Better Teachers Start Right

We all have favourite teachers. Good teachers. Teachers we had has a child and remember fondly. And if we are lucky enough to wear the parents ‘hat’ now then we will have those who we regard as ‘good’ teachers, teachers who are making a difference to our children’s education.

Christopher Bantick’s article in The Age (7/6/13) depicts the current educational landscape in Australia. He argues that the emphasis on attaining  higher degrees does not necessarily lead to better teachers. “Degree creep is affecting school teaching.” It would seem that schools are trending to employ teachers with higher degrees and yet schools are still failing standards in literacy and numeracy. The teaching has not improved.

Apparently Finland’s teachers all hold a Masters degree as a point of entry into education. But it is not the qualification that determines the quality of teacher. Only the ‘best brains may apply’. If we continue to value education then we need to want more than the average Joe applying to study a Bachelor or Masters in Education. And we need to see the higher degree as nothing more than a trend in our Australian educational landscape.  What makes a good teacher? What makes a better teacher? 

The right starting point it seems makes the better teacher.

Love affair with…

I have had a real love and hate relationship over the years with The Age. It was the only newspaper I read regularly. But something changed about 15 years ago…the paper went all liberal and sordid. I couldn’t in good faith have a copy of the Sunday edition especially, on the breakfast table without fear that one of my children would find it and want to read about the latest sex scandal or tale of woe. Plus I wasn’t really up for that over my morning coffee. Nowadays we read it online.

So today after a very long supermarket shop, alone – yes a big one at the start of the school holidays, the aim being not to have to go back again for a week(!!!) – I picked up The Sunday Age because I wanted to read about Marion Grasby – from season 2 of Masterchef. A great piece and she just seems so nice.

But what I was really excited to also read about:

Mia Freedmans’s take on married couples demonstrating affection for one another. Yes, it is great to be madly in love with your spouse. And be happy to show it.

from The Notebook

Karen Martini’s sweet treats we will need to try this week, include clove and chocolate kisses!

And Julia Baird’s article The Smart Wife.  Huma Abedin’s husband may have disgraced himself, but her response to the scandal offers a new narrative for wives affected by such things. She has the opportunity to be smart, be good, be compliant be complicit, be private, be decent. I would hope that she has the opportunity to forgive and to love again. History is one continuos stream of humankind’s sin and mistakes – we are forever hurting those we love with stupid mistakes.

I would love to see marriage celebrated and honoured in our society and this reflected back in the films we see, the papers we read and the tired couples we see playing with their kids on the weekend at the park. So to a week of kisses and love. May we be smart wives who are madly in love with our husbands.