There are thousands of things I love about my job, which is not something too many people can say about the work they do. I
get paid to spend my days with 450 kids who are going to be the very people shaping
our world, for better or worse, in a few years. In some ways the
responsibility, which comes with being one of the people to help them find the direction
they’ll go in, is rather daunting. I could be the difference between a young
person believing that they have nothing significant to contribute to the world
or believing that anything is possible. Naturally, I hope to inspire the latter
and, for the most part, I find this prospect really exciting.
The other adults I work with often have varying levels of
love for the job and varying levels of commitment to it. I find it fascinating
to sit back and watch the different interactions which occur between the adults
and the young people in this environment and, often, how differently each
behaves depending on who the other party is. Some adults have kids pegged from
day one. There’s always the naughty one, the gifted one, the odd one and the nice one in every year group, but what some of my colleagues
seem to forget is that, in the course of a year, these kids can change.
The changes I see in the kids I teach are usually my
favourite part of the job. Sometimes life, either inside or outside of school,
gets the better of them and the changes I witness in them are heartbreaking.
For the most part, however, I am lucky enough to see them start to really figure out
who they are over the course of 12 months. When they do change, the best thing the adults around them can do is
acknowledge this change and begin to treat them like the person they are instead of the person they were.
One of the key drivers of positive change in young people is high
expectations and I, and a lot of my colleagues over the years, have expected a lot. The 25-30 students I interact with
directly, for an entire calendar year, learn very quickly that mediocre is unacceptable.
They realise that I’m more than okay with them not knowing, but I am certainly not okay with them not trying. When young people realise effort
isn’t optional, but is actually required, the vast majority of them tend to put
more in.
This past week five classes of students have had the
opportunity to write a creative response about the importance of writing. The
major incentive for them to do so is an interstate trip, with representatives from
other local schools, to a two day writing workshop. Of these five classes, only
two saw every child encouraged to submit a response. From the other three
classes, only one or two children were encouraged to be involved. I found it
incredibly disappointing that three of my colleagues either didn’t believe the
opportunity was significant enough to encourage all students, or didn’t have enough
belief in the capabilities of the other students in their classes.
The work I received from my students this week was
astounding. For the past few weeks my class has been humming with excitement over
this opportunity and the students have been doing everything possible to
convince me of their belief in the importance of writing and their desire to go
on the trip. I could easily say that the written responses they submitted were
the best pieces of writing I’ve seen from each of them, individually, all year.
I received three page narratives, free verse poetry and letters, among the
various submissions, and each of them showed creativity, individuality and a
genuine belief that writing is important. When I expect the most from my
students, they still manage to surprise me and manage to show they are capable
of even more.
What happens, then, to the students who aren’t given a push
or aren’t even encouraged to try? If the bar is continually set low, these kids
have no way of reaching their full potential and realising that the
possibilities for them in this world are endless. So many of our students come
to school with a message from home that says school is just a place you have to
go to. Many parents had terrible experiences, themselves, in school and are
passing on the belief that its only purpose is to give you somewhere to be,
Monday to Friday, 9am-3pm, between the ages of five and 17. It infuriates me when my colleagues do little
to change this mentality. It also saddens to think that many of them love going home more than they enjoy
actually being there.
Many of these people need to start setting far higher
expectations for themselves or find a different job to not care about. Thank goodness for the kids who step up to the mark when so
many of the adults are falling short.