WHY TEACH?

Change the world - teach

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela

If I didn't think I could make a difference I wouldn't be doing the job I'm doing today.

Under new legislation outlined in a review paper titled 'Greater accountability for non-Government schools', non-Government schools are now required to comply with new regulations aimed at improving accountability and standards. The changes are a response to the Government-commissioned Warren Grimshaw report 2002 - to improve the transparency and accountability of private schools.
Teaching staff at non-Government's schools must now be appropriately qualified. That means teachers must:

* Have recognised teacher qualifications;
* Or be directly supervised by qualified staff;
* Or working towards achieving recognised qualifications

At our school we are currently working toward this compliance by having all unqualified teachers complete their N.S.W Bachelor of Teaching or Diploma of Education, (for those with an existing tertiary qualification). In some cases the teachers involved have been teaching for 30 years with no formal teaching qualifications. Between us we have a few hundred years of teaching experience!
As a full time high school teacher I thought at first that going back to university to learn how to teach would be an inconvenient waste of time. I imagined this to be a necessary evil and agreed to apply myself half-heartedly to comply with regulations.
I am now in my second semester of my university year and can actually say that it is really quite interesting and that I am finding the process stimulating for my teaching practice. It does require more time than I anticipated but I am learning to make everything more integrated, for example, when I teach a lesson I now use my review process as both a reflective exercise that I can count toward a university assessment task as well as for my own teaching requirements/practice.
It has also left me wondering what becomes of teachers who trained 10 or 15 years ago? How do they keep abreast of recent developments especially in relation to I.T.? One of my colleagues who has been teaching for some years and obtained her qualification in 2003 has been really interested to see what I doing, and has been asking me lots of questions. Perhaps her interest is stimulated by her only recently attending university. I often wonder what becomes of the other teachers who have long since graduated? Fortunately at our school we have ongoing professional development and we have prioritised and encouraged teachers to attend programmes run by Association of Independent Schools and further afield. I have been to quite a few of these seminars and have also come away feeling very positive and invigorated.
I am also enjoying creating this blog and have been inspired to create two others. The first of these is aimed at developing an online community to share and propose ideas, including the development of an itinerary in relation to a planned class trip for 2007. The other blog will serve as a repository for ideas and information around the subject of rhythms and cycles in relation to health and education. This is another area of study in which I am interested in and am on my way to obtaining a qualification in.