I am a primary teacher and frankly I find the insinuations that I cannot read, research and make decisions for myself, and am merely the instrument of a socialist union out to stymie all government initiatives, hugely insulting. I work in a supportive, challenging strongly collegial unit where we learn off each other alongside our students. We collaborate on projects within our local cluster of schools allowing our tamariki and ourselves to participate and engage with our rich and diverse neighbourhood. Our common goal is to build and improve on our pedagogy and thus improve our student outcomes (from wherever they happen to sit on the continuum of learning). This is not a job, its a vocation or calling if you like. You simply cannot do this work without loving it. It is long hours, weekends, attending school events, dealing with concerned parents, worrying that you havent seen that child individually today.......yet - there we are at 7.30 on Monday morning ready to do it all again because the rewards are incredible. Its great that government seems to want to put money into education however we think it could be spent in better ways. If my class was smaller, children would get more individual attention, its pretty simple. If there was more on the ground support for special needs children it would be easier. It would be nice to see some different career pathways open up for teachers but not in this way - I think the ACET recognition is a better example of how this could work. At the end of the day :) we want the best for our kids, we want a rigorous strong education system that does not bend and fall victim to whatever political regime is in power. We want to keep our great teachers teaching and not leaving in droves as we see happening in other countries. Its a good fight, something worth standing up for! Tu Tangata
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 01:39:47 +0000
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