I stumbled across this excerpt from an interview with Jane Caro on the ABC last week and it really hit home.
Educators are human beings. People who work damn hard for the good of their students. People who are complex, complete and imperfect human beings with complex and complicated lives and who do their level best every single day.
All over this great country of ours, we get up and go to work in conditions that are unsustainable, the shortage of staff is real, the mountain of compliance paperwork is real, and the kids – the wonderful, complex, imperfect and fabulous kids – are real. We go in and work to do what we have trained to do, what we are passionate about and sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it not so right, but we push on.
You know what might help build morale? Trust. Trust in the teachers that are doing everything they can to keep the educational boat afloat.
If people could just stop judging those of us in the profession and instead listen to us, let us do what we know how to do and back off from all of the negatively focused press it would help. More than you know. There are fabulous things happening in schools, dreams realised by dedicated teachers who tirelessly aim for better student outcomes. Let’s let the educators know that they are doing valuable work. Let’s build trust. Morale will follow.
Check out other articles Cassie has written here.