Teaching.

When I was a little girl, I used to line my stuffed toys and dolls along my bed and hand out worksheets to each of them to complete. I copied each sheet out by hand and then had to find a way of subtly filling in the answers myself before having each toy or doll hand their work in so that I could mark each sheet with a big red pen.

I loved primary school. I mean apart from Maths which I hated and never ever got my head around. From an early age I remember being encouraged to always ask for help if I found something difficult. In Maths, I did that but after a while I got self-conscious about raising my arm for help when I looked around to see everyone seemingly working through things without a struggle. I could also start to sense the teacher’s annoyance at my questions, so I just stopped asking and like the others pretended all was well. Even whilst studying for my HSC exams I put off going over Maths as much as I could. One of the happiest days of my life was walking out of my final HSC Maths exam knowing that I would never have to sit in a Maths class ever again.

Put me in front of a class though and I lapped it up. Whether it was singing, spelling tests or reading one of my stories out loud to the whole class. Hell, I’d even enjoy doing my times tables out the front of class. But even then, and with my toy and doll home school, I still wasn’t keen on a future in teaching. I was determined to become a journalist just like Jana Wendt, Chris Bath or even Liz Hayes. Every Sunday we’d watch “60 Minutes” together as a family and in the break between the last journalist announcing themselves and saying it was “60 Minutes” I would insert my name “and Peta Woods”. It became a family running joke and remains one to this day.

I don’t really know what in high school made me think about becoming a high school teacher. I knew in my senior years I enjoyed sitting in the staffroom and listening to the teacher tea goss. Once I volunteered to take a year 7 English class and the teacher nearly let me. It was a different time then. I still remember not being overly convinced about teaching though. I’d lost the motivation to become a journalist in Year 10 and Year 11 when I’d had my own experiences of the media having been on The Today Show and Healthy, Wealthy and Wise promoting the youth camps that I was volunteering at. So, teaching seemed inevitable, but I still didn’t commit to applying for a Bachelor of Teaching, instead I applied for a Bachelor of Arts reassured that I could chuck teaching on at the end of it. I’ll never forget my English and History teacher My Reynolds telling me that a Bachelor of Arts wouldn’t mean a fart without something at the end of it. So. Very. Profound.

So I did that Arts Degree, then an Honours year and then I worked. Then I got very down and attempted suicide. Then I went to Brisbane and got a Degree in Teaching.

I think I have the right to say that I was a good high school teacher. Most of the time. There were good days and bad days as with any job. Kids would be kids after all. And their parents, would be, well parents. But the worst part of the job was for sure the other teachers. Sometimes the worst bit was the women in the office, at other times it would be the Principal or the Deputy or both. It was always teachers tearing other teachers down. Often setting up other teachers to fail. It was unbelievably toxic. There were of course the teachers who were there for the right reasons like me and they were decent people but ultimately it is so easy to become institutionalised by the system.

As a casual or a temp teacher, I had the luxury usually of avoiding the politics and just got to jump in and out of staffrooms. But as the years went on and I was at schools for longer contracts or at the same school more frequently I created friendships and inevitably became part of staffrooms, the culture and the system. Or so I thought.

The first school that broke my heart was after 3 years of teaching mostly at the same school. I ended up getting bullied and harassed by their narcissistic and terrifying Drama teacher. Once I even resorted to hiding in the head of admin teacher’s office with her as she would just unravel and seek out anyone for a tryst. When I put my foot down and said enough was enough the principal calmly informed me that “I was just a casual”. I never set foot in that school ever again.  

So, I went to the UK and taught briefly there. Mostly in primary schools as in the UK you don’t need a teaching degree to provide cover in high schools. My first few days were in a nursery, and I nearly died, literally when a baby sneezed a huge amount of snot directly into my mouth and I’ve never had such a fever since. After that I graduated to the lower years of primary where I couldn’t get my head around how nice the kids were to teachers, but it still wasn’t my cup of tea. Then I had the chance to work with the Upper years and I fell back into love with teaching.

I came back to Australia resentful, depressed and longing to return to the UK. Instead of teaching I trained up as a travel agent which is the second worst job that I’ve ever worked in. I stuck it out for 7 months and managed to meet my future husband in that time, so the suffering ended up being beneficial. He was the one who talked me into returning to teaching since he could see how miserable I was in that job. So, I went back into the teaching fray for 4 or so more years off and on.

And again, it was the other teachers, not the kids, who broke my heart. Same tearing down and politics just different schools and staffrooms. But this time I made what I thought were real friendships. I went to people’s weddings, hosted their hens’ parties and held their hands through big feelings. And, just like before it bit me hard and the love for teaching withered and I had to leave again. This time it was more about leaving those failed friendships behind and putting a line through that for my future self to take note of.

Fast forward to 2016 and I’m staring into a camera lens. The teacher in me, despite the humidity, my newborn gurgling off camera and my husband awkwardly holding the lighting lets me focus and pool my scrambled eggs of thought into a somewhat clear and concise message. In the days, weeks and months that follow when I need to communicate big feelings, the teacher in me breaks the pain down into digestible chunks of narrative. When I present at my first conference that same year, the teacher in me leans in and pulls people in to really listen.

That ol’ saying – “you can take a teacher out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of a teacher” is so very true. I last taught in a high school back in 2015 but those years of teaching experience stay with my each and every day. I can still call on my teacher voice and stare when needed (have you taught adults who won’t get off their phone?) and I so enjoy still breaking down bits of mental health and suicide prevention learnings into digestible bits for people to chew on.

While I no longer teach high school kids for a living, I would never be where I am today without that teaching degree and experience. When I was still vulnerable and fragile, my teaching degree gave me the opportunity to find something that I was good at – communicating information to others. And while that little girl all the way back then might feel sad at times that there were so many worksheets that never got filled in I am thankful to her knowing what she could do. She could make people come to understand things. Not just the Black Death, Shakespeare or how to write an essay but also how to see the world differently through others’ eyes and voices. So don’t fret little Peta, the teaching continues.