On a life of teaching

As the new school year begins, SIDRA KRANZ MOSHINSKY reflects on 18 years shaping the next generation of Australian Jews.

When I entered the teaching profession as a mature-aged student, I learnt that the average ‘career life expectancy’ for a teacher was five years. At the time and filled with uncertainty about what it would be like and what I would be like, I hoped I would hit the average. I made it to eighteen - chai (life)!

Not a bad innings, although many of my colleagues have been batting for much longer and are still at it. We congratulated and marvelled at one fellow teacher this week as he completed his 43rd year of teaching, 42 of them full time. He will be back for more this year!

I’m conscious that I am exiting at a time of looming crisis in the teaching profession. I don’t feel as if I’m part of the trend and have my own reasons. Then again, so does each teacher making the move and combined we become part of a statistic. It’s tough in classrooms, as the recent interim report by the Senate’s Education and Employment References Committee attests. Entitled ‘The issue of increasing disruption in Australian school classrooms’, it examines, among other things, the impact of disruptive student behaviour on educational outcomes, on teacher wellbeing and workforce retention, on equity across schools and on Australia’s international educational ranking.

A colleague circulated this parliamentary report indicating it was well worth reading, despite the time it would take given its 87-page length. Quick as a flash, another colleague sent around ChatGPT’s summary generated in less than a second for those wanting a quick read.

This exchange is emblematic of the challenges facing schools today: getting the best out of students who don’t necessarily bring their best, while responding to ever-changing external realities, among them COVID and the rise of AI in recent years. Add the teacher shortage, the growing number of students on individual learning plans, funding cuts, increased regulatory demands, generational shifts and the sense of crisis is real.