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A Bay of Plenty teacher who quit the profession feeling “burnt out” after three terms says it was an “accumulation of the stress and the pressure of being a first-year teacher”.
Jake Angus (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui) says leaving was “one of the hardest decisions” he has ever had to make.
But better pay rates in Australia now have him considering a return to the profession.
It comes as new data shows a total of 27,000 teacher practising certificates have expired and not been renewed since 2017, with numbers rising for the past five years.
One union representative believes there has been an “exodus” of teachers to Australia — even before a new citizenship pathway for Kiwis in Australia was announced last weekend.
Read the full story: Bay of Plenty primary teacher who quit after three terms may move to Australia and try again
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Pay is better in Aussie, but the students in some public schools are on a whole new level of stress. Drugs, fights, and they practise drills “when a student goes off”.
Better off in the mines/construction if you don’t want to take your work home with you. — Allan P
I’m not a teacher but I have heard from those in the public school system that the day-to-day problems in classrooms are getting bigger and now many of them spend a large portion of their day dealing with kids who are out of control.
They are PT social workers and PT teachers and the rest of the classroom pays the price. — Welly G
Perhaps if he is going to Aussie, might be best he try something else, try the mines. Plenty of work there, coal etc all go. — Steve K
I wish this young man well.
However, teaching (effectively) is teaching, no matter the country. If the demands of the job were too much here after only three terms (with all the extra support beginning teachers in NZ receive), it is very difficult to see a higher income making any difference to him. — Alfred T
Seriously, it is not only teachers who take their work home in their heads.
Every single occupation does this to you.
Think about how you interact with your friends and sports acquaintances etc, out of work — the banker, plumber, welder, real estate agent, newspaper writer etc will have work stuff in their head and it will be what they generally talk about.
I am not alone in thinking that perhaps this ex-teacher is just not suitable for the job and Australia will make no difference to that. — Debbie H
In reply to Debbie H: Agree totally. Nobody disputes the importance of teaching children but one can’t insist one occupation is more important than another. Just ask the many thousands of people regularly contacted by a colleague after hours. Sounds like he is prepared to wear the extra as long as he gets paid more. That’s what comes with the territory in many jobs. — Sue T
The statement that he thought impostor syndrome had set in and he wasn’t good enough to be a teacher sort of sums it up. The first year of teaching, as with most careers, is the hardest as you get all the systems in place. He will go through the same stress in Australia in his first year there without family support, so good luck. — Robin F
When I was a teacher in the 80s-90s, an average teaching day was 8.30am-4.30pm.
You might take home a set of books to mark, but your job was done.
And the teaching was effective. Bureaucrats and academics have meddled so much they’ve killed the joy of the profession.
Then the complexity of our children due to a broken society has increased the neediness of many of our students, making the teaching job insanely hard.
It doesn’t need to be. Remove the bureaucratic demands to begin with. That would free up many hours per week. — Jane E
In reply to Jane E: Yeah “replying to parents emails”? Give the teachers a break. Parents, you don’t work in your own time for free, stop expecting teachers to. — Heather A
Too many go teaching with those rose-tinted glasses thinking they can change the world. The reality is in Years 9 to 13, you see a student for five periods a week, perhaps five hours. Family and society have a far bigger influence on their success or failure. — Tim T
Teaching is hard work, and some people are just not up to it. I have a teacher in my immediate family. She works long hours, often deep into the night, frequently from very early in the morning, and weekends and school holidays too. Does she complain or give up? Nah. She loves the job and the difference she makes. — Ansie M
Education is the pathway out of poverty for millions. However, in NZ 80 per cent of uni students come from 20 per cent of schools. Education is foundational for a fair and egalitarian society.
It’s also Hipkins and Ardern’s biggest failure. — David M
– Republished comments may be edited at the editor’s discretion.
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