Pearls and Irritations

The American poet e.e. cummings once observed that good teachers provide a mirror for their students, reflecting back to them valuable attributes that hitherto they’ve not been able to recognise for themselves. This precious pedagogical gift is treated with indifference — even contempt — by far too many Australian politicians, bureaucrats, opinionated media aficionados, and parents.

The world is presently caught up in a vortex of horrific crises: wars in Ukraine and Gaza, climate change, to name only the most salient. These crises distract politicians’ and voters’ attention away from local issues that are equally relevant to the country’s future security.

An especially serious distraction is the fact that a majority of Australia’s schools — especially our grossly under-funded government schools — are lagging behind comparable school systems on a range of foundational educational outcomes: for example, in literacy, reading comprehension, and basic mathematics. More worrying is the escalation of anti-social behaviour in schools, especially among young male students, often directed at teachers.

There are thousands of good teachers in schools right across the country. The problem is that so many of them are leaving the profession in despair at the dysfunction they are facing almost every day in Australia’s classrooms. There are five immediate causes of this dysfunction. None of them is being comprehensively addressed by governments. Nor is there any significant pressure in the wider community to make governments act. The result is that Australia is not a lucky country; it is becoming an increasingly ignorant country.

First, social media is a particularly malevolent issue. Pre-adolescent and adolescent children are being exposed to negative messages promoted by unconscionable internet entrepreneurs who mask their money-grubbing ways with a hollow defence of “free speech”, enabling the wholesale proliferation of sexist, hateful, and anti-intellectual propaganda. As John Milton once noted: “Licence they mean when they cry liberty.”

Second, the pathologies of dysfunctional families are what teachers have to deal with every day. When challenged, parents often respond angrily, sometimes violently, denying that their children have problems, blaming teachers for their own inadequacies. The causes of family dysfunction are many: severe cost of living pressures; an economy that favours the rich while penalising the poor; a festering culture of toxic masculinity; chronic mental and physical health issues that unproportionately (and unjustly) affect lower SES victims, just to name a few. Area-based counselling, psychology and social work services are urgently needed that can be easily accessed by schools to help deal with the epidemic of mental health problems we see emerging among contemporary Australia’s young people. Instead of being places of learning, schools are being forced to become therapeutic communities.

Third, state and federal education bureaucrats are loftily disconnected from the realities of life in the country’s classrooms, demonstrating little understanding of the pressures that teachers are under, while requiring them to comply with absurd levels of red tape and paperwork. How many of them have ever taught in an Australian classroom?

Fourth, teachers at every level in Australia’s schools are manifestly under-paid and under-resourced. They are also culturally under-valued and unsupported politically. This is a devastating fact of contemporary Australian life. It contrasts with the educational cultures of countries in East and Southeast Asia and in the Scandinavian countries, where teachers are highly respected and properly rewarded for their vital work, and where students are out-performing Australian students.

Fifth, the crowded curriculum in schools has become one of the greatest problems holding back Australia’s educational progress. There are simply too many subjects crowding out the most important subjects that should be the centre of all schooling across the country.

So, in the face of this bleak educational landscape, what are the characteristics of good teachers?

Good teachers are the equal of good parents in any civilised society. They are infinitely more important than politicians, civil servants, professionals, businesspeople, media commentators, celebrities and sports stars all put together. (Good nurses come a very close second.) Yet they remain among the least valued, respected and rewarded for the amazingly vital work they perform. Good teachers are aware that their commitment to teaching is a vocation; it is not simply a job. A vocation has deep cultural meaning and value. It is a profound calling that comes from the very ground of one’s being. (See: The Art of Loving in the Classroom: A Defence of Affective Pedagogy)

How can we encourage good teachers to enter the teaching profession, and stay there? We know the answers although they are ignored by policymakers everywhere. First, the best graduates need to be attracted into postgraduate teaching education programs. Second, on recruitment into schools, they need to be enabled to continue their academic studies, including being granted periods of study-leave and scholarships. Third, they need to be provided with opportunities for teaching exchanges within Australian and overseas schools. Fourth, the work of teachers needs recognition for being at least as important as that of medical specialists and eminent lawyers and judges – and paid accordingly. Finally, the teaching profession needs to be highly respected and valued by politicians, parents and the wider community.

It’s time to address the crisis in education affecting Australia today. The country simply cannot afford its present indifference towards the irreplaceable contributions that good teachers make to a sound economy, a healthy society, and a secure country.

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