.
One of the biggest things that I remember about my own teachers from high school was how often they told us about how teaching was their second choice career, about how their mate managed to get a job doing X and was making so much more money than they were etc. The underlying message that I heard was "this is a job that I really don't want to do and you should not want to either". Unfortunately as a society we don't respect teaching as a profession very highly at the moment and I am not convinced (though I don't really know) that the teachers themselves particulary those new to the profession, truely value what they do. The chance to make a positive contribution to the lives of our kids is something to be proud of and I hope that the people teaching my children feel this.
I don't think that it is overly important to attract the most intelligent university enterants to teaching or those who are motivated by money. I view money as being alot like oxygen, in that it is very important when you don't have enough of it but the rest of the time I don't need to worry about it. Somehow we need to attract people who want to help other people but they do need to be fairly rewarded, what is even more important is that we respect what they do as a community.


I'm not sure if I have explained the process of stress anywhere else so here goes. When we are afraid of something our brain releases adrenalin which we feel as the run away or stand and fight response (some of us may also freeze if overwhelmed) but before this happens there is always a thought which triggers this response. If we are feeling stress then it means we are afraid of something, unfortunately admitting that we are afraid is the greatest taboo in our society, our concept of strength of character is to not feel afraid. Because we do not want to feel afraid we channel the stress into anger, and if we stay angry for long enough we end up hating the thing we are afraid of. The thing is, many of our fears are just not logical and because we don't admit to them we don't address them. When I first went to use a computer (years ago now) I was incredibly stressed (afraid of stuffing things up), when I see someone stressing over technology now I remind them that a) it does not have a self destruct button, b) it can not accidently launch the nukes and start WW3, and importantly c) anything that you could possibly damage on the computer I have already made copies of and can be fixed, in short there is nothing to be afraid of. Once we have faced something we are afraid of, done it and realised that we don't need to be afraid our self confidence grows. This is something that we all do, recognise what the potential problem is, have a plan for any genuine problem and forget about the rest. Being able to do this is behaving as an adult.

There is another side to this and that is when teachers behave in a manner which does not deserve the respect of our community. I hope that no one takes this the wrong way, I have also fallen into behaviours at times that I look back upon and regret, however we all make mistakes. If we can learn from them, then they at least serve a purpose but if we don't we end up repeating them. We need our teachers to be able to control the classroom by earning the respect of their students, rather than using fear in one form or another. If the teacher is confident and calm when dealing with poor behaviour they don't escalate conflicts, they are able to difuse them. Getting angry at students rather than asserting what we expect of them only increases the level of stress in the situation and the students lose respect for the teacher. Other forms of trying to maintain control over students that are also regrettable are sarcasm and harsh critisism of who the student is.
I know a teacher socially who said "all I have against them is to get at them mentally to control them." Why is she so afraid of her students? Children call other children names when they are afraid of them, not adults. If you understand that, then it will most likely come as no suprise to you that she also most likely has an eating disorder. Her students need her to act as an adult under pressure, and she also needs support, be it from other teachers, school parents and the community.
The most important point here is that we need to know how we want the adults in positions of authority to behave when under pressure. I want us to act with courage and not anger, to feel the conviction of knowing this is what I (and my community) believe in, to be able to calm our own anxieties and face our own fears. In short we actually need adults to teach our children how to be adults. In saying this I know that many kids today also don't have any other adults in their lives, but we can only control ourselves.
If our teachers can control themselves (which may need to be taught as part of their training) then they will be able to take control of the classroom, ease the anxieties of their students and learning will follow. If you have ever had to try and learn something when redicuously stressed as opposed to learning while you are calm you will understand that the difference in mental performence is almost unbelievably big.

[Burgs]

To perhaps illustrate the earlier part of your post Cowboy, a school leaver can get work on a mine earning $80k+ making beds or pealing spuds, or $100k+ driving a dumpy or they can go to Uni for (?)4 years, get a decent sized HECS bill at the end of it for the privilege of coming to sunny Meekatharra/Wiluna/wherever to get spat on, sworn at and have chairs thrown at them.
I hear on the radio today (different proffession, similar problem) that there is a proposal to pay out HECS for students who stay in nursing as they have massive shortages there.

[fulvio sammut]

That's social engineering for you ...

[Cowboy]

Yes it is, but if you don't know how you want to behave (which is the only part of where I am proposing expectations) how can you expect to improve?
Alot of the social problems that I see us as having (substance abuse, suicide, marriage breakdown etc) are all expressions of coping with stress poorly. We could improve things simply by learning to manage stress well. Currently our thinking on improving most of these social issues is to remove the risk (run from them), I think that we need to learn how to face them, as I have had to. One of the facts of life is bad things do happen. For an adult who has been taught that the way we manage our fears is to run from them (be it physically or mentally) it is little wonder that we can't help them, and they don't feel that they can get help from us.
From my perspective people are too bloody scared to face fears which simply are not logical and we are not behaving as adults.

[GIGS20]

Unfortunately as a society we don't respect teaching as a profession very highly at the moment and I am not convinced (though I don't really know) that the teachers themselves particulary those new to the profession, truely value what they do. The chance to make a positive contribution to the lives of our kids is something to be proud of and I hope that the people teaching my children feel this.

OK, Point taken money's not the only answer, but seriously mate I know SO many good teachers who have left the profession in the last couple of years because they need to pay their mortgage and feed their kids. Surely this situation needs to be addressed because altruism only goes so far....Take me, I'd like to think I'm a pretty good teacher, I like my job, I help kids to grow into productive contributing members of society, I have to spend 1/2 my week in administration next year because being a classroom teacher doesn't pay the bills. something needs to be done about that.

I don't think that it is overly important to attract the most intelligent university enterants to teaching or those who are motivated by money...Somehow we need to attract people who want to help other people but they do need to be fairly rewarded, what is even more important is that we respect what they do as a community.

If something isn't done to make teaching an attractive profession we'll continue to attract only three types of people 1)Altruistic, committed teachers who'll stick it out as long as they can afford 2)People who can't get a better paying job (Teaching certainly pays better than stacking shelves in a supermarket, and 3)Paedophiles (let's face it they'll always try because it's a target rich environment)

Sorry about the editing mate....just don't want to write an essay

We need our teachers to be able to control the classroom by earning the respect of their students, rather than using fear in one form or another. If the teacher is confident and calm when dealing with poor behaviour they don't escalate conflicts, they are able to difuse them. Getting angry at students rather than asserting what we expect of them only increases the level of stress in the situation and the students lose respect for the teacher. Other forms of trying to maintain control over students that are also regrettable are sarcasm and harsh critisism of who the student is.
I know a teacher socially who said "all I have against them is to get at them mentally to control them." Why is she so afraid of her students? Children call other children names when they are afraid of them, not adults.

Point 1....mate the respect of 13 year olds is impossible to earn unless you're Zac Efron or Ashley Tisdale....they're just too self-involved....OK some people handle that fact badly, I agree but it's because they aren't trained to handle the situation and they aren't given any tools with which to control an unrooly bunch of 13 year olds who say they aren't going to do something "because they don't wanna" I usually just drag out the faithful "teacher look" and raise my voice to about half volume...works a treat, but seriously it's a pain in the ass to have to do that to get people interested in what you're talking about.
I'd much rather show kids something cool and say let's have a closer look at this......they then turn into valuable hardworking classmembers, but in every class of year 8s there's the smart ass who wants to assert authority over you like they do over their mum (dad's usually not around) who's usually less than 20 years older than them and wants to be seen as being cool. I tend to hate 13 year olds as a result

In short we actually need adults to teach our children how to be adults. In saying this I know that many kids today also don't have any other adults in their lives, but we can only control ourselves.
If our teachers can control themselves (which may need to be taught as part of their training) then they will be able to take control of the classroom, ease the anxieties of their students and learning will follow.

Yeah I agree, but mate....you've gotta have a go. I've been doing this for 18 years. I'm one of the calmest people in the classroom I know.....I tend not to act on the little shit that hurts nobody and I form positive relationships with most of my students....Having several who contact me if they've had a rough time.....I lose it every now and again....Kids like to set up a combative environment because it makes teachers do things that are funny....think back, what di your class do to the student teacher or the relief teacher...do you think that's changed? You have to have a pretty awesome self concept to work so closely with teenagers for so long, because it'll get stripped away instantly if you don't.

BTW I reject your statement that sarcasm isn't appropriate in the classroom. I pay out mercilessly on the kids I like and who can handle it.....the kids know that! I've had relationships with some kids where I spend every lesson trying to find a different way to call them dumb (usually pretty hard, because I usually pick on the brightest kid in the class to do that) The kids like it...it builds a relationship....it's finally somebody who's being real with them...OK I make mistakes and have to apologise every now and again, but I do....as soon as I notice the kid has been hurt....and we move on. It's the PC crap that gets in the way of teachers working well with kids not the teachers themselves!

To perhaps illustrate the earlier part of your post Cowboy, a school leaver can get work on a mine earning $80k+ making beds or pealing spuds, or $100k+ driving a dumpy or they can go to Uni for (?)4 years, get a decent sized HECS bill at the end of it for the privilege of coming to sunny Meekatharra/Wiluna/wherever to get spat on, sworn at and have chairs thrown at them.
I hear on the radio today (different proffession, similar problem) that there is a proposal to pay out HECS for students who stay in nursing as they have massive shortages there.

And that!

Yes it is, but if you don't know how you want to behave (which is the only part of where I am proposing expectations) how can you expect to improve?
Alot of the social problems that I see us as having (substance abuse, suicide, marriage breakdown etc) are all expressions of coping with stress poorly. We could improve things simply by learning to manage stress well. Currently our thinking on improving most of these social issues is to remove the risk (run from them), I think that we need to learn how to face them, as I have had to. One of the facts of life is bad things do happen. For an adult who has been taught that the way we manage our fears is to run from them (be it physically or mentally) it is little wonder that we can't help them, and they don't feel that they can get help from us.
From my perspective people are too bloody scared to face fears which simply are not logical and we are not behaving as adults.

I agree mate!