Stressed-out of Perth, Reader's Comment 57 of 97, Special Report: Teachers reveal why they walked, Yasmine Phillips, Education reporter, Perth Now, 19 February 2011: http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/special-report-teachers-reveal-why-they-walked/comments-e6frg13u-1226008656772 Historical link preserved from the original page.
Kalgoorlie goldfields, West Australia: ex-teacher now drives a dump truck for twice as much money as she earned when she was teaching. And she has days off.
My friend was a yr 9 maths teacher at a local West Australian middle school. Historical link preserved from the original page.
Over the years I watched her struggle with behaviour management of unruly students.
Her work load was unbelievable. She had over 60 students.
Day after day she would strive to deliver the lessons that she had planned, trying desperately to make maths fun and interesting for her students.
Sadly because she had to spend so much of her time dealing with behaviour management in the classroom she often had little time left for actually teaching the lesson content.
Today there are many programmes and staff at schools to handle students' problems, which are many, but unfortunately there is little or no support for teachers who are experiencing problems with unruly students.
Some students have great difficulty in simply following instructions and obeying rules.
Added to that, some parents either don't care about their childs behaviour, or don't have the time to deal with it because work is far more important than family, or believe that their child is perfectly behaved and would NEVER swear, throw things, hit, spit at, or verbally abuse a teacher.
My teacher friend now drives a dump truck for twice as much money with actual days off.