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Quality of higher education, equity of participation and access are front and centre in the new Universities Accord interim report, released by Education Minister Jason Clare at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
Minister Clare described five key priority areas for immediate action – three of which directly related to equity. In contrast to increasing equity and fairness for students, there was limited mention of university staff and the levels of casualisation in the sector, aside from calling for universities to become “exemplary employers”.
What are the five key priorities?
The first priority action recommends extending access to higher education by creating more Regional University Centres. In response, the federal government has committed to doubling the number of existing hubs, creating a further 20 centres in regional locations and 14 in the outer-suburban areas of major cities.
The second priority action recommends abolishing the 50% pass rule which was introduced under the former government’s Job Ready Graduates Package. The government has committed to removing this rule, which has disproportionately affected students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Professor Barney Dalgarno from the University of Canberra said that many of these students can excel in their studies, when given appropriate support from academics.
The third priority action seeks to ensure all First Nations students are eligible for a guaranteed funded place at university. In 2021 such a guarantee was introduced for First Nations students from regional and remote Australia, and the government has agreed to applying this guarantee nationwide.
The fourth priority action recommends extending the Covid-era Higher Education Continuity Guarantee for 2024 and 2025. The government has agreed to this to allow funding certainty to universities as the Accord process rolls out.
Finally, the fifth priority action seeks to improve university governance with a focus on employment practices, student and staff safety, and the make-up of university governance bodies.
Equity is about more than aspirations
Investment in higher education is an investment in young people and in our future as a nation. As Minister Clare pointed out in his address, that investment needs to start in our early childhood education and continue through our school sector. He rightly treats the education landscape as an interconnected jigsaw puzzle.
However, too often the question of equity becomes one of raising aspirations. The interim report focuses on “increasing aspiration” and the need to “develop the aspirations of potential students”. However, we know from research that students from all backgrounds aspire to university and careers that require higher education qualifications. The final report of the Accord working group must focus on how we remove barriers that not only limit access to university for students from diverse backgrounds and target equity groups, but also support their success once they arrive on our campuses.
University staff are key to realising the Accord’s ambitions
A big gap in the Accord’s interim report is concrete action on improving employment conditions at universities. The Accord report rightly acknowledges the rife casualisation across the sector, noting that 69% of teaching is conducted by casual staff members. While the report notes that casual employment can suit both employer and employees, a 2019 survey conducted by NTEU showed that 82% of casual staff would prefer part-time or full-time ongoing employment.
My research, with colleagues from QUT, Charles Sturt University and the United Kingdom, has identified that casualisation of teaching and short-term contract research gigs disproportionately impact women, people from diverse backgrounds and early career researchers. Lengths of precarity can limit career opportunities through reduced ability to obtain professional development or career planning. Some casuals have held the same roles for decades and yet aren’t considered eligible for conversion to ongoing roles.
The Accord recognises that recent staff underpayments are “patently unacceptable” for a public institution but must go further to ensure that everyone in academic work is paid for the time they spend on supporting student learning and engaging in high quality research.
Casual teaching staff are only paid for their time on class and limited time for marking assignments. They are not currently paid for their time engaging in professional development or providing additional supports for students, both of which are recommendations within the Accord. These situations leave many academics with the impossible choice of providing the levels of support that they know students need and just focusing on what they are paid to do. Universities know this and exploit the care and dedication of their staff.
More consistent funding is required for universities to ‘de-casualise’ and ensure that the knowledge and skills of high-quality lecturers and researchers are acknowledged, retained and enhanced.
A vision for high quality teaching and research
Consideration of the employment conditions in Australian universities is critical if the vision laid out in the Accord interim report is to be achieved. It describes a vision for 2035 of a more equitable system that supports all Australians, who choose to go to university, to study in supportive environments that foster high quality teaching and research.
The interim report acknowledges that this vision and “the sector’s success in delivering skills, knowledge and equity is underpinned by enduring and stable funding and governance architecture”. The potential risks of continuing such high levels of casualisation in higher education are clearly illustrated in the issues currently playing out in UK universities, reminding us that “staff working conditions are student learning conditions”.
Jess Harris is an associate professorin the School of Education at the University of Newcastle. Her research is focused on the leadership and development of teachers and teaching within schools and through initial teacher education. She draws on a range of qualitative research methods, including conversation analysis and membership categorisation analysis.
Image of Jason Clare at the National Press Club from video on his Facebook page.
On Wednesday, the Minister for Education Jason Clare, spoke at the National Press Club on the interim report from the Universities Accord Panel, chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane, who have been given the job of transforming Australia’s university sector.
The report itself has ambitious long- term goals including parity of participation in higher education between the general population and low SES and regional students with disability. This is a very big ask. The minister himself, in his National Press Club speech, noted that in schools these groups are actually going backward rather than forward. The minister also announced a number of other items, including extension of demand-driven funding to all Indigenous students rather than just students from the regions, as it is now.
If the interim report’s recommendation is accepted there will be some kind of universal learning entitlement for all students, which essentially means that if they’re academically eligible, the system somehow will find a place for them. It implies that universities and other higher education providers might be obliged to take students rather than just having the choice to take them. This makes it different from the previous demand-driven system, which removed funding caps for bachelor degree students, but did not guarantee a place to all who were eligible.
There are a number of proposals around research and associated issues. The most contentious one will be the idea of a levy on international student fees.
How this would work is not entirely clear – the basic idea seems to be that universities will pay a percentage of their international student fee income into a general fund and that money would be redistributed around research infrastructure and other activities around the university sector.
A number of universities would be very strongly opposed to that. International students will also be unhappy that the money they’re paying will not be spent in their institutions.
The minister also revealed some proposed and actual major changes to governance. At the national level the interim report recommends a new body, a Tertiary Education Commission, would advise on costs and writing agreements between the government and universities.
At the university level an interim report recommendation, which the federal government has already accepted but still needs approval from states and territories, will require senates and councils, their governing bodies, to have different compositions. This would reduce the number of business people and increase the number of people with expertise in higher education. I’ve seen firsthand that sometimes the council members don’t have a deep understanding of higher education as an industry so I support that recommendation.
The goals here are to deal with some of the staffing problems universities have had, particularly in precarious employment and underpayment of casual staff; and also to deal with issues around students particularly around sexual assault. I believe the Accord panel wants university governing bodies to be more aware of and more responsible for trying to improve the performance of universities on these matters.
But it is important that councils and senates are also not stacked by internal constituencies. There was a problem all those decades ago that governments were rightly trying to address in governance reforms. But having people with real higher education expertise will help, hopefully a number of them from outside the institution whose council or senate they are on.
What’s missing from this report?
What’s missing is mostly the detail of how we would get from where we are now to where they want us to be. They don’t say a lot on a new system of student contributions, which is one of the most controversial areas they have to deal with. They’ve said that the Job-Ready Graduates package (JRGP) is damaging Australian higher education and has to go, but they have only set out a list of potential alternative student contribution systems.
The report makes a few asides which hint at their views, which means the panel probably won’t recommend just quickly reversing the charges for art students. Nor do they want a flat student contribution rate, as suggested by some university interest groups. But that still leaves a fairly wide variety of possible alternatives. And so I think we will have to wait until the final report at the end of this year to have an idea of where they’re going on that.
The main defect of JRGP is that it puts a lot of debt on graduates who have a limited capacity to repay in any reasonable amount of time, particularly the arts graduates who historically don’t earn as much as other graduates. They are being hit with the highest student contribution rate, about $15,000 a year at the moment. My view is that many of them will take decades to repay if they ever do. And while the HELP loan system is designed to allow you to spread repayments over long periods of time, that should be people who are sick or for various reasons don’t work full-time, not for ordinary graduates getting a fairly typical outcome for someone with their degrees.
The report doesn’t directly mention my proposal for replacing student contributions, which is to link student contributions levels to projected HELP debt repayment times. The goal is that the typical student from different degrees would spent roughly the same number of years repaying their debate, on average. But the minister did mention it in the National Press Club. So that gives me hope.
Another big political issue, which my student contribution proposal is intended to partly remedy, is the burden of HELP debt. The report mentions ideas which it seems the ATO is already working on, such as taking into account the money students have already repaid that financial year, via the PAYG system, before indexation occurs.
The Accord review panel are also considering moving the repayment system to what they call a marginal repayment system. This means people with HELP debt would pay a percentage of their income above the threshold, not on their entire income as now.
The panel does address some long running problems in the system, including not covering the full cost of competitive research grants. I’m not sure that they have new solutions for that, a lot of these issues have been known for a long time. Governments for various reasons have decided it’s too expensive to fix them.
One potentially complex issue is that the Panel suggests winding back some of the research requirements that were introduced by the Peter Coaldrake review of the regulations for being a university. That will make it easier for some universities to retain their university status. But there’s always anxiety that universities might be reduced to so-called teaching-only universities, particularly if they are regional institutions. That group will be trying hard to make sure that they get good mission-based funding, which respects the role that their research plays in their local areas.
I think the report paints a reasonably honest portrait of where the system is. It highlights the problems around staffing. But these exist for reasons which are deep in the funding system. There is no easy way out of the basic structural problems – universities can have better payroll systems that stop the underpayment of casuals but that won’t remove the underlying reasons why they have so many casual staff in the first place.
The panel and the minister are encouraging critique and alternative ideas. Whether or not we agree with all the ideas presented, that is a good approach to public policy.
Andrew Norton is Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University. He blogs at andrewnorton.net .au Follow him on Twitter @andrewjnorton
Header image of the Minister for Education Jason Clare speaking at the National Press Club from the minister’s Facebook page
In Victoria, the Australian Education Union has struck up a deal with the Andrews Government, and the cross-system adoption of a new workplace agreement is imminent. In what feels like good news in the face of a profession in crisis, the agreement promises significant improvement to support teacher workload. The proposed model, named ‘30/8’ sorts a 38-hour work week into 30 hours directly associated with teaching and learning (such as teaching, collaboration, planning, assessment, marking) and 8 hours for ‘additional’ activities – like yard duty, before and after school supervision, and attendance at meetings. Sounds fair, and in principle, sounds great.
The problem though, is the risk to maintaining a commitment to high quality and effective professional learning – and the devil is in the detail. See, of the 30 hours in the 30/8 model, there is time allocated for ‘teacher-directed professional learning and professional development’. Yet ‘employer-directed’ professional learning, and ‘whole school curriculum development’ fall under the 8 hours of ‘other activities’.
We as educators regard effective professional learning as a critical factor in positive changes to teacher practices and improvements in student learning outcomes. Not surprisingly, learning – our own and our students’ – is a core value we share. In fact, it was confirmed in a recent large scale national survey that the top reasons teachers and leaders engage in professional learning are to improve their individual professional practice, to increase their school’s collective effectiveness for the betterment of students, and to help improve upon school identified priority areas. Perhaps most interestingly, though Australian teachers are mandated to complete at least 100 hours of professional learning over each 5-year term to maintain full registration, the survey revealed that a desire to fulfil administrative and bureaucratic requirements was way down the priority list.
A dangerous culture of ‘bean-counting’
Incessantly counting the hours of collaborative whole-school or whole-system professional learning and classifying it ‘other’ to the core business of teaching and learning is dangerous. School principals and administrators have begun keeping spreadsheets with each teacher’s name, and monitoring with precision the allocation of each hour and minute. I have facilitated school-wide professional learning sessions in recent weeks, and when the clock hands creep towards the hour, teachers are packing up, encouraged by their principals to walk out right on time, sometimes mid-activity, to avoid the owing of the dreaded TIL (time in lieu). Similarly, rooms previously filled with teachers before and after school, planning, learning, and reflecting together, are now empty – outside of compulsory meeting times.
Reducing the value we place on collaborative professional learning bears the greatest risk to the students we teach. When teachers are led to collaborate and learn together, the result is a sharing of knowledge and expertise for building a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Schools can then craft a base of pedagogical knowledge that is distributed among teachers within a school as opposed to being held by individual teachers. Other benefits of collaborative professional learning include improved teacher effectiveness, enhanced job satisfaction, shared accountability for student outcomes and greater creativity and innovation.
What we must hold onto
A wide body of literature supports the need for sustained, content focused professional learning. The learning must be designed with contextualised, job-embedded action – meaning time to trial strategies relevant to a given setting in the classroom, and then time allocated to reflect upon these. Providing teachers with models of effective practice is imperative alongside the offering of coaching, feedback and expert support. Collaborative professional learning communities are lauded as the most effective and supportive means of meeting these fundamental objectives, because as AITSL conclude, collaboration powerfully amplifies the benefits of high-quality professional learning. This emphasises the imperative for schools to design a culture, where teachers and leaders are supported to work together on their learning endeavours.
Teacher Agency Matters, too
In the new workplace agreement’s 30/8 split, the 30 hours includes ‘teacher-directed professional development and professional learning’. This element of agency is important, especially because we want teachers to have input into the professional learning activities they undertake, with the aim to realise impactful change on their own practice. It has been found that teacher agency is an influential factor for teacher professional learning, school improvement and sustainable educational change. Results from the aforementioned AITSL survey revealed that when teachers sourced their own learning opportunities, they were most likely to report that the professional learning better met the needs of their students; was tailored to their career stage; covered appropriate topics and offered a preferred mode of learning. Therefore, an important take away for school and system leaders is that when schools provide a choice in professional learning offerings, teachers will have more positive perceptions than when activities are compulsory. It suggests that giving teachers more agency in their professional development options can lead to more significant and effective learning experiences.
Moving beyond dichotomies
So, back to that devilish detail in the wording of the new agreement, as related to professional learning. If we deem whole school curriculum planning and school-directed professional learning as ‘other activities’, and ‘teacher directed professional learning’ as ‘class focus activities’, the outcome is a perilous dichotomy. Research and lived experience together tells us that the balance between teacher agency and addressing school-wide initiatives is very important. When teachers connect their own learning goals with their school’s goals, it fosters a collaborative environment with shared purpose. To successfully grow in their professional roles, teachers should pursue professional learning aligned to their situational needs and with what they value in their practice, alongside school-wide collective aims.
Taking steps to address the burgeoning workload of teachers is a welcome initiative. It is crucial to maintain our workforce and to attract new bodies to join us, and to stay with us. However, school leaders and those responsible for communicating the terms of the new workplace agreement to their teachers are urged to even out the ‘counting minutes and hours’ talk with a rational focus on what we know to be important. It is the work of school and system leaders to consider the nuance, to reflect upon the most impactful ways to ‘spend’ the allocated time. Leaders must provide opportunities and resources for teachers to set their own goals and take ownership of their professional learning. Of equal importance, though, is that leaders encourage collaboration and shared decision making, opportunities for teachers to work and learn together, to share ideas, and make decisions as a team.
Dr Bree Hurn is a lecturer of language and literacy, a member of the Teacher Education Group and the Course Coordinator of the Master of Early Childhood/Primary at The Melbourne Graduate School of Education (University of Melbourne). Bree’s research interests include the ways in which teachers’ knowledge about language impacts their self-efficacy and pedagogical decisions in literacy teaching. Bree also has a special interest in the potential effects of professional learning for enhancing teacher knowledge and subsequent practice.
Universities around the world train professionals to support children and young people’s academic and social-emotional development. A lot of this training is about the brain. Paediatricians, for example, learn much about the biochemistry of the child’s brain. Endocrinologists learn a lot about the brain’s role in adolescent psycho-physical development. Developmental neuropsychologists learn about the brain’s neural structure. Occupational and speech therapists learn about neuroplasticity. For teachers, it is the human memory system that is central to what they do—especially for how they develop and deliver instruction. The recent Strong Beginnings report has quite rightly recommended that initial teacher education include core content related to the “brain and learning”.
The Human Memory System Goes to School
The human memory system—especially working and long-term memory—is central to how we learn (Baddeley, 2012). Working memory is the space for information that students are currently and consciously aware of, and where they focus their attention in the moment. Long-term memory is where information is stored for later retrieval and application by the student (such as when they attempt to solve a problem, or answer a question). Working memory is very limited in capacity and duration—just a few items of information for about 15-30 seconds. Long-term memory has vast storage capacity. When information moves from working memory to long-term memory, we can say that it has been learnt.
Where Do Teachers Fit?
The task for teachers is to develop and deliver instruction in a way that accommodates the limits of students’ working memory and harnesses the vast potential of long-term memory. According to cognitive load theory (a major theory of instruction; Sweller, 2012), teachers do this by managing two types of load on students as they learn: intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load. Intrinsic cognitive load refers to the burden put on learners by way of difficult subject material, syllabus content, and learning activities. Extraneous cognitive load refers to the burden put on learners by way of unnecessarily complex, confusing, and unclear instruction.
If there is too much cognitive burden on students, their working memory becomes overloaded and only part (or none!) of the information will be encoded to long-term memory. That is, the student does not learn. Effective instruction reduces cognitive load on students, eases the burden on working memory, and maximises the opportunity to encode information to long-term memory. Load reduction instruction (LRI; Martin, 2016, 2023; Martin & Evans, 2018) has been developed as a practice framework for putting key tenets of cognitive load theory into action.
Load Reduction Instruction
LRI is an instructional approach to help teachers manage the cognitive burden on students as they learn—especially when students are learning something new or difficult. LRI has five key principles as shown in Figure 1. The first four principles are:
Principle #1: Reduce the difficulty of instruction in the initial stages of learning, as appropriate to the learner’s level of prior knowledge and skill;
Principle #2: Provide appropriate support and scaffolding to learn relevant knowledge and skill;
Principle #3: Allow sufficient opportunity for practice;
Principle #4: Provide appropriate feedback-feedforward (combination of corrective information and specific improvement-oriented guidance) as needed.
Figure 1
Load Reduction Instruction (LRI) Framework – adapted with permission from Martin (2016)
These first four principles are quite linear, systematic, and structured approaches aimed at easing the burden on students’ working memory in the initial stages of learning (when they are novices)—so they can successfully encode the information to long-term memory.
Then, when teachers are satisfied students have learnt the necessary information, principle #5 comes into play:
Principle #5: Guided independent learning.
Independent learning is appropriate at this point because students no longer benefit so much from highly structured approaches once they have acquired fundamental knowledge and skill (the “expertise reversal effect”; Kalyuga, 2007). They now benefit from more open, problem-solving, inquiry-oriented approaches.
The Brain as a Basis for Building Pedagogical Bridges
In fact, the fifth principle of LRI is where explicit and constructivist instructional approaches can be drawn together. That is, once the teacher has provided sufficient difficulty reduction, instructional support, practice, and feedback-feedforward for students to learn requisite knowledge and skill, more exploratory and inquiry-oriented independence is beneficial for students’ further learning and development.
Teachers’ knowledge of the human memory system is thus essential for capitalising on the pedagogical opportunities afforded by explicit and constructivist approaches to instruction. When they understand and teach to the human memory system, gone is the false dichotomy of positivism (e.g., explicit instruction) and constructivism (e.g., discovery learning) that has plagued initial teacher education for decades: as far as the human memory system is concerned, the success of one instructional approach is inextricably tied to the success of the other.
To the extent that core content in initial teacher education focuses on the learner’s brain and helps beginning teachers understand the human memory system and their part to play in this, bring it on.
Andrew Martin, PhD, is Scientia Professor, Professor of Educational Psychology, and Co-Chair of the Educational Psychology Research Group in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He specialises in student motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods.
There is a collective sigh of frustration from education academics when initial teacher education (ITE) is yet again the subject of review, with a series of recommendations that promise to transform not only ITE, but the teaching profession. Apparently the problems with the teaching profession are entirely the result of the failures of ITE.
It is also crucial to consider these most recent recommendations in context – they are the most recent in what has been a decade of ITE reform.
Released on July 7 and titled Strong Beginnings: Report of the Teacher Education Expert Panel, this review has 14 recommendations across four domains, reflecting the earlier discussion paper: strengthening ITE programs to deliver confident, effective beginning teachers (which is mostly about embedding core content); strengthening the link between performance and funding of ITE programs (which is mostly about reporting and data); improving the quality of practical experiences in teaching; and improving access to postgraduate ITE for mid-career entrants.
The opening sentence in the executive summary, “[T]he importance of great teachers cannot be overstated”, is uncontestable – thank you – we agree. The closing paragraph provides the rationale and context for the recommendations that follow, acknowledging the “major reforms” progressed under Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG, 2014) and noting “but there is still more to do”.
Warning bells – tinkering with ITE will not be a panacea for the workforce shortage challenges facing the sector, with ITE a small part of the much more complex landscape, and with a long lead time to take effect.
I read the report and recommendations from the informed and insider position as a Dean of Education, Chair of the Queensland Council of Deans of Education, program accreditation panellist and chairperson; for the duration of the time we collectively traversed the intense period rolling-out the reforms of TEMAG.
It was indeed major – and very costly – reform. Only recently, around the nation, have those reforms been fully implemented. And we even have a few graduates who have journeyed through these new programs. It is important to acknowledge their added length combined with the time it takes to complete the programs – for many enrolled part-time due to the tough economic environment that demands they work alongside their study.
We have only a few years of graduates from these TEMAGed programs so we don’t yet know the impact of the major reforms. Hence, the value and impact of the TEMAG initiatives are not yet known in terms of the profession and workforce – in fact there is a gap in research about many aspects of ITE, a point clearly made in the report.
The recommendations thus are appended to a significantly revamped ITE sector that has not had the benefit of resources to research and review the effects of major reform.
The big shifts resulting from TEMAG include: additional non-academic requirements for entry to ITE; the Literary and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education (LANTITE); program standards; and demonstrating classroom readiness through the Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA), as a final hurdle, alongside mandatory volumes of learning and consistent professional experience time allocation. Some of these reforms are dubious in terms of adding quality and value and the cost benefit analysis for ITE, but none has been contested in the report recommendations. That’s a missed opportunity.
There are some recommendations in the report that could be silver linings. Acknowledging the need for additional funding to research ITE and resourcing this deficit, and the intention to consider TPAs comparatively, are standouts for me. This makes sense as the focus should be on the readiness and novice expertise of ITE graduates about to enter the workforce, taking into account the learning and value that comes from their ITE program.
Other glimmers of hope among the recommendations include: establishing a separate authority for oversight and achieving national consistency (contentious, but important); greater visibility of mentor teachers; and the importance of investing in professional experience by all members of the profession, which is a key aspect of program retention and identity development for ITE students. The mechanics for activating these innovations however, is lacking, so these might more properly be regarded as potential positives. The current demands on the ITE sector to meet accreditation requirements are significant, so adding to that does mean additional workload for tertiary educators, hence it is refreshing to see funding for transition and funding for the establishment of leadership institutions. This is happening at a time when the number of tertiary experts in education is also depleted consequential to universities tightening their belts, so a reasonable implementation timeline will be crucial.
Less convincing is the need to specify core content. The question of what is core has been narrowed to four areas that appear, frankly, to be incontestable and likely already tofeature in ITE programs in the country. It will be the necessary changes to standards that will take the time and the task of making visible the core content for compliance assurances, and the relative volume of learning and level of prescription that is yet to be defined that will undoubtedly cause consternation for the implementation of the core content recommendations. And the question of what is to be removed from programs is already sounding around the nation – adding more means something has to go. The loss of agility and likelihood of sameness is thus concerning, cookie cutter education programs seem to be the antithesis of what we need to ensure we attract and graduate a diverse teacher workforce.
Importantly, refinements in ITE do not solve the problem of workforce shortages in classrooms today.
There is extensive research that points to the need for a major shift in the way we do schooling today. The way teachers work also needs to change. This is crucial for the necessary transformation that is needed to reset school education to reflect the needs of contemporary society. The TEEP recommendations work within our current system and can be considered as an incremental step in the bigger challenge of transforming our schooling sector and the teachers entering it.
Professor Donna Pendergast is the Director of Engagement in the Arts, Education and Law Group and former Dean and Head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. Her research expertise is education transformation and efficacy.
To paraphrase Pasi Sahlberg et al in Reinventing Australian Schools, our education vehicle is on the blink. Despite decades of well-intentioned declarations and reforms, increased funding, and the everyday professionalism of our educators, Australian education is unequal, underperforming and unwell.
Although students with educated parents and ample means are more likely to get what they need from their schools, the engine that powers our collective future leaves too many students behind, and not only those from disadvantaged groups. At the same time, our young people have some of the lowest levels of mental health and wellbeing among wealthy countries. As evidenced in the NSRA Study Report, educators too have been suffering and are leaving classrooms in record numbers, with the heavy workload, stress and the need for a better work/life balance cited as the main reasons for leaving the profession.
Sahlberg et al argue for a bold alternative to our education status quo, beginning with a reassessment of the purpose of education that acknowledges the connection between academic learning and health and wellbeing. Their bold alternative would get “rid of anything that does not support a whole child and whole school approach…This approach requires fostering high levels of trust, positive relationship, and collaboration between students and teachers, all teachers and administrators, and parents, communities and schools. For maximum effect, it would also require…more interconnected collaboration between sectors at the system level as well” (pp. 8, 14, 9).
Re-building the macro-level components of our education machinery will certainly be essential in harnessing the connection between learning and wellbeing to aid the development of the whole child. However the most pivotal mechanism in need of a re-design is the one most often overlooked in discussions of education reform—the classroom itself.
Classroom educators understand that relationships are where the rubber meets the road. Connection, collaboration and the trust that allows learners to become co-creators in their own learning are keys to student engagement and wellbeing. These are the elements that give learning meaning for young people. However the quality of classroom relationships is more powerfully constrained by the design of the classroom than by the quality of the individual teacher or the quantity of the systems that support them.
Here are two classrooms from around the same time period that have been designed for different kinds of relationships. The one on the left was engineered for relationships based on top-down authority, compliance, obedience, conformity and competition. This classroom design is so pervasive that it is often assumed to be the only viable way that classrooms can be arranged. In contrast, the learner-centred classroom on the right was engineered to encourage engagement, trust, creativity, individuality and collaboration by prioritising relationships and wellbeing. These two designs are built on different assumptions about children and how they learn, and very different beliefs about the purpose of education.
Here’s the rub. When education is focused primarily on adult priorities like academic outcomes, preparation for work, or convenience for adult scheduling, classrooms tend to be designed for control and so relationships become secondary. This erodes trust and connection between teachers and students, with negative implications not only for mental health and wellbeing but for academic outcomes too.
The solar system graphic illustrates a learner-centred classroom design engineered to activate real choice, personal connection, and collaborative learning. Its central feature is the three-year grouping, which energises the classroom system like the Sun energises our solar system. It goes much further than composite classrooms (single-year classrooms merged together) by grouping learners in developmental stages rather than by chronological age. This gives children time to mature at their own pace within a developmental window. Its many advantages for the wellbeing and mental health of children and educators are multilayered and built into the design itself, so they reinforce one another without explicit instruction.
This learner-centred design mimics familial relationships as children cycle through being the youngest (the “awestruck follower”), then the middle child (the “observant and sometimes overconfident apprentice”), and finally the eldest (the “experienced and nurturing leader”). Children experience each role over and over as they pass through multiage classrooms for infants to three year-olds, 3 to 6 year-olds, 6 to 9 year-olds, 9 to 12 year-olds, 12 to 15 year-olds, and 15 to 18 year-olds. The focus on developmental readiness and position within the classroom system—rather than chronological age—acknowledges students’ experience and abilities while freeing them of the expectation that they should be the same as their peers of the same age. It also adds stability by preserving an institutional memory of traditions, norms and rituals in returning students.
This design flattens classroom management as problems are more often worked out by students instead of needing solutions to be imposed by adults. Students tend to respond more positively to direction from older peers whom they have relationships with, and this relieves educators of the need to constantly manage the classroom, affording them space to observe individuals without distraction.
The three-year structure also orients children’s minds to an appreciation of diversity by prompting them to look for commonalities. Research has shown that children in homogenous groupings tend to search for differences, which promotes clique behaviour, while children placed in diverse groupings tend to look for ways they are the same.
The three-year design makes possible real choice, the engine of motivation. Choice is possible where the teacher is freed from having to manage the whole classroom at once. Children learn through interacting with manipulatives placed on the shelves by educators, and less through direct instruction. The materials each contain their own control of error that draw students’ attention to mistakes, so the role of the educator is primarily to observe and guide individuals toward follow-up activities that suit their particular needs, rather than correct their mistakes. With classroom management handled mostly by older students, teachers can give small group or individualised lessons based on readiness rather than age. Individualised attention becomes routine, rather than an exception to be mobilised only when students struggle.
Giving children real choice unleashes hidden reserves of motivation, so easily extinguished when children are herded and cajoled. Learners invest more of themselves in an activity if they’ve had some say in choosing it. When given real choice from an array of concrete experiences, children construct their own understandings at their own pace. They don’t have to keep up with peers in order to conform to the teacher’s schedule, so they avoid the most corrosive effects of competition.
The three-year design also makes possible deep personal connections. Students build strong bonds of trust with the same teacher over three years. Teachers get to know their returning students well, so they know which stories and activities will capture their imaginations and motivate them. This trust encourages orderly freedom of movement and association. In this atmosphere children feel safe enough to see their mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than personal failures. Children are known by the educators who work with them, and authentic assessments are gathered to show meaningful progress over time.
There’s also more trust between educators and parents with this learner-centred design. Since each child is with their teacher for three years there’s an incentive for the teacher to get to know parents and develop good relationships with them. In this classroom model, permanent teacher aides are genuine partners with their lead, rather than itinerant visitors with fleeting connection to students.
Finally, the three-year design makes possible genuine collaborative learning, allowing students to learn from one another at least as much as from teachers. Peer-to-peer learning is enhanced because students are free to choose when, where and with whom they engage in activities. Children don’t all develop at the same pace so a multiage collaboration between any two children may imply a mentoring relationship or it may be a collaboration of equals. Students in this environment understand that everyone in the room—adults included—can be both student and teacher at different times.
This learner-centred design makes possible real choice, deep connection and genuine collaboration. These wellbeing features are built into the design itself so they reinforce one another in the background, and don’t require add-ons (like “brain breaks”) which interrupt students’ concentration without solving the problems inherent in the single-year adult-focused design. Learner-centred classrooms are designed to promote engagement, trust and genuine collaborative relationships from the moment children step into them to the moment they leave as confident, independent young adults.
As long as education continues to serve the interests and convenience of adults first and foremost, the interests and wellbeing of young people will take second place. If all our young people and their educators are to realise their full potential, the education vehicle that drives their development must be re-engineered with their interests and wellbeing at its core.
Mark Powell taught for 27 years in Montessori and was a teacher trainer with the Center for Montessori Teacher Education, New York for 12 years. He has a M.Ed. degree (specialising in Conflict Resolution) from Lesley University in Cambridge MA. He has published articles on Montessori education in Montessori and other education journals, and wrote a chapter in the 2008 book A Place for Play edited by Elizabeth Goodenough. In 2021 he joined the peak body, Montessori Australia, as Director of Education Services and designs innovative professional development, workshops and conferences for Montessori educators around Australia. Mark teaches part-time at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
It’s been a busy 2023 here at AARE – we publish twice a week on a wide array of educational topics, from early childhood to higher education, from researchers at Australian universities. Today, we are reminding you of the fascinating posts we’ve published so far in 2023 with a bonus post about teaching English to Tibetan students.
Our most read post this year – by far – was a heartbreaking post by Robyn Brandenburg, Ellen Larsen, Richard Sallis and Alyson Simpson on their research. It explains why teacher retention is such a challenge. Please read Teachers now: Why I left and where I’ve gone if you missed it the first time around. It brings new insights into what is happening to the most important profession in our country.
“I was just so anxious, unwell, and unhappy. Every day I felt sick on my way to work. I could never get through my mountain of work, I could never get on top of classroom behaviour, and I could never get to a place where I was able to deal with the unreasonable demands of the school.”
Next up, Trauma in all our classrooms. Judith Howard explains how to respond to the children and young people who have been victims to complex trauma sitting in most school classrooms and early learning settings across our country.
“These young victims can struggle with feeling safe, with attaching and relating effectively to other people and with regulating their emotions.”
Sahlberg and Goldfeld write: “In our Discussion Paper titled “Reinventing Australian schools for the better wellbeing, health, and learning of every child” (Sahlberg et al., 2023) we outline a new vision for uplifting student learning, wellbeing, and health in our schools. We argue that the core purpose of schooling needs to shift from primarily focusing on narrow academic intelligence to equal value learning, wellbeing and health outcomes for balanced whole-child development and growth.”
The reply, from Swain et al, says: “Importantly, [Sahlberg and Goldfeld] note that these [declining] trends, seen across literacy, numeracy, and science, have stubbornly persisted in the face of increased per capita education spending. What is surprising to us though, is that Professors Sahlberg and Goldfeld seek solutions to academic struggles not in improved classroom instruction, but in extra funding and focus on wellbeing, without considering the contribution to wellbeing made via academic success.”
We have had many other fantastic contributions this year and you can read our entire back catalogue here.
And please read this fascinating post from Xingxing Yu, Nashid Nigar and Qi Qian on:
Innovating English language curriculum through translanguaging in Tibet: fostering plurilingual identity for minority students
Discriminatory education policies for Indigenous communities across the world is still a human rights issue despite the rights of Indigenous peoples (370 million) to education which is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. The article 14 of the second Declaration proclaims,
Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
Yet, the policies of education across the world (70 countries) are orchestrated on dominant language/s and minority language divide. When dominant languages are privileged over those of minorities, it triggers a flurry of disadvantages and segregation for the minorities, benefiting the privileged at the expense of subjugated. According to United Nations,
Barriers to education for Indigenous students include stigmatization of Indigenous identity and low self-esteem of Indigenous learners; discriminatory and racist attitudes in the school environment, including in textbooks and materials and among non-Indigenous students and teachers; language barriers between Indigenous learners and teachers; inadequate resources and low prioritization of education for Indigenous peoples, reflected in poorly trained teachers as well as lack of textbooks and resources.
To address the barrier, “inadequate resources and low prioritization of education for Indigenous peoples” , we, three non-Indigenous educators collaborated internationally and took initiative to experiment and propose some innovative ideas to include Tibetan language and culture in the English language curriculum for Tibetan students. This is relevant for any dominant language focused curriculum that does not include and/or ignore indigenous languages, cultures, and knowledge systems in the curriculum: textbooks, materials and pedagogy.
In the summer of 2021, Qian, a master’s student at the University of Melbourne, decided to teach English in Ganzi county in the Sichuan Province for one month. Although not located in Tibet, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region has a greater than 80% Tibetan population, according to The People’s Government of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, 2021. At the school where Qian worked, Tibetan students comprised the entire student body. This one-month course provides a clearer picture than the dispersed data in peer-reviewed articles.
Trilingual education
Qian: If the language of instruction is Tibetan, students seem more engaged in the classroom activity. Maybe, they can comprehend the teachers better through their native language.
Commonly, the term trilingual education is used to describe the learning of three languages by Tibetan students. First, minority students must learn their mother tongue as well as Mandarin Chinese as soon as they enter school; second, English as a compulsory subject must be learned as early as secondary school. Tibetan students, in this context, must learn two additional languages beside their native tongue, Tibetan.
Current research has uncovered two major negative effects of trilingual education on Tibetan students. First, Tibetan students are more likely to be labeled as “deficit” language learners owing to the paucity of educational resources (teachers, for example) in Tibetan areas, as well as their extra language learning responsibilities in comparison to their Han peers. Second, the Han-dominant ideology, embodied in both Mandarin-instructed English classrooms and English textbooks where Han-culture prevails, devalues Tibetan culture and language, as well as the ethnic identity of students.
In lieu of imaging a larger picture that is more idealistic and human rights oriented in terms of policy change, which appears impractical in China, we propose devising a more pragmatic approach. that, on the one hand, is permissible within the realm of current educational policy. It is, on the other hand, able to contribute to multilingual identity and an easier way for Tibetan students to learn English. It also paves the way how teachers’ agency can be applied in terms of teaching English from a multilingual perspective.
A new approach to curriculum
As master’s students taught by Nashid Nigar at the University of Melbourne, Qian, and I (Xingxing) discussed how to implement translangaugeing theory into the English language (EL) curriculum for Qian’s Tibetan students. We believe this practice demonstrates that translangaugeing could be viewed as a pragmatic solution for minority language users.
What is translangauging?
Translanguaging is a term originally attributed to the Welsh educator Cen Williams. The extended version of translanguaging, nevertheless, is aligned with the critical perspective of the named language. It is, according to O. Garcia and W. Li, socially constructed and represents a distinct concept of language itself. They assert that the transformative potential of translanguaging practices is derived from their capacity to transcend the socially constructed boundaries of named languages, notably the creative and critical feature. The worldview of Translanguaging involves the acknowledgement and development of their plurilingual identity through the uses of their full linguistic repertoire: languages, cultures, knowledge, values, and beliefs.
Under this understanding, educators in Tibetan classrooms should make full use of their students’ linguistic resources not only to activate students’ language creation so that they can learn English effectively, but also to empower them to reconsider the hegemony of Han-dominated language and culture.
Predicated on translanguaging theory, we put together a curriculum with the topic “I am a tour guide” that encompasses four classes and an assessment task.
First, we adapted the existing official English textbook more relevant to Tibetan students’ daily lives without altering its instructional focus. For example, Han festivals and foods were replaced with their Tibetan equivalents, and narratives of urban culture were revised to reflect rurality and snow mountains. On the one hand, the adaptation of teaching materials substantially increased students’ interest, and encouraged students to enjoy language learning and participate more actively in learning tasks and activities, thereby facilitating students’ connection to English by the means of Tibetan. In these, both languages were used non-hierarchically by them. The adaptations of the activities in the textbook addressed Qian’s concern for his students and provided multilingual support for them.
Second, we innovated the original test-oriented assessment by requiring students to simulate a tour guide to introduce Tibetan culture using all of their linguistic resources. In addition, students are encouraged to create an account on Douyin (TikTok in China) and upload their video recordings. The plurilingual identities of multilingual speakers and multimodal video creations served as a powerful incentive to enjoy and learn English. Throughout the process, they experienced, by knowing, doing,” becoming”, that their plurilingual self was underscored and valued.
Notably, repeated practices in front of the camera enhanced the students’ self-esteem and self-confidence in English interaction. Their oral fluency vastly improved, corroborating M. Amiryousefi’s (2018) conclusion that self-assurance indicates a solid command of a foreign language.
The innovative translanguaging-informed teaching strategies and curriculum reform that Qian applied in the Tibetan region promotes Tibetan English language learners’ plurilingual identity. However, we believe it is highly unlikely to institutionalize an all-encompassing democratic and inclusive curriculum that respects Tibetan identity and language under China’s current political system. Despite the severe censorship and surveillance of the government though, we can still do more to assist minority speakers not only in overcoming language learning hurdles, but also affirming and promoting their cultural and linguistic identities. Teacher professional development and exercises of their agency, and ethical commitment to responsive pedagogy are crucial in this process.
This curriculum reform approach can be adapted by stakeholders involved in any diverse context of teaching and learning in terms of literacy and language education.
From left to right: Xingxing Yu has a Master of TESOL from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Experience in working in Chinese state-owned enterprises and her family history in remote areas of western China have prompted her to study educational inequities in China, including gender and ethnic disparities, as well as urban-rural imbalances melody0901@gmail.com.
Nashid Nigarhas taught Master of TESOL and Master of Education programs at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. She is at the final stage of completing her PhD at Monash Education. Adopting a transdisciplinary theoretical lens and hermeneutic phenomenological narrative enquiry, Nashid has investigated immigrant teachers’ professional identity in Australia. Nashid.nigar@monash.edu Qi Qiancompleted his Master of Education at Melbourne Graduate School of Education. He has taught at Garze Ethnic Middle School in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. He is now teaching English in another junior high school.
Header image of the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture by Colegota
On any view, this year’s referendum on whether to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice in the Australian Constitution is a teachable moment. There are concepts of history (What has been the experience of First Nations peoples in the period since colonisation?); law (How does our system of government work?); political science (under what circumstances do voters opt for changing the status quo?); and moral philosophy (what is owed, by whom, to those who have suffered injustice?). There are very few teachers who would not see the potential for learning. And almost every teacher would understand the challenges and potential pitfalls of using a real-time case study to deepen students’ understanding of complex, interrelated issues of deep social concern.
The teaching team, (authors 1-3), with some initial advice from the Director of Indigenous Learning and teaching (author 4), adapted an existing subject Law and Public Policy to create a new subject (Referendum 2023: engaging in constitutional change). The idea was to anchor learning about law, justice, and politics in the real-time debate about whether the Australian Constitution should be amended to recognise First Peoples through the creation of a new institution in the Australian Constitution. The overarching aim was to introduce students to the principles of deliberative democracy by embodying its actual practice in a semester-long subject. In part, we were responding to the well-documented disengagement, fatigue and sense of disempowerment that has afflicted students since the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted our students to understand that they are important political actors, capable of giving, receiving, and evaluating reasons; that they are active, autonomous agents whose perspectives matter; and that they have the right to demand justification for decisions – including from their teachers. The subject we created was available to all students across the university, not just law students.
We mapped the subject so that early weeks were spent examining the theory and practice of deliberative democracy in a range of diverse contexts, drawing out connections between law, public policy and social reform in areas such as gun law reform, end of life legislation, campaign funding, animal welfare, the environment and intergenerational fairness. Students were encouraged to debate, discuss and reflect upon ways to effect change, how to engage with opposing ideas, civility in discourse, argumentation and logic, and political rhetoric – its uses and potential abuses. We then applied the learnings to engagement with ideas about the Constitution and processes to change the Constitution, developing an understanding of the social and political processes required for such change. Students were encouraged to think about what it means to change our Constitution, their roles and responsibilities as engaged and informed civic actors, and how they could be vectors of information for their local communities and networks.
The major assessment for the subject was a community engagement project designed by each student, to inform and engage local communities on the issues around the referendum. This ‘authentic’ form of assessment required students to creatively engage in change processes to influence constructive debate about the Voice referendum, and to assist their communities to understand and better engage with key proposed changes to be considered in the referendum. The subject provided an architecture within which students could create forums for the exercise of deliberative democracy at the local and community levels, which included discussions facilitated by students at their mosques, local high schools and churches, as well as student-led information stalls on campus, TikTok informational videos and engagement, Instagram live sessions, YouTube videos, public art and even a submission to Joint Select Committee on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice Referendum, under the teaching team’s guidance. The final assessment task was a reflection on their learning journey and their project.
There was a very high level of interaction between students and the teaching team in relation to the design of each project: first, students created a project proposal; they then received feedback from teachers; they then revised the proposal; they then discussed the project and received feedback from peers; they then evaluated potential challenges (eg negative responses from members of the public) and role-played how these would be dealt with; they then presented their project formally to the class. The intent of the subject was not to shift student’s thinking either for or against the referendum question but to deepen their understanding.
Students were encouraged to think about how other people would or could respond to their perspectives, and about how respectful dialogue could take place even when people held deeply personal conflicting views. We were amazed by the student engagement on the topic and the willingness to be open to difficult conversations. But we were also very mindful of potential wellbeing issues, particularly for First Nations students. The University’s Centre for Indigenous Education reached out at one point to make sure were aware of the level of feeling amongst First Nations students taking the subject.
Students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds also found the subject challenging, because materials that dealt with the effects of colonialism and settler violence resonated with their own and their own family’s backgrounds and experiences. The Western Sydney region is extremely culturally diverse, with people from 170 nationalities, forty-two percent of whom speak a language other than English at home. The types of community engagement the students undertook is particularly helpful where government advertisements and other mass forms of communication may not be effective enough to convey the context and importance of the constitutional change proposed for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. With more than 100 students enrolled, we estimate that this subject has facilitated informed conversations about the Voice to Parliament referendum involving at least 2,000 additional people in the wider community, from all religious and cultural walks of life, and all ages, many of whom would not be easily reachable by current campaigning by both sides of the debate.
The Higher Education Standards Framework (2021) requires Australian universities to be civic leaders for the benefit of society. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Voice referendum provides an excellent opportunity for universities to demonstrate community leadership, by contributing to the educating students (and staff) in preparation for the referendum. The last referendum held in Australia was in 1999. Many of our students, whether school leavers or more recent Australian citizens, are unfamiliar with how referendums work.
In requiring students to use their new and deep understanding of constitutional change and the Voice to Parliament proposal to engage with their communities, and design and facilitate that engagement themselves, we are promoting the real-world use of a key employability skills, team work and engagement, as well as use of soft skills in their discussion of the law and constitutional change in the community which will ultimately make students far more effective future legal practitioners and citizens, in Australia, and better able to discuss contentious issues. The benefits to the students, the legal profession and wider society are also evident as students are gaining practical experience in taking responsibility not only to advocate for their clients, but to engage in meaningful and informed discussions regarding real issues in Australian society.
From left to right: Catherine Renshaw is a Professor in the School of Law at the Western Sydney University. Her research focuses on human rights and democracy in the Asia Pacific. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Regulatory Institutions Network, Centre for International Governance and Justice, Australian National University. She acts as an advisor to several human rights NGOs in the Asia Pacific region. Catherine has ongoing research interests in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Catherine is admitted to practice as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. Fabi Fugazza is a lawyer with extensive experience in civic movements and not-for-profit leadership. She is currently COO and Legal Expert of the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights which hosts several law-based human rights initiatives, and works with the National Justice Project in Sydney, which also does human rights work for First Nations clients. She teaches human rights law, business law, and human right strategy across Western Sydney University, Sydney University, and Roma Tre University. Tom Synnott is a casual academic at Western Sydney University and Privacy Counsel at Cochlear Limited. Since graduating from Western Sydney University with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I)/International Studies, Tom has worked at top-tier commercial law firm, Allens, and as a Policy Lawyer and Executive Officer at the New South Wales Bar Association. Tom has experience in privacy and data protection, litigation, and corporate governance. He also has experience with First Nations students and clients, having completed a placement at a community legal centre in Broome and tutored at the Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education earlier in his career. Susan Page is a professor at Western Sydney University and Director of Indigenous Learning and Teaching, a national teaching award-winning Aboriginal educator and Indigenous higher education specialist. Her research focuses on Indigenous Australian experiences of learning and academic work in higher education and student learning in Indigenous Studies. She has collaborated on multiple competitive research grants and is well-published in Indigenous Higher Education. Susan has held several leadership positions including Associate Dean (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement),Centre Director and Head of the Department and she is currently an appointed Indigenous representative for the Universities Australia Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic committee.
Please read why the AAREexecutive support Yes on the Voice to Parliament.
In this blog, we draw on our insights as teacher-educators listening to the voices of early career teachers (ECTs) to reimagine the transition from ‘becoming’ to ‘being’ a teacher. In 2020, we began a longitudinal research project to investigate the experiences of early career teachers in their first three years of teaching. We have now worked with our participants for the past two years and four interviews have been conducted with each of the 18 participants from Australia and New Zealand.
Our interviews with ECTs reveal that there’s always more to discover about the art of teaching and the unique needs of educators. Understanding and fitting in with the cultural, logistical and administrative nuances of the education site were all sources of challenge and anxiety noted by graduates. These elements include questions like, How does the school librarian connect with my role? What is the process for organising an excursion? What are the unspoken rules of photocopying in this school? These are identified as simple yet impactful parts of being a teacher, “…it’s just things like…Where do I get that from? Who do I go to for that?” (Katie, First-year graduate, 2021). However, not all early experiences are as easy to navigate. We interpret Katie’s question of “Who do I go to for that?” as more significant than where the whiteboard markers are kept, signalling ‘Where do I find what I am looking for in this unfamiliar context?’ Multiple graduates participating in our study identified the challenges of finding support that they felt comfortable and safe to access.
“Find your support system … finding someone you can trust and go to. Even if you need to cry … having that time to be able to debrief with someone that you trust and will support you … really important.” (Sophie, First-Year graduate, Australia, 2021)
In another example, one participant was so overwhelmed by the expectations and workload of her first teaching context, she resigned from her permanent position and left the teaching profession seeking a career change, typical of so many ECTs.
“… no one could really prepare me for what that looked like [being an ECT in a remote school context]. I had no idea … it was across three grades, I was teaching … you had to do the fundraising, assemblies, all that type of thing, and so I just felt like … I was drowning … you’re a dump zone for every task that nobody else wanted to do” (Lucy, First-Year graduate, Australia, 2021).
Lucy wasn’t able to source support in her school. She felt she was given too much responsibility as an ECT with limited experience or guidance.
“…[I was] feeling used and abused” (Lucy, First-Year graduate, Australia, 2021).
The overwhelm impacted her health to the point where she felt that resignation and a career change were her only options.
“My mental health suffered too much. I just thought, if this is what teaching is like…I cannot be a healthy person” (Lucy, First-Year graduate, Australia, 2021).
The power structures inherent in the school system can have a significant impact on the experiences of ECTs and their capacity to advocate for their needs, as was the case for Lucy. While many schools have well-established induction and mentoring systems for ECTs, the intersection of ‘graduate’ and ‘teacher’ can be a professionally vulnerable place. The disparity in power can deter graduates from speaking up or seeking support. This is exacerbated in some Australian and New Zealand schools when ECTs may be appointed on short-term contracts and feel they have to prove themselves to gain a permanent position.
“At the end of the day you’re a first-year teacher … you want to impress and you don’t want to come across as though you can’t hack it … so you’re constantly trying to put on … a bit of a front to prove that you can do it and that they’ve made a good decision to invest in you.”
(Daniel, First-Year graduate, Australia, 2021)
Beginning teaching is widely accepted as a time of significant personal change as ECTs move into full-time employment, often leaving the family and friends who have sustained and supported them during their studies. Accessing the professional support that was available during their studies is more complicated once in school employment. Our observations as teacher educators are that currently, we are filling a gap in new teachers’ support networks. This isn’t a problem, but it is largely informal and under-recognised.
An unexpected outcome of our research was that the opportunity for ECTs to speak with a known and trusted teaching professional once or twice a year was embraced by participants. This suggests that there is a place for ITE educators in the process of a “scaffolded transition” from ITE to full teacher accreditation. The ECTs in our research valued the opportunity to share their successes and concerns during the dedicated time for dialogue. This afforded ECTs a dialogic space to grapple with and reflect on becoming and being a teacher, without fear of consequences.
We propose that initial teacher education educators are well-placed to be independent and trusted professionals who make a fertile contribution to supporting ECTs to thrive in the early stages of their careers. Notwithstanding the programs, initiatives, and efforts of so many who work tirelessly to support our new teachers already, we can do more to ensure conditions are such that all new teachers are afforded the conditions to thrive and grow.
From left to right: Michelle Parks, Academic Director of Professional Experience, University of Tasmania; Kim Beasy, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Tasmania; Helen Trevethan, Senior Lecturer, University of Otago College of Education; Jeana Kriewaldt, Associate Professor of Education and co-leader of the Arts and Humanities Education Group at the University of Melbourne; Natasha Ziebell, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne; Wendy Carss, Senior lecturer and Programme Leader, Te Kura Toi Tangata, School of Education, University of Waikato; and Bronwen Cowie, Associate Dean Research, Division of Education, The University of Waikato
Andrew Tate, sent to trial overnight, is a hugely popular influencer whose extreme misogynistic views are infiltrating classrooms and playgrounds across the world. His impact on classroom behaviour has been reported in popular media and include teachers overhearing jokes about sexual violence and children writing misogynistic essays. Wescott and Roberts recently published insights on their study of Australian classroom experiences with the manosphere. Their study ‘illuminates the presence of rampant disrespect towards teachers, sexual harassment of teachers and girls, physical intimidation and blatant disregard for women’.
My own experience with the ‘manosphere’ has been through my own child being called names so horrible it took my breath away. How does a child in primary school even know those words? What does a teacher or parent even say to that? I’ve taught in pretty rough schools in my time: been sworn at, even emailed pornography. But I kinda thought for a long time that ‘feminism had done its job’ by now. We just simply don’t speak to each other this way! Let alone eleven-year-olds. I know that’s naïve but there is nothing quite like the blind hope of a mother.
Maybe it’s because I research social media and education, but I have also had a number of people ask me about ‘what should we say about Andrew Tate’? Many parents and teachers are concerned. He’s not really on my research radar but online democracy is. So I turned my 25 years of Civics and Citizenship teacher skills to the problem of ‘Talking about Andrew Tate and the manosphere’.
The first thing to get straight is that it is pretty much impossible to ban Andrew Tate, despite what he says. He is hugely popular, even after Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook banned him.
The following advice can be applied to any influencer you find in the dark parts of the Internet. All you have to do is remember PLUTO. Yes, PLUTO the mythical god of the underworld and the poor, hard-done-by dwarf planet. Yes, it’s a planet again.
PLUTO stands for: Partnership, Listening, Understanding, Talk with purpose, and be Organised.
Partnership
When speaking to kids about someone like Andrew Tate you must be a partner in the conversation. Do not pretend that you know more than the kids. You don’t. You will never catch up to them, especially if they have been down the rabbit hole for a while. Besides, Andrew Tate has already given them all the comebacks.
What you do need to know about is what it means to be a part of a fair and just society, what the laws are about hate speech and defamation, and what it means to be an active and informed citizen. You can use these tools to speak with the kids about whether misogyny progresses a good society or sends it backwards.
Listening
Listen. Don’t judge the words that come out of their mouths. Andrew Tate has given language that does not necessarily match their development. Ask them to think deeply about the meaning of the words they are using and how that might make others feel. How that makes them look to others. Do some detective work. Ask them what the evidence is that they would use those words to describe another person. Let them know that freedom of speech only applies when it’s true.
Understanding
The goal is to achieve a collective understanding of what is going on with your classroom or family when a member is listening to Andrew Tate. How is that affecting the dynamic?
All of these conversations need to happen with a trusted adult. A school inviting ‘an expert’ to speak about the manosphere on assembly is only going to alienate people and probably bring in parental complaints. You don’t want strangers talking to them about Andrew Tate. The same thing goes for a package bought and implemented in a life skills lesson. A package will speak at the young people, not with them. There needs to be a skilled classroom teacher for those kids. Someone who has built a relationship of trust who can work in partnership with the kids, not tell them what to do.
Talk with purpose
Too often conversations about misogyny happen on the fly. Maybe driving in the car or when it comes up in class. When speaking to kids who have potentially been radicalized, these occasions are not the time to try and shift thinking. When, where and with whom the conversation occurs needs to be well planned. It also needs to have a purpose. Be well designed in its resourcing and intention. Reactionary conversations are most likely going to be ‘won’ by someone who the manosphere has already given all the answers to.
Be Organised
You, as the teacher (or parent) need to demonstrate a rigorous decision-making process. You need to educate yourself about what it means to live in a fair and just liberal democracy. The discipline area in the Australian curriculum most suited to these conversations is Humanities and Social Sciences, specifically the Civics and Citizenship strand. This, often overlooked, cousin of History and Geography has all the tools needed for talking about how misogynistic views affect our democracy and ultimately society. Civics and Citizenship, as a part of the HaSS suit has purposeful, structured inquiry embedded in its pedagogy and has since Socrates. It also has decades of resourcing about what it means to be an active and informed citizen.
So, remember PLUTO when you need to talk about Andrew Tate, or any of the people and ideas in the dark, reactionary, radicalizing areas of the Internet. PLUTO: Partnership, Listening, Understanding, Talk with purpose, be Organised.
This is an extrapolation of a lightning talk I gave on a panel ‘Talking about Andrew Tate and the manosphere with boys and young men’ at the Centre for Justice research group at QUT. You can find a recording of all the speakers here. The licence for the header image is to be found here.
Dr Naomi Barnes is a senior lecturer at QUT and is interested in how crisis influences education politics, specifically the effect of moral panics. She also considers how the curriculum relates to nationalism, identity, and democracy. Naomi lectures future teachers in Modern History, Civics and Citizenship and Writing Studies. She has worked for Education Queensland as a Senior Writer and has worked as a Secondary Humanities and Social Science teacher in the government, Catholic and Independent schooling sectors.
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