The Teachers Are Blowing Their Whistles!

Subtitle

John Ex teacher


Member
Joined Apr 6 2016
Actions
Send a Message
Add as Friend
Flag as Inappropriate
General Info

MALE
66 years old
Brisbane
Site Memberships

The Teachers Are Blowing Their Whistles!
About Me

I was a permanent LOTE, then supply teacher with EQ between 2000 and 2003.

Post a Comment

Oops!

Oops, you forgot something.

Oops!

The words you entered did not match the given text. Please try again.

You must be a member to comment on this page. Sign In or Register

1 Comment

Reply John Ex teacher
8:10 AM on May 2, 2016 
I was a beginning teacher for one term in North Queensland teaching German LOTE in two schools. Early on a senior female teacher told me the other LOTE teachers before me had found it too difficult there, that her male principal knew I was from down Brisbane way, he wanted to add to whatever homesickness I had and if I wanted to stay in teaching I'd need to complain about him. (I guess they wanted me to do some dirty work for them too). There was a lot of negative talk (sometimes heated) about LOTE as a subject at both schools. Towards the end of the term one principal called a meeting of both principals and myself. The other principal who was always considerably kinder, said his school won't be part of the others' expectation that I, as a beginning teacher should have a full operational teaching program in place, where none had ever existed before. To clarify, for example it was widely acknowledged that the French LOTE teachers were much better organized resource wise than the German ones.

So it did get too difficult for me. I got homesick too. I was told by an HR person in North Queensland at the time,that if I stayed there for another term, she'd try to get me a transfer back to western South East Queensland but If I resigned then that's more or less it because I didn't complete country service. That then led to to me doing Supply teaching around Ipswich for a while, where the days teaching got less and less between 2000 and 2003.I now work happily in a different field.

At that time too there were very many unemployed and underemployed teachers but all the students studying teaching had been told there's plenty of jobs.

I was reliably informed at the time by teachers I knew and trusted that it's not my fault so much, it's just that they raised the bar for teaching around 1992 without telling anybody. Teachers also said all of teaching or education is based on a lie.

Oh, I agree with what others have written on your website, that the school staff treat Supply teachers as second class citizens, not giving them the normal breaks regular teachers would enjoy, and as one full time teacher told me, Supply teaching is a tough job and doesn't pay much.