Talking Teachers

Adrian is a former NSW Minister of Education, and previous director of the Gonski Institute at UNSW. In this episode, Adrian responds to our questions on who holds power in education, how does it relate to the current teacher shortage and what are the major ‘roadblocks’ to progressing different agendas forward in schools, the broader community and in teacher education in universities.

Show Notes

Carter, D. (2017). ‘I’m scared of NAPLAN’: The consequence of a reductive view of education. Sydney Morning Herald.

Carter, D. & Piccoli, A. (forthcoming). Who Holds the Power in Australian Education? An Insiders’ Account of How Decisions Are Made, Who Makes Them and Where Students Fit. Taylor & Francis.

Hunter, J., Yasukawa, K., Kearney, M., Eckert, G., Heggart, K., Carter, D., Bates, K., Maher, D., & Patterson, C. (29 July 2022). Submission No 123 Upper House Inquiry into teacher shortages in NSW, UTS: FASS, pp 1-12.

Palmer, T-A. (21 September 2022). I’d just like to get on with my job. The barriers facing Science teachers in Australia. The Conversation.

Wilson, R. (9 July 2022). New research shows NSW teachers working long hours to cope with the administrative load. The Conversation.

Wilson, R. & Piccoli, A. (2021). Putting students first: Moving on from NAPLAN to a new assessment system. UNSW.

Alan is one of Australia’s leading education research scholars. In this third episode we talk to him about the damaging effects of neo-liberalism on education and why policy in Australian education is taking us backwards.

Show Notes

Hunter, J. (16 August 2022). Teacher shortages and the ‘crisis’ in rural and remote schools, incentives and what needs to change. Interview on ABC radio

MCERA webinar (26 August 2022): The underlying and overlooked aspects of the teacher crisis. Webinar link

Reid, A. (2019). Changing Australian education: How policy is taking us backwards and what can be done about it. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.

Varadharajan, M., Carter, D. & Buchanan, J. (2021). Career change student teachers: lessons learnt from their in-school experiences. The Australian Educational Researcher, 48:107–124.

Julie is a recently retired classroom teacher, union member, and advocate for public education. We speak about her many decades of classroom experience and what she believes early career teachers require to be the best they can possibly be.

Show Notes

Burke, P., & Buchanan, J. (2022). What attracts teachers to rural and remote schools? Incentivizing teachers’ employment choices in NSW. Australian Journal of Education, 62(2), 115-139.

Carter, D., & Buchanan, J. (2022). Implementing the general capabilities in New South Wales government primary schools. Curriculum Perspectives. 42(1).

Erkert, G. (2022). PhD thesis. UTS The roles and positioning of non-English speaking background overseas-trained teachers in the Australian public school system.

Heggart, K., & Flowers, R. (2019). Justice-Oriented, “Thick” Approaches to Civics and Citizenship Education in Australia: Examples of Practice. In: Peterson, A., Stahl, G., Soong, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_38-1

Lorenza, L. & Carter, D. (2021). Emergency online teaching during COVID-19: A case study of Australian tertiary students in teacher education and creative arts. International Journal of Educational Research.

Correna became Federal President of the Australian Education Union in February 2015. She has spent 17 years teaching in public primary schools. As President of the AEU, she led the union through a long-running industrial dispute with the SA Government as well as organising the “I Give a Gonski” and “Stop TAFE Cuts” campaigns. She has extensive experience and understanding of social justice issues, with a particular interest in students and their families from disadvantaged areas.

Show Notes

AEU Submission No 112 Upper House inquiry into teacher shortages in NSW.

Carter, D. (2020). Three reasons why year 12 should go back to school immediately. Sydney Morning Herald.

NSWTF. (2021). Valuing the Teaching Profession.

NSWTF. (2019). Impact of Enrolment Growth on Demand for Teachers.

Jacqueline is a senior writer and regular columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers. In this fifth episode we ask about her own unique writing processes which are not necessarily ‘scientific’ but driven from the news cycle and topics that she might be discussing with friends, family and current events.

Show Notes

Gore, J. & Mockler, N. (23 June 2022). Teachers the fall guys for a failing system. SMH

Hayes, D. (25 July 2022). Here’s what a brave education minister could do right away to fix the horrific teacher shortage. EduResearch Matters

Mockler, N. (2022). Constructing teacher identities: How the print media define and represent teachers and their work. London: Bloomsbury.

Chris is an education commentator and former school principal. He is a longtime campaigner for public education and his recent publications both in books and online opinion pieces in national publications focus on equity and funding. He is not hopeful about where education in Australia is at, he says: “It’s in the too hard basket. We have left so many things undone, for example, we haven’t solved the problem of equity – private providers undermine equity – it’s a system at war with itself. Deep structural reform is needed.”

Show Notes

Bonnor, C. (13 August 2022). Solve school crisis by funding most in need. SMH

Bonnor, C. (21 September 2022). We couldn’t have built a less fair system if we tried. SMH

Eacott, S. (22 September 2022). What we must do now to rescue Australian schools. AARE EduResearch Matters

Greenwell, T. & Bonnor, C. (2022). Waiting for Gonski: How Australia failed its schools. Sydney: UNSW Press.