Sometimes life takes us in directions we never anticipated, but it is in those unexpected detours we learn a lot. When I was in Year 12, I was lucky to find myself in Mrs G’s English class, and again in Year 13. Not only did she instil a love of English (and in particular Chaucer), she inspired me to rethink my career plan and consider becoming a teacher rather than a hairdresser. Considering the catastrophic home perm I inflicted on my younger sister which turned her hair green, this was a god send. Form there my journey followed a fairly streamlined trajectory - university, a stint teaching in Japan, college of education, and embarking on a career as a teacher. I loved my first teaching job, the girls were great, I enjoyed the energy in the classroom when you see those light bulb moments when something clicks and I was working with some amazing educators. Then with little warning a massive curve ball came my way. My now 9 year old was born with a congenital heart defect which required emergency open heart surgery when he was just 7 days old. Six months after that another curve ball hit, and my personal situation changed and I found myself having to step out of the classroom, leave a job I loved and colleagues I really enjoyed working with to return to Dunedin and settle myself and two boys into a new chapter. The road back to the classroom has been interesting. Starting with a brief stint as a single mum on a benefit while I sorted settling one into school and working out what to do with myself. This was a very dehumanising lesson. I still remember the young woman I spoke with on the phone rather rudely enquiring how long I thought I might be on the benefit for. Eager to get back working, I jumped into the world of a customer services representative for ACC. This was a massive eye opener. I very quickly realised I had lead a rather sheltered existence, and discovered there are some very very unpleasant people in this world. After 9 months of talking to people from all sorts of backgrounds I slowly started my journey to find my way back to the classroom. My time at Foundation made me realise how important it is to make the most of the time at school. Being in a pastoral role as a student support officer some days was hard, no day was ever the same and you never knew what you would be dealing with next - everything from relationship spats, to climbing over verandah walls to knock on a window to check on an absentee student, to hours sitting in EPS. But even on the worst day, it was the students that made me want to come back the next day - especially the ones that made the words of a very wise lecturer at Christchurch College of Education echo in my head. “There is no such thing as a bad student, they are all gold. Just with some you have to scrape through a lot of crap before you see the gold,” John Gourley.His words have been my touchstone not only in teaching, but in many aspects of my life. We all have one or two people that have often unknowingly shaped our lives. For me it was Mrs G, and those students that despite the odds being against them have found a way to stand tall and achieve more than they imagined. This is why I teach….to hopefully like Mrs G, share a love for my subject (I can still hear her reading the swear words in Letters to Whetu with great enjoyment, made even more shocking by her revelation she was once a nun!) and to make a small difference. I stepped back into the classroom in February, and it was like getting back onto a bicycle after a long break, a few speed wobbles and then it was like I had never got off the bicycle. Many things have changed, technology has made huge steps forward, but many things are just as I left them. As teachers it can be easy to forget that we do make a difference, and often we may never know the difference we made. ~Bronwyn Thomson
5 Comments
|
AuthorsWe'll have a variety of authors from OGHS over the year sharing their thoughts and experiences about education, teaching and learning Archives
June 2019
Categories
All
|