What is it really like teaching in a rural or remote school? In this episode, we discuss the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of working so far away from inner suburbia.
What is it really like teaching in a rural or remote school? In this episode, we discuss the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of working so far away from inner suburbia.
Schools in rural and remote locations are often at the heart of their local area and provide essential support not just for students, but for their families and the wider community as well. But what this means for educators is connection beyond the classroom - where you see students at the local supermarket, and chat to their mum at the hairdressers!
Our guests, Libby Tudball, Blake Cutler, and Adam Zito offer valuable insights into their personal experiences either working in, or providing support for those who have chosen to leave the city and pursue a career in a rural or remote school setting.
Together, we explore:
Rural schools need great teachers now more than ever, so if you’re considering teaching in a rural or remote school - this episode of Let’s Talk Teaching may help you make up your mind!
Special Guests:
Professor Elizabeth (Libby) Tudball School of Curriculum Teaching and Inclusive Education, Monash University
Blake Cutler Blake Cutler, PhD Candidate, School of Education, Culture and Society, Faculty of Education, Monash University.
Adam Zito, Year 9 Pedagogy Leader, Generalist learning mentor & teacher - St Anne's College, Kialla, Victoria
Connect with Adam at azito.educator@gmail.com
If you’re enjoying Let’s Talk Teaching, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review! You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, and share your thoughts on the show by using the hashtag #letstalkteachingpodcast
If you’re interested in hearing more about the short courses, undergraduate, and postgraduate study options that Monash Education offers, please visit Monash Education's learn more page.
Access this episode's transcript here: https://lets-talk-teaching.simplecast.com/episodes/beyond-the-big-smoke-the-pros-and-cons-of-teaching-in-a-rural-community/transcript
This podcast is recorded on the land of the Boonirong people of the Eastern Kulin Nation.
We'd like to pay our respect to Elders past and present
and acknowledge that this land was stolen and never ceded.
Welcome to Let's Talk Teaching, the podcast created by teachers, for teachers.
I'm Associate Professor Rebecca Cooper, Director of Initial Teacher Education at Monash University's Faculty of Education
and I'll be your host for this series.
Our aim is to create a conversational series that's informative, engaging and relevant
to your teaching practice.
Joined by academics and teaching alumni from Monash University, we'll be exploring the
challenges, issues and experiences you might be facing in and out of the classroom, drawing
on their personal experiences to provide you with valuable insights into the world of teaching.
Have you ever wondered what it's like to teach in a location that's removed from the hustle
and bustle of city life?
In today's episode we discuss the many benefits, opportunities and potential challenges of
teaching in a rural or remote school and some of the realities you may face when integrating
into a tight-knit community at the same time.
The guests joining me on today's show are Professor Libby Tudbull and Blake Cutler from
the Faculty of Education at Monash University, with Blake also being a former teacher in
a rural community and Adam Zito, Year 9 pedagogy leader, learning mentor and teacher at
at St Anne's College in regional Victoria.
Welcome everybody.
So Blake and Adam, you've both had stints in schools
outside of the big smoke.
And Libby, you've got a really extensive research background
in teaching and education in rural and remote communities.
Libby, I'm gonna start with you.
What's your involvement in rural schools?
I'd be delighted to beck.
My involvement with rural schools goes right back to 1976
When I was a pre-service teacher myself,
I camped down secondary college
and had an amazing three-week experience
where not only did I learn a little bit about teaching,
but joined the local netball team,
had drinks at the pub with all of the teachers
at the end of the week,
got to know families in ways that I never had a chance to
before in the school community
and had a great start to my education as a beginning teacher.
and Libby, I'm going to echo that because I did one of my pre-server teacher placements
in a Matoa secondary college and had the same experience, particularly around getting
involved with the community. So it's a very exciting thing. But what are you up to now
in rural schools?
Well, I've been at Monash for 32 years. So I see myself a little bit as the grandmother
of the faculty these days. And as a faculty, we've been involved in a multitude of ways
in rural schools. And over the years that I've been in many different roles, I've worked
in rural schools right across the Latrobe Valley, down as far as Portland, Hamilton,
and more recently in the Bass Coast region, where we've at the moment got about 125 students
who've been on teaching practicum in early childhood, primary, secondary, special developmental
settings and flexible learning options schools. And I've been staying down there because that's
the only way you really get to know a rural community. And you meet up with the local teachers
that you've had a chat to during the day, having a counter meal in the pub at night. And this is one
of the things that's really special about having that kind of practicum that you really get to
know the community. And you're, you're welcomed because you're a bit of a novelty. And the kids
and the teachers enjoy the opportunity to interact with us because we come with different
ideas and experiences.
Really good stuff.
Blake, you've had some experience in rural schools as well.
How's that been for you?
Yeah, mine actually started as a student in the lovely country town of Bellingen.
I grew up there and went to school.
And what I loved about that experience was that the school was at the real heart of the
community.
It was the central meeting place for everyone in the town.
So I lost that a little bit when I came to the big city in Melbourne to study and found
myself gravitating back towards that sort of setting for the first few years of my teaching
as well as my final year practicum.
Now I'm back here again, so I'm sort of going back and forth and back and forth and I'm
happening to be doing a little bit of research in rural schools at the moment as well as metropolitan.
So it's nice to remain connected to that sort of environment even though I'm here more
often now.
And Adam, how about you?
Very similar story to Blake.
Um, obviously sort of a different ending, but yeah, started, uh, my journey in
shepardon, born and bred shepardon boy.
And then came down after I finished my VCE to Monash, I was here for about five
years and then moved back in my final year, sort of halfway between, uh, to do
my final teaching placement at a school called St.
Anne's eventually got the job there and have been there ever since and just love
being back in the community.
I just love being in a rural setting.
It's fantastic.
What is it that you love about it?
I think what Libby said before, just the connections, the community,
the relationships you built and the relationships that you already form over
your whole life and then you just continue to make those connections even further.
So how is that if you perhaps, um, you're talking about it through a life experience,
you know, you grew up there, all that sort of thing.
What about people who perhaps make that decision to go rural as a career option?
So they're not there for the whole time, but they're coming in later.
What do you think the experience is sort of like for them?
Have you got some colleagues perhaps?
Yeah, I'm not too sure about colleagues that have moved from Metro setting to rural,
but I think maybe if I could give a piece of advice is to just get involved in
everything that you possibly can, footy clubs, netball clubs, whatever it might be,
and just build those connections to your community because, you know,
moving away from your hometown is a big thing.
Like I've gone from rural to Metro and that was such a massive move for me to
get adjusted.
So I think going the opposite way, you'd need to do a similar thing and just get involved.
And it's often getting involved with those sort of connections that are already pre-existing in the school.
So, you know, because the schools are often a meeting place for these sorts of towns and these, these country places,
you know, you'll have community gardens on, on the campus of the school.
There'll be men's sheds for some of them.
So you can actually, by just being at the school,
be connected in with those sorts of opportunities
within the community.
You don't necessarily have to go out
and forge that new path yourself.
You can go with the flow a little bit as well, I think.
that we've had down in the Bass Coast region
that what you're suggesting is exactly
what they've been doing.
And I describe it a little bit like a nested community
because they all stay in houses together
that we rent through the local real estate agents
So they're eating together, preparing food,
preparing lessons, reflecting on their day
and talking about their experiences,
which provides a really great support net for them.
But then they've got each other to go and explore,
to go and play, to go and go to the local fitness gym,
for example, to do a bush walk at the end of the day.
But they are still very much connected
with their mentor teachers after hours.
And that's not typical of the experience
of a pre-service teacher when they're on a teaching practicum in the city.
No, not at all.
Libby, so when you're saying they're connected outside of ours, what is that connection like?
What does it sort of look like?
So it's being invited to go and join in on it could be a church activity or there's a lot of
socioeconomic disadvantage in the best coast region.
So our pre-service teachers became involved in food bank delivery of food to families in need.
They became rapidly involved in after-school homework work clubs to help kids whose parents
might for example have low literacy or who might need some support just driving their
kids to something, to a medical appointment.
They also became involved with the wider community organisations like Orange Door which provides
mental health support or at the flexible learning option school.
students were trying to take the kids to an experience that they would not
normally been able to afford to go to and that's been great too. It might be a
sport or it might be some kind of social or film event. There's a lot of options
that our students have grabbed because they think well we're not going home to
our usual setting so we may as well do it while we're here. And it's not just
about connecting with say that your colleagues at your school but it's also
those connections across schools. So I remember when I first started teaching,
you know, we would finish up the day at our school,
but then it might have been a tutoring program at one of the other high schools.
If there's more than one settings in that, in that town. Um,
and I think that's really valuable too,
because it's that extra support network that you're building and looping into,
but there's also a degree of separation from your immediate context as well,
which I think is a really valuable thing to start building when,
when you go into those new settings?
began to think of themselves not so much
as teachers of subjects, but teachers of kids.
And so some of their skills and attributes,
like playing music, playing the guitar, being a performer,
being a singer, being able to cook, things opened up.
And so they used their skills and attributes
to build relationships with the kids
in a much faster way than they would in an urban placement,
where at five o'clock they leave and go home
rather than stay in the community,
wander down the street and bump into the kids along the way.
is absolutely key.
You see those kids everywhere you go.
So you do become more than a subject teacher.
For my context, I teach generally.
So if I teach a year nine,
so I'm teaching English, math, science, everything.
But more than that, you are teaching the kids.
You're seeing them down the street.
You're going into the woollies and you're crunching on grapes and you're talking to the kid that's,
you know, doing the fruit and veg.
It's fantastic.
And you're, you're a mentor to them, not only at the school, but just in the wider community.
You know them.
You know, they're dad, you went to high school with their brother.
So you just connected in every possible capacity there with them.
One of the things that we found really interesting is that our research is telling us that the mental
teachers are far more open to allowing our pre-service teachers to take risks when they
go into the rural community. So they'll say, "Well, what are you really interested in teaching?"
Or, "It's November now and we've finished our core program. What would you really like to have
a go at while you're down here?" They seem much freer in giving their classes over and letting
the pre-service teachers stumble if they like, but having deep longer conversations, reflective
conversations about what worked, what didn't, what you might do next. This is coming through really
strongly in our research. This open community environment is making a difference to our students.
Like I think that sort of mentality transfers through not just in relation to the placement
experience but also when you step into the school as a teacher. Like I know I was presented with
opportunities within my first year that would never have been presented to me in an urban or
or a metropolitan school, like even if you take something as specific as leadership opportunities
or opportunities to take up taking charge and even on a small project, not necessarily
in leading a subject or a department, I got the sense that there was more openness.
You didn't have to necessarily serve your time at the school before you proved yourself
to be able to take on those leadership opportunities or the leadership roles.
It was very much, well, Blake's here,
they're willing to contribute, let's give it a go.
And I really got that sense.
It was just resonating with what you were saying,
Libby, in terms of that general openness.
We had a forum at one of the Bass Coast schools,
and the principal led us into the room,
and I said, "Oh, you're very welcome to stay
if you'd like to."
And he said, "Well, what are you doing here?"
No one had told him.
He ended up staying for the whole session.
He offered two of our pre-service teachers a job
because they happen to be potential maths teachers.
And he was quite sincere.
He said, I can conduct the interview
straight after the session.
Because the grim reality is that we've
got a real crisis in Victoria.
We have a very serious teacher shortage.
And one of the reasons why we as a faculty
are doing this work in rural areas
is we know that this is an important part of our work
to renew the profession.
And through an opportunity where you go and you looked at by the local school,
but you also got a chance to experience, well,
what is it like to live in this community?
Means that you have a greater propensity to actually say, okay,
I'm going to apply for a job here. And in our research,
we found that 65% of this 125 students said they would
strongly consider going to teach in a rural school.
Some of the younger ones said not immediately
because they felt that their lives needed
to settle a little more,
but certainly that they would consider it
a little bit further down the track.
So Adam, what are things like at your school at the moment?
To Libby's point, there is a massive teacher shortage.
It is, yeah, you're right, it's a crisis.
We're teaching amongst just subjects across the board,
subjects we're not trained in,
completely teaching out of field.
I'm science trained, but I'm teaching,
like I said before,
everything from English to maths to R.E. to I taught Italian last year.
Now I've got Italian heritage, but I wasn't great at teaching Italian.
And that's just something we are all all doing because, you know, you need to step up
and you need to not prove yourself as such.
Like you said, Blake, but you need to show that you're willing to buy in.
And if you're doing that, the students are also willing to do that.
They're also willing to go the step further and see that you're working hard
and they know that you're overworked sort of thing.
So they're going to sort of step up in their own capacity as well.
But does this also go to Blake's point about opportunity?
I mean, you can spin this the other way and say, well, is this a chance for
you to be able to trial different and exciting things and to have a go at things?
Has that been the case for you?
Well, clearly it has.
But yeah, well, I suppose my experience started at my college because they were
the first year of their school.
St.
Anne's was my first year of placement there.
So things lined up perfectly.
and when I applied to do my practicum there,
my first day was on a year seven camp.
So they just threw me in the deep end.
And I think that sort of proved myself
to be open to the change,
to be open to the new way of doing things and new school.
So I suppose that to your point Blake really helped me out,
but I've jumped at every single opportunity that I've had.
I've got a permission to teach in my team now
and not that I'm her official mentor or anything like that,
but you know, you feel a responsibility
to bring the new ones up in a positive way
and establish themselves.
'cause another thing we found in the research
is that, again, a very high percentage,
not absolutely certain of the figures,
but around 80% of our students said
that their induction and their mentoring
into the school was better than urban schools.
And once again, it seemed to be around
this more relaxed environment.
Some of the schools were not as big,
but there was a great effort put in
to ensuring that our students understood what the culture of the schools about, who can
support them, what opportunities they can get involved in.
And they felt that the mentors weren't in such a rush to run out the door and happy
to sit down and have a deeper conversation about, well, how did your day go and what
have you learned and what are your questions now and where do you hope to go next?
So it's a really positive finding, just a little more time when they're not rushing
home to fight the traffic and all that sort of thing.
I think that could be true.
But maybe there's something more to that.
Do you find that, Adam?
Absolutely.
Like my mentor from back in my final year of uni, when I was on my placement, he's still
my mentor and it's been four or five years.
And I will still rely on him until he retires or whenever it might be because he's been
so valuable to me, a mentor in work and a mentor in life.
And that's what I want to be moving forward for new teachers in the space as well, because
you can establish a culture and you can establish a culture within the school that feeds out
into the community.
And if all schools in the same regional context are doing that, then you've got a great little
community there.
A number of students commented to me in focus group discussions we had that the experience
has been much more on the learners rather than the testing and that many of the units
that they're teaching are more focused on rather than we've got to get through this
content but the much stronger objectives about what's the purpose of all of this and we had
quite a long discussion about how they'd really rethought what are the central goals for us
teachers in schools and I found that very powerful because that came through
quite often in the student focus groups that we conducted. So goals for
education, goals for learning become both very important rather than you know
what's the content of the lesson tomorrow? What is it that's going to be
purposeful for these young people in this environment to help them to take
the next steps in their learning journey? Questions like that that are really
important for a beginning teacher to have an opinion on.
Does that resonate with you, Adam?
Absolutely. Yeah. Even we were talking before, Beck, it is a slower pace.
And that's why I love it so much.
Not slower as in there's still obviously high demands in terms of curriculum
and assessment and everything like that.
But the way that we go about it might be slightly different.
I like the word relaxed that you used there.
Well, it was very relaxed on the very first day I arrived at San Remo College.
I won't tell you which campus they were all wonderful.
And I went up to one of the students, I said,
"Oh, look, we're a bit lost.
We're not sure where the office is."
And this lady turned around and said,
"Well, I'm the principal dressed in her pajamas
because it was pajama day at the school.
Come on in."
And the whole school was dressed in their pajamas.
And she said, "Just give me a couple of minutes
why I'll go and get changed."
And she said, "Oh, forget it.
Everyone else is in their pajamas.
Let's just go on with the professional learning session."
And it was just so refreshing to see how connected the students were in their pajamas with the
teachers. It was difficult for us to know where the boundaries were, but it became
a very positive session. It was a professional learning session on building positive relationships
funnily enough. And the people we started with were the young people. I think Learn A Voice
and agency is a big priority in this community where kids are often having quite a lot of
difficulties with home life, with intergenerational poverty and unemployment, with the issues we're
all facing with the cost of living these days. For school to be joyful and for schools to
be a place really focused on flourishing of young people in a myriad of ways is really,
really wonderful. So Adam is is student agency a bit of a priority at your school as well?
Huge and within like because St. Enns is an inquiry based learning school,
a Catholic school as well but yeah agency is everything. Student voice within their learning
program, student voice within you know if they need additional support yeah everything ties back
to the student and how they can be best set up to be learners. Did you find that too Blake?
Well, yeah, particularly because, you know, there are certain gaps in sort of living standards,
social economic status, particularly between metropolitan and rural areas. You know, when
you're in that setting, you've got to satisfy those sort of basic needs before you can even think
about the learning. And so really being there as a person and connecting with the student as a person
first before you even get into learning outcomes or whatever you've got planned for the day.
I remember that being a really strong driving consideration and factor in how I approached
my work day to day. That also connects to the point I was making earlier about it's so important
the young people know what it is they're learning and why they're learning it and how they're learning
it because you can't have agency if you can't answer those questions. Absolutely. And it's a very
different way of framing what goes on in classrooms from you know open up your book
to page 55 and answer the questions at the end. There's none of that going on in
the school communities where there are so many efforts made by the very hard
working school leaders and teachers who invited our students in to have
conversations in what they now call their professional learning community
about the purpose of learning and what their role could be in that journey.
So I'm hearing lots of opportunity for teachers, lots of discussion with teachers,
lots of freedom, lots of opportunity to take really well-supported risks and to discuss them
and break them down, great mentoring, good opportunities with and for students,
but what might be some of the challenges of working in a rural school?
It's a really interesting point and it actually links back to something I wanted to ask you,
when you were talking earlier about the induction and the pre-service teachers,
sort of perceptions of the culture within the school, you spoke about sort of how
they felt quite supported and how they transitioned into that environment.
Were there perhaps any instances of say more culture shock? Because that sort of
is more how I would characterize my experience going into the rural school.
even though I grew up in a country area and moved a couple of hours away when I first started my
teaching, it was such a different dynamic and such a different culture and because I was away
from my established support networks, like that I think took a toll on me and my experience, but
I'd be keen to hear. Well, when you, of course, in any rural community, there's going to be diversity
and that diversity takes many forms. One of them is each child's own family background.
And sadly, there are all the things that you will expect in rural disadvantage around levels of
domestic violence, levels of quite extreme poverty and hardship that can often be connected to issues
of mental health in the family. There were also issues which some of the school leaders spoke
about in that relationship professional learning session I told you about coping with things like
gender identity that came up for some young people and we had one wonderful session where a young
person spoke really openly about the struggles that she had had in terms of her identity. So
I guess most of those kind of struggles can be in any school but you do get extremes. You'll get
the very well to do in a community and those that are struggling far more than any of us would want
any young child to have to endure.
Black, can you talk about your experience a bit more? I'm very curious to hear about this.
Yeah, it was an interesting one and I don't look back on it and wish it never happened
because there were really positive aspects and I think it was quite a formative experience in
shaping who I am now as an educator.
But I also don't think I was prepared for the sort of challenges that I faced.
And particularly those ones around dealing with those extreme levels of
disadvantage that was quite shocking to me.
But I think also when I moved to a rural area to teach and was sort of
disconnected from my previous lives geographically and trying to find this
sense of who I was in this new, new town where there perhaps was a little bit of a
culture clash between what I wanted and the town.
I felt like I lost myself a little bit.
And in the end, the right decision for me and the right decision for my students
was, was not for me to teach in that school anymore.
But I really look back on that experience with a level of fondness now.
Yeah, is that sort of what you were thinking?
With your students, did they welcome you into their community?
Yes and no.
There was in some sense sort of a, oh, you're a bit new, you're a bit different.
And that sort of caused some initial barriers, but like any good teaching sort of overcoming
those barriers through building relationships was a really powerful way of connecting myself in.
In the end, it was more of a decision of where did I just want to be at that point?
And it was and it was not the right decision for me.
I think perhaps because I didn't get the chance to check out the town beforehand, to check out the school,
to be able to immerse myself in experience
at before making that decision to go.
It was more of a placement you're going here.
So I think that was probably the first and main misstep
that led to that experience not going for longer than it did.
I had students that I went to high school
with their older brothers and sisters
and I knew the families and all that sort of stuff.
So I didn't find that challenge as much as you did.
And if you contrast it to my final year placement
where I taught at my high school,
entirely the same experience as yours,
I think it was just, 'cause it was starting fresh.
It was, there's a level of work
that has to go on behind the scenes
and separate from the school
for that to be a more positive and supported experience,
which goes to your point,
which is what I was sort of resonating on earlier
when you're going, there's this really strong induction
and there was really purposeful community building.
And I was sort of thinking, oh, I wish I had that.
That would have been wonderful.
because I spoke about that sort of nested community,
the community of the house where the students lived together.
And some of them, you know, they're pretty young.
They're in third year, they might be about 20.
Some of them said, I don't know, I'm going to wait
'cause my mum does all the cooking, you know?
But a number did comment that a challenge for them
if they were to decide after their fourth year
their second year of their M.Teach to go and apply for a rural school would be they might not be
in that nest of the rented house down somewhere around Phillip Island or Invalok or Lee and
Gath or wherever it might be. Although when we had focus groups with their mentors and the
pre-service teachers, they said, "Oh, teachers often live in shared houses down here and that
works really well." Although sometimes we really need to get away from each other. But that social
support is always important when you're working in what is a very high pressure profession.
I think your point around sharing the houses and stuff, it, and I was, what I was going to say on
the opposite of what we were talking about before, Blake, there's a level of saturation. Like, it
almost becomes your life that you know these kids so well that you do see them down the street. And
sometimes you're like, oh goodness, I don't want to see you at the moment. I just need to be away.
I need to go home. I need to not be around people because you still are a person. You still need
need to live your own life.
And yeah, it gets a bit saturating sometimes.
You get really good at picking which will is I'll to go down to avoid the students.
Yeah.
Wearing hoodies and hats and all that sort of stuff.
So you don't see them.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So Adam, what is, what's the relationship like with your colleagues at the moment?
Well, there are colleagues.
Um, so that's a good start because obviously not in all schools, they're
teacher shortage and all that sort of stuff.
Um, but it's great.
We have a really good culture, um, at my work and you know, go out for Friday night
drinks or whatever it might be.
And, you know, we all get around each other and just love what we do.
And so supportive when we're there, but, you know, when you do need to take that
time away or you do need a mental health day or something like that, everyone's
really supportive and, you know, you turn your emails off and you just be yourself
at home or whatever you choose to do with that day.
It's crucial.
Okay.
So there's definitely something in the support network that you have to set
up for yourself as a teacher.
But you have to work toward it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's not something that just comes overnight.
Um, you have to be across your colleagues and you have to back them and they back you.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's a leap of faith.
Absolutely.
Now and then I remember the like the first day I started, I started with two other
beginning teachers and the leap of faith I took was just sending out an email saying,
Hey, let's, we're three new beginning teachers.
Let's chat.
And they were the greatest support network I had at that school.
And it may or may not have happened without that sort of leap of faith to go,
let's do this.
So yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Absolutely.
Blake, do you think it's more so important to have that network in a rural school because
you don't necessarily have that family or your other networks with you?
Is that sort of what I'm hearing?
That you actually have to put some work into building it if you're going to make that decision
to go into a rural school?
Yeah, precisely.
It's part of the decision.
And thinking about where you can draw those sources of support from, whether that be colleagues
at school, but also connections outside of school so you can disconnect a little bit
more.
built some wonderful connections with other musicians so I could go and
separate myself from that work life because I was seeing students down the
street and it was a nice that was a nice way to shut off from that work life as
well. So you're saying you're seeing students down the street and I heard
Libby talking before about you know making contributions to families and
all that sort of thing. Is it a different relationship with parents and families
as well when you're in the rural school community to what it is if you're in
metropolitan or urban?
much closer relationship with parents and carers
in the community that could be, you know,
related to a number of factors.
One, I started teaching just at the beginning of COVID.
So there was a lot more of that communication
and connection, but also the schools are often smaller.
So you can, you have more time and more capacity
to build those sorts of connections compared
with a larger school where it might be a little bit more
impersonal. That's sort of what springs to mind immediately
for me.
Sometimes you've got parents of the children who are
teachers in the school because they live in a small town
and that's just what happens.
I've got about I think for my cohort of you nine so I think
there's about seven parents that work at the college as well.
So it can cross some lines sometimes where I'm talking to
you with your parent hat on at the moment or I'm talking to
with your teacher hat on at the moment.
The lines can get a bit blurry, but I think from my experience doing practice at schools
in the metro area, not that I interact with a lot of parents, but just from the discussion
with other teachers, parents in metro, I've heard that a bit, how do I word this, fluffy,
I suppose, that they can read the teacher talk a little bit, whereas parents in regional
settings don't really deal with that very well.
They kind of just want you to get to the point.
They don't want the bullshit for lack of a better word.
So yeah, that's something that I found at least.
How have you guys found that?
Yeah, I was sort of giggling to myself as you were chatting then.
It's always an interesting dynamic when you're calling home.
One, you know, and they don't want that teacher talk, but also two, when you
know you're calling a colleague, you're going, I have to call you about your child.
Not as a colleague, but as a parent.
It's a really interesting dynamic the first time it happens.
So if someone said to you, came up to you and said, you know, I'm thinking about, I'm
considering making the move and going to teach in a rural school.
What would your advice be Adam?
Do it for sure.
Absolutely.
I love it.
Obviously there are massive pros and there's massive cons, but it just, it's been the best
thing for me for my mental health, going back to a small country town, not the shepherd
and small, but a country town and yeah, just living where you work and loving every aspect
of it. Blake, what do you reckon? Definitely jump into it if it's something that interests you,
but see if there's opportunities to explore and sort of test out the waters a little bit to see
if it's right for you. I think it can be a bit intense and often sometimes a bit of putting
if you jump straight in with sort of no experience or no connections. So taking time to ease yourself
in and check that it's right for you, I think would be my main tip. And I totally agree with that.
and I just hope we can get good funding to continue these rural programs because that's
really the issue. We could send hundreds of our pre-service teachers to rural communities,
but they can't afford to pay rent in the city and in the rural community they're going to,
and they stop their jobs. So it can't be generally for more than three or four weeks at a time
that our pre-service teachers can go. We're exploring other ideas, for example, having them
Billeted by members of the teaching staff, but there's something pretty unique about that shared housing
situation with their peers because nothing beats peer reflection at the end of the day
Where you can actually debrief with someone who's had that same experience and badly needs to debrief as well
Absolutely about their experiences because people who are not involved in teaching
They just don't have the same insights into what the rigors and the challenges are when you're working with
little kids from anything from three years of age to year 12.
Well thank you all very very much for coming in having a chat with me today
about working in rural schools and for taking us through the wonderful
opportunities that are available and are open to both pre-service teachers and
to those looking for work in the rural areas. Thanks so much guys.
Thank you.
Join us next episode as we explore developing and sustaining strong
relationships with parents, carers and the wider community and the impact it can have
on supporting effective learning.
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