Mawson, Reader's comment, Hey politicians, leave those teachers alone, Jane Caro, The Drum, ABC News, 11 March 2013: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4565396.html Historical link preserved from the original page.
I got hit, kicked, spat on, head-butted, had hot water thrown at me and was verbally abused on a daily basis.
Mary Claire is one of many Australian school teachers who has left the profession after being emotionally scarred by her students. Historical link preserved from the original page.
She was left with back and neck injuries after a child threw tables and chairs across her classroom.
I was stressed constantly. I was constantly waiting for the next thing to happen, waiting for someone to be hurt or for someone to be killed, " she said.
I was threatened that my house would be burnt down. I got hit, kicked, spat, head-butted, had hot water thrown at me and being verbally abused on a daily basis.
Violence in schools, Leisa Goddard, Today Tonight, 27 May 2013 http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/lifestyle/article/-/17342811/violence-in-schools/ Historical link preserved from the original page.
Inala Flexible Learning Centre, South Brisbane: two female teachers have to deal with students fighting with a knife in their classroom.
At about 11.30am on Wednesday 4 September 2013, two female teachers and about six students were in a classroom at the Inala Flexible Learning Centre on Poinsettia Street in Brisbane's southwest.
A 16-year-old allegedly stormed into the classroom and began arguing with the 14-year-old.
The 14-year-old allegedly pulled a knife and threatened the older teen.
A violent scuffle followed.
The 14-year-old was allegedly stabbed with his own knife.
The 16-year-old was left with cuts to his hands.
Boy, 14, stabbed at Brisbane school, Marissa Calligeros, Brisbane Times, 4 September 2013.
40-year-old casual teacher: I have no hope of owning a house and will be renting damp, ugly dumps forever.
My version of 5th-year burnout was to leave the country in search of a better teaching job than I could find here.
I failed in that search and returned penniless.
This was partly because of the GFC and changes that the Australian government made to the tax status of expatriate workers shortly afterwards. Historical link preserved from the original page.
But it was a brutal lesson in what the world generally thinks of teachers.
Finland is a bit of an island in that ocean, and my Finnish is not the best.
I also hear it's bl--dy cold there.
So I guess I'm staying.
This means I have no hope of owning a house and will be renting damp, ugly dumps forever.
This means increasingly permanent status as a casual employee.
This means I will continue to work in cramped staffrooms on an A3-sized patch of desktop, at the bottom of a canyon of yellowing paper and long-abandoned textbooks that seem to have sat around since the 1960s.
It means my rusting, demountable classroom has no working aircon and isn't likely to get it.
So my students and I will work in 38-degree heat this summer.
To be honest, I don't see a future career in engineering or shock-jock broadcasting ahead of me.
The early 40s are not a prime time for another debilitating round of intense study, the concurrent working of two or three menial part-time jobs, and thousands more dollars in HECS debt.
And I enjoy my present work in theory, it's just the practice of it that has left me chronically depressed and exhausted.
When I was a student at one of Sydney University's colleges, I spoke to a recent graduate who returned to tell us all about teaching.
What was it like?
'It will make you question the meaning and value of life', he said.
I thought this so melodramatic at the time, I actually laughed out loud.
I'm not laughing now.