Stories FROM OUR COMMUNITY
ALPHA CHENG'S personal mission towards inclusivity and against extremism Getting students prepared for local work in the high tech future with DUANE COLLINSON
SUMMER 2019
LEGACY OF LEARNING LIVES ON
Twin sisters Grace and Claire White took philosophy at a country high school. They catch up with their teacher seven years later at a pub in Melbourne.
What can education in Australia look like in the year 2030? We ask the community
And featuring more stories and interviews with Milly Bawski, Emily Gaughwin, Stanley Wang and more
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CONTENTS Introduction
03
Legacy of learning lives on
04
When the personal becomes public
07
Australia’s hopes and aspirations for education in 2030
10
Tech wave driving waterfront city’s digital future
12
Canberra conversations
14
Colorado calling on a journey to inclusion
15
Empowering change in Taiwan
18
Making the most of music class
20
Message from Melodie
Meet Elizabeth Fitzgerald and her former students, Grace and Claire White Cohort 2012 (Leadership Development Program), Cohort 2019 (Teach To Lead)
Meet Alpha Cheng Cohort 2013 (Leadership Development Program)
Hear from the community
Meet Duane Collinson Cohort 2015 (Leadership Development Program)
Six Alumni and Associates in Canberra to share their stories with Australian political leaders
Meet Emily Gaughwin Cohort 2017 (Leadership Development Program)
Meet Stanley Wang Cohort 2013 (Leadership Development Program) Meet Milly Bawski Cohort 2019 (Leadership Development Program)
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INTO THE FUTURE Students at Melton Secondary College, as featured in the three-part SBS documentary about Teach For Australia Associates, Testing Teachers (2017).
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Message Another year is coming to a close. I hope we all conclude 2019 more open and humble than we started it. For Teach For Australia, it’s been a reflective year as we celebrated our ten year anniversary. But while some things come to an end, others begin: Cohort 2020 starts their National Initial Intensive (NII) in Melbourne in mid-November. Our next cohort of incredible individuals will be entering classrooms as teachers for the very first time across Australia. At the same time, Teach For Australia also celebrates its first formal and explicit act of Reconciliation, launching our first Reconciliation Action Plan at the start of NII. When I first immigrated to Australia, I landed in the rich soils of Cape York. I worked to serve community leaders and activists and I saw firsthand the belief and desire for an education system that recognised, empowered and secured the identity and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander youth, at the same time that it provided the additional skills and competencies that would give them choice and capability to navigate and choose to live and work between worlds, and bring greater opportunity to their homelands.
It is the same vision for young people – the same belief and desire – that was so richly expressed by 66 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth in August, in what they rightly called the Imagination Declaration. They provoked us to, “when you think of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kid, or in fact, any kid, imagine what’s possible. Don’t define us through the lens of disadvantage or label us as limited. Test us. Expect the best of us. Expect the unexpected. Expect us to continue carrying the custodianship of imagination, entrepreneurial spirit and genius. Expect us to be complex. And then let us spread our wings, and soar higher than ever before.” Teach For Australia embraces the Imagination Declaration as representing the hopes of all young people with whom we work, in schools and communities across Australia. At the same time we recognise that as a nation, it is only when those who are most oppressed and disadvantaged can spread their wings and truly soar that we can all truly claim to be free. Only then can we be the fullness of ourselves as a nation, as an honestly Lucky Country.
FROM MELODIE
A few months ago, my son Harry and I visited my parents who live in North Carolina, in the United States. Despite securing a knee injury the day after I landed, I was able to spend brief but quality time with Harry and my Mum and Dad. Injury notwithstanding, it made me reflect on how precious our lives are and how important it is to take time out from the work to be with family and friends – wherever they may be. Remember to take a break when you need one. Visit family and friends when you can. Your spirit is always the better for it. Enjoy the summertime, and thank you always for your commitment to our work.
Melodie Potts Rosevear Chief Executive Officer
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LEGACY OF LEARNING LIVES ON
After graduating from the University of Melbourne, Lizzy Fitzgerald (Leadership Development Program Cohort 2012, Teach To Lead Cohort 2019) found herself at Shepparton High School in regional Victoria teaching philosophy to country kids including twins Grace and Claire White.
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"Lizzy came in and was just immediately enthusiastic and caring about us and wanting us to do well. That was life changing." Stories caught up over drinks with Lizzy and her former students to discover that the learning lives on. Lizzy: I heard about Grace and Claire before I met them. Before my placement started my mentor had arranged for me to meet some of the other teachers at Shepparton, and at that event the teachers had talked about the girls having been cast to play Tweedledee and Tweedledum in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. Everyone was saying they’d be great in those roles and they really were. They were two very clever, very capable sudents. I had them in my Year 11 Philosophy class, which was the very first class I ever taught. I was young, it my first job after college, it was my first time living out of home, and all of a sudden I found myself in charge of a classroom, which was pretty intimidating. Claire: Lizzy was really energetic. I think she cared a lot about what she was doing. At our school it kind of felt like teachers had started writing us off early. Or maybe the long-time teachers had simply gotten a bit exhausted, so when Lizzy came in and was just immediately enthusiastic and caring about us and wanting us to do well that was life changing.
Grace: Lizzy taught Philosophy for both Year 11 and Year 12, and she was also my Legal Studies teacher for Year 12. I always said that Lizzy was me, if I were a teacher. She was perhaps the only teacher I felt a true connection with. Beyond myself though, I remember her being a dedicated teacher to each and every student she taught. She always took the time to make sure everyone understood the content before moving on. Our Year 12 Philosophy class only had 10 people in it, and some of my favourite memories of that year was from being a part of that class and the atmosphere she was able to create. We were like a family, and that was unlike any experience I had with other teachers at my school. Claire: I remember what Lizzy was doing when we first had her in Year 11 Philosophy versus what she was doing in Year 12 Legal Studies. She was growing as a teacher and I could see that reflected in the way she taught me. You could tell that she was trying to figure out the best way for us to learn something, figure out issues and put in the work to teach us better all the time.
Grace: Lizzy created this extremely organised system for our content and practice questions which was amazing! I am still in awe of it today. It included colour-coding, and it actually made my classes with her the most organised notes out of all of my classes. She also introduced great methods of approaching the different types of questions we would encounter in a SAC or our exam, which made everything so much easier. I even took her method with me to Uni, and I still use it now. With Lizzy I was actually able to Dux a class, which was her Units 3 & 4 Philosophy. Claire: I’ve been out of school for six years now but, yeah, I think there has been a residual impact in my life from Lizzy’s teaching. That’s because she took an interest in us and helped me realise that I could do whatever I set my mind to, showed me that I can make anything work for me. She made me believe I could do whatever I wanted to pursue and that wasn't something I was getting previous to that during my schooling.
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Lizzy: I have been reflecting a lot lately on the impact teachers make in these young lives. I went in to the program to make an impact. I’d been volunteering with the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning (SAIL) program during Uni and wanted to make a difference. There’s a real privilege in being able to help young people who are in the most formative years of their lives – at secondary school – to build their trust, influence their learning and support them as they work towards their ambitions.
Grace: I am easily stressed, and this was especially true during Year 12. I spent many lunchtimes sitting in the Year 12 teachers’ offices talking with Lizzy about my work and how I could improve to make sure I got a high enough ATAR to get in to Melbourne Uni. I have one specific memory where she taught me the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. Lizzy said she recognised that my constant seeking of feedback and improvement was a growth mindset, and I have always since worked to make sure I keep that mindset. It was always my plan to go to Uni. However, having Lizzy as a teacher during my VCE years definitely had an impact on my goals. Being at a regional, under-represented public school there was definitely a push for students to have realistic goals when it came to their study options. We all had to include at least one TAFE course in our preferences just in case our ATAR wasn’t high enough to get in to the Uni course we wanted.
It definitely felt like when it came to Shepparton High students applying to universities that La Trobe was the goal, Deakin was even better, and Monash was top rank. Melbourne Uni was an “in your dreams” goal. However, Melbourne Uni was my dream, and being the academic overachiever I was, I would not be pushed on it. Where I felt a lack of support for my goal to study at Melbourne Uni from other teachers, Lizzy believed in me 100 per cent. She was always a strong believer that I could do anything I set my mind to.
Lizzy: I’ve taught in a lot of schools and Shepparton High School was where I felt closest to the students. There was something about the culture of the school that meant students were more comfortable and felt open to sharing their anxieties and their challenges and asking for assistance and support. We also had a really strong Teach For Australia network at the school which I think benefited students and teachers alike.
Grace: My year level was quite the terror during the junior high school years. However, once Lizzy and the other Teach For Australia teachers (we also had the pleasure of being taught by Emlyn Cruickshank and Saul Wakerman) arrived, the attitudes of my classmates changed. They were passionate and excited to be teaching us, and you could tell that they genuinely cared. I know without a doubt there were a few students in my year level who would not have stayed at high school long enough to graduate if it weren’t for Lizzy, and the TFA teachers.
Lizzy and I were able to develop a close bond, and her support continued beyond the classroom and my time at Shepparton High School. I remember on the day I received my ATAR result, it was lower than expected and I felt like my life and all the plans I made for after high school were shattering all around me. I texted Lizzy and we caught up that day at a local café and we had pots of tea and she was able to assure me that my ATAR was not the end of the world as we talked through my pathways and options. It was so comforting being able to speak to her even though I was no longer her student. We have continued to catch-up over the years when she finished her time at Shepparton and moved back to Melbourne.
Claire: It is always really lovely just to see Lizzy’s enthusiasm, to maintain our friendship and have her support of what we’re doing these days. I know that no matter how much time has passed, she's always going to be in my corner; she's always going to be there to support me and is cheering me on, which is beautiful and I love it.
Where I felt a lack of support for my goal to study at Melbourne Uni from other teachers, Lizzy believed in me 100 per cent. She was always a strong believer in that I could do anything I set my mind to.
Grace shared a photo of her, Claire and Lizzy on social media following Year 12 graduation and still treasures the message she got from her favourite teacher, ‘L Fitz’.
CLAIRE’S MESSAGE: “The best support system I have had at school all year. Although I will miss my daily stress-related emotional breakdowns in the VCE Centre offices with you. You're the best, L Fitz!”
LIZZY’S RESPONSE: "Grace, it's been a privilege. I will miss your integrity and incredible work ethic. Congratulations to you both, and see you very soon around SHS."
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WHEN THE PERSONAL BECOMES PUBLIC Alpha Cheng (Cohort 2013) was placed at Caroline Chisholm School in Canberra as an Associate. On October 2, 2015, his life changed forever when his father, Curtis Cheng, was shot and killed in a terrorist attack. This started Alpha on a journey to research extremism and to counter it with an eye for tolerance and an understanding borne out of his experience as a humanities teacher. He is a 2018 Churchill Fellowship Recipient.
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And so Alpha followed the stars from Sydney, where he left his family; his dad Curtis, who worked for NSW Police in a civilian finance role, mum Selina, and younger sister Zilvia, with a stint in Melbourne in mind. However a false start saw his Victorian placement disappear and the ACT crop up as a destination instead. “Originally, I thought, fine, I can do at least two years in Canberra, and seven years later I'm still here,” Alpha said.
lpha Cheng came to teaching after a change in career. He’d spent three years in the banking and finance sector and was, by his own admission, lacking a connection to that occupation. “I visited a friend who was a teacher in a remote Aboriginal community in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands of South Australia. I spent close to a week there and was in the community, in the classroom, helping out and seeing what it was like,” Alpha said. “I remember there was a moment that I was doing some teaching with my friend and I went, 'Hang on, this feels so right and I think this is it, this might be something I want to do'. My friend and some of her colleagues at the school laughed and said Alpha, you're such a natural teacher, have you ever thought about becoming a teacher? I was like, 'Oh wow, now I have'.” The talent for teaching shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise. A couple of months before that fateful trip to South Australia Alpha recalls he’d undertaken a Birkman career personality profile test which suggests career pathways. “The test spits out usually about half a dozen degrees and job areas that best suit your working style and personality and I only got one, and it was teaching,” Alpha said, adding, “I was also reading a book by Ken Robinson about how finding your passion makes a whole lot of difference so it was kind of like all the stars were aligned.”
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Caroline Chisholm School is located in the Tuggeranong Valley south of Canberra. Alpha was the first Associate placed at the school. In the years since his arrival it has placed five other Associates, with Alpha adding that school leaders saw Teach for Australia as an important part of their ability to staff the school. “In Canberra there's a lot of hidden disadvantage, as in the socioeconomics don't quite show what's there. There is relatively high income, relatively low unemployment and relatively easy access to services, but that masks the disadvantages that we as teachers see every day in terms of kids that have backgrounds potentially in trauma, intergenerational poverty, drugs, alcohol abuse, broken families, foster care, mental health issues. These are all still there,” Alpha said. “I was in banking and finance for almost three years and was teaching for about the same length of time, then in October 2015 there was a huge shift in my life. On October 2, 2015, my dad, Curtis Cheng, was killed in a terrorist attack at the NSW Police headquarters in Sydney. That was a huge impact on myself, my family – my mum Selina and my younger sister Zilvia,” Alpha said. Alpha’s personal grief became public as he played the role of the family spokesperson, taking on the job of addressing the media and engaging in discussions around his father’s attackers’ motivations and blame – a role that continues to this day.
“Some of the rhetoric that came out was targeted at Muslims – moderate Muslim immigrants – saying that we should ban Muslim immigration, and that this is the fault of these groups and societies. "I guess I decided that I had to take a bit of a stand and address that. After all, I am a humanities teacher so I've always been teaching about history, about society, and how we can create strong democracies and a society that is inclusive and celebrates differences,” Alpha said. “In Year 10 I teach the Holocaust within World War Two, the dangers of discrimination, the dangers of prejudice to a particular group and the thing is these lessons are things we can't stop teaching. I feel like the pessimist and realist in me will always think discrimination, racism and bullying will exist - like it's part of the human condition. But really, it's a case of what we can, as educators and societies and leaders, do to try to minimise that as much as possible." Alpha has spent the years since that fateful day in 2015 balancing teaching, family commitments and a growing public engagement in issues such as gun control that have led him into researching violent extremism and radicalisation. In April 2016 Alpha appeared on SBS Insight where he asked former Prime Minister John Howard a question as to whether or not Australia needed a new gun amnesty given the national scheme following the Port Arthur massacre had happened nearly 20 years earlier. “My dad was shot with a black, or grey market gun. How I understand gun control works is that the more guns that are out there, the more chances people might be a victim of gun crime; whether criminal activity, or in this case, a terrorist attack,” Alpha said. Following the conversation, the pair penned separate opinion pieces calling for stronger gun control and a gun amnesty, which was agreed to by the Commonwealth Government in 2017. In a three-month amnesty period more than 57,000 guns were handed in to various authorities around the nation.
"I feel like the pessimist and realist in me will always think discrimination, racism and bullying will exist - like it's part of the human condition. But really, it's a case of what we can, as educators and societies and leaders, do to try to minimise that as much as possible."
Alpha also wrote newspaper pieces pointing out the hypocrisy of One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson, whose attempts to use the shooting as a platform for her antiimmigration stance particularly riled Alpha as a Hong Kong-born Australian whose family migrated to make their new life in a new nation. “We came to Australia in the mid ‘90s and we were the target of Pauline Hanson's anti-immigration sentiment. So now she's using our story as Australians under threat to pick on a new group of people. I penned an opinion piece through Fairfax and it went viral,” Alpha said. “I wasn't expecting that but it obviously hit a chord. From there, I got more media interest and ever since I've been speaking at various programs on news stories that relate to extremism and terrorism. At the end of 2016 I was nominated as a finalist for Young Australian of the Year for the ACT.” In the years since his father’s death Alpha has added various public speaking and volunteer roles at organisations such as Courage To Care, Together For Humanity and Country To Canberra to his teaching duties, but the ongoing trials and inquests around the attack continue to take their toll.
Alpha is eyeing a switch from the classroom into policy and research opportunities in the public sector, and is spending Term Four this year conducting research as a 2018 Churchill Fellowship recipient, meaning that he might have spent his last days in the classroom. “I'm kind of taking a bit of a step back because my mental health hasn't been 100 per cent since about 2015. I get much more easily agitated and my anxiety spikes a lot during stress. I needed to make sure that I've been kind to myself.” When terrorist attacks like the recent one in Christchurch happen Alpha feels the impacts both personally, and via the affect they have on his Churchill Fellowship research. “I applied to do research on ways to reduce the risk and rise of extremism in Australia. As part of the pitch I wanted to visit a number of countries that are, I guess, potentially a bit further along, or have also sadly, experienced more cases of extremism or rising tensions. I'm planning to visit the UK, Germany, parts of Scandinavia, and with events that happened earlier this year in Christchurch I'm also going to go to New Zealand, as well,” Alpha said.
Alpha’s research is likely to provide a more complete picture of what needs to be done to address rising tensions and risks of extremism. He believes that the rapid New Zealand response, which saw gun control laws implemented almost immediately, a Royal Commission set up and Jacinda Ardern’s sterling leadership combine as a model for tackling extremism in the wake of terrorism. “The New Zealand response in my eyes is quite extraordinary. I’m interested in creating a podcast documenting my journey over the past four years and my Churchill scholarship, in piecing together the puzzle of how we can prevent terrorism and extremism in the future,” Alpha said. The stars might have aligned to bring Alpha into teaching but it’s fair to say that fate has pulled him in a different direction; a journey towards learning and understanding that shows the strength of a man who is marking his father’s memory with solutions in a world of separation.
Alpha’s research is likely to provide a more complete picture of what needs to be done to address rising tensions and risks of extremism.
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COMMUNITY CONSULTATION This year, we’ve been celebrating 10 years of Teach For Australia. This milestone has been an occasion for us to reflect on our origins, journey and what we have achieved as a community over the past decade. To commemorate these stories and achievements, earlier this year, we published a 10 year timeline on our website. Looking back at a decade of stories of perseverance, dedication and successes, it’s natural to wonder what the next ten might hold. We enter this decade with a community 831 strong of Associates and Alumni. As a community, we’ve reached over 235,000 students so far and the next decade holds more potential than ever.
As we embark on this next decade, we wanted to launch a community consultation to ask: What are your hopes and aspirations for education in 2030, and what will it take to get there? We heard from teachers, students, principals, parents and anyone who is a part of an Australian community. Results of the community consultation will be published in an upcoming report at the end of the year, but here are some visions for Australian education for the next decade.
WHAT ARE YOUR
Hopes+Aspirations FOR EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA?
“I want all students to feel empowered at school rather than feeling like they are failures because they're not a straight A student. I hope there is more of an emphasis on teaching the importance and beauty in learning and teaching learning as a life skill rather than force feeding mounds of somewhat-impractical content knowledge. I want students to be engaged and active in their learning and have more choice in their education.” - Natasha Sutherland, University student
“My hopes are that by 2030 there will be a strong focus on teacher quality and teacher status, I would like to see equal opportunities and access to education. My vision is that in 30 years Indigenous perspectives are embedded in the curriculum and the gap in educational achievement for ATSI students is significantly narrowed.” - Denise Hewitt, Teaching and Leadership Adviser at Teach For Australia
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“I hope that all students will have access to the education they want and need. I hope that schools will have sufficient funding to be able to meet these needs and provide opportunities for all students to have an education where they feel they belong to the school community.”
I hope that... "ALL students ENJOY the process learning. They can tap into the natural curiosity they all possess, and are part of a system that supports the development of this curiosity by allowing freedom and creativity into the curriculum.”
- Luke Clift, Cohort 2016 Alum
- Phalgu Bhatt, Cohort 2019 Associate
“I hope that education in Australia will come back to focusing on it’s human core: students, teachers and parents. I hope that we can focus back on relationships with students and teachers where every student has a voice and the skills to decide their own futures. I hope we can bring fun back into education where learning is play based, hands on and relevant.
“I would like to see schools and teachers in general better resourced. I think a key area of concern is that teachers are being buried under surplus paperwork with inadequate time allowances to complete it satisfactorily. They lack adequate funding and spend too much time justifying and fighting for what they need rather than teaching.”
- Sarah Crawford, Primary school teacher
- Kathryn Hamilton, Teacher and parent
I hope for... “An education system that builds the capacity of all young people to think deeply, achieve excellence in at least one field or endeavour, [which] support[s] young people to make ethical choices and contribute positively to their community.” - Andrée Poulter, Former Assistant Principal at Melton Secondary College, a Teach For Australia Partner School
“In 2030, I hope that people of all ages have access to technology, and the understanding to use it to better their educational journey. The digital divide is real and acting as a barrier to student success, particularly in regional areas and for communities experiencing disadvantage. Even with increased access to technology, however, we still need passionate educators who are able to be both content knowledge experts and engaging communicators to build aspirations for a student's future, create positive attitudes towards learning and improve academic performance.” - Tim Friel, Former Teach For Australia staff member
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Tech Wave DRIVING WATERFRONT CITY’S DIGITAL FUTURE The Victorian city of Warrnambool is set to become a technology employment hotspot, and Duane Collinson (Cohort 2015) is leading the charge to get local students skilled and job ready for a high-tech future where local jobs mean there’ll be no need to head to the big smoke for quality careers.
"It's not just that we have all this great equipment. We also have very outstanding and dedicated teachers who are highly skilled in their areas of technology."
Duane Collinson came to teaching following a lengthy career in the public service. He is in his fifth year of teaching, having completed the Leadership Development Program at Horsham College where he stayed for three years, before making the move to Warrnambool College where, in 2020, he’ll take on a Leading Teacher role as head of the Art and Technology learning area. “I was based in Canberra originally with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) then I got transferred to Melbourne with the ACCC and was with them for about nine years. I got offered a position with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) where I worked for about four years, working in enforcement, litigation services and computer forensics with ASIC where I supported litigation teams and investigators by gathering evidence from computers,” Duane said. “After 13 years of doing that I decided to take the opportunity to become a teacher. My father was a teacher and was a principal of schools in Western Australia. He was a teacher most of his life so it was always sort of in the back of my mind to become a teacher at some point. The only problem was how to do it?
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I remember reading about the Teach For Australia program on the website a number of times and thinking, 'How would I do that?' and it took me a year to figure out how to make it happen.” Making it happen meant a stint in Horsham and a move to the coastal city of Warrnambool in Victoria’s southwest, which has seemingly been perfectly timed. The city council has stated in its Warrnambool 2040 Vision that it will build itself into a technological hub over the next 20 years. Duane’s pre-teaching experience and his learning area leadership role has combined to drive Warrnambool College’s intention that students have articulated pathways for applied computing. The College is working hard to provide a range of programs so students can get job-ready and participate in the region’s forecasted tech boom. “I was brought into Warrnambool College to implement the digital technology and applied computing program. It was present in what you'd call an embryonic stage and it was certainly an emerging program, but they brought me in to build it up. I've built it up through Years 7-10 and next year is our first year that we are offering VCE Computing, which is a bit unique in the southwest of Victoria because there aren't too many schools down here that offer it,” Duane said. “We're providing our students who are currently entering Year 7 with a deliberate pathway so they can step out at the end of Year 12, be that through VCE or VET, and they’ll be ready to step into employment opportunities in the tech industry in the southwest of Victoria. The council is actively promoting and encouraging businesses down here to get tech ready and they’re actively encouraging schools in the region to think about the opportunities that they're providing to students.
"NOT ONLY WILL STUDENTS BE BETTER PREPARED FOR THE JOBS OF THE FUTURE, BUT THEY’LL ALSO BE ABLE TO TAP INTO EMERGING BUSINESS INCUBATOR OPPORTUNITIES TO START THEIR OWN BUSINESSES, AND ENGAGE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY WHILE LIVING LOCALLY."
It's a very exciting time for students in the southwest region in general, not just at Warrnambool College.” “We're very fortunate as a public school in that we have excellent facilities for our students. I think that for Art and Technology it's one of the best-resourced schools in the region in terms of actual equipment and technology. But it's not just that we have all this great equipment. We also have very outstanding and dedicated teachers who are highly skilled in their areas of technology. "I'm very lucky to have those staff already there and that's maybe 80 per cent of the battle, plus the Art and Technology learning area is very well resourced and has a lot of support from the school leadership.” In 2020, the College will be offering VCE Computing for the first time and will maintain its commitment to VET In Schools (VETiS) programs, which have a strong link with South West TAFE who run excellent Certificate III and IV courses in Information and Digital Media Technology. “My role is engaging with South West TAFE and the other secondary schools in the region. We work closely with Brauer and Emmanuel Colleges – they're the two main ones down here apart from us – to share ideas, in particular, how we are teaching the curriculum, what we're doing, what works and what doesn't work, and also to raise the profile of the subject for our students,” Duane said.
“So for example, we're entering into some school competitions for robotics. We're raising students' awareness of the opportunities and applications stemming from studying digital technologies and applied computing. In terms of popular subject streams, we run a lot of text-based Python coding; using Python to be able to tell the computer to do something. That's proving quite popular. “We're also starting to build our gamification stream. In other words, students are thinking about how to make games or how to use games, and then how to actually go about designing games. I think game making is one of the most challenging subjects and challenging streams for any student, it's really, really difficult. And then of course, there are the other streams we offer, such as data analytics and some robotics. This is all basically available from Years 7-12.
“The simple reality is that if you are trained in and have programming skills, if you can make applications, if you can make solutions using computing that meet needs, you physically don't have to be in a big city to do that. You can do that in the southwest,” Duane said. Living in regional Australia, and in southwest Victoria in particular, certainly has its advantages.
“In the middle years at the moment we have very good uptake of female students in applied computing and digital tech. We're finding that the resources that are emerging to learn how to program and to learn how to use digital tech are more skewed towards attracting females than they have been in the past. The resources are changing and this is a push from industry as well who are trying to attract females into programming. To do that you need to have the particular resources and in terms of curriculum you've got to have the right programs in school to attract them and we're seeing that change taking place. It's still not ideal, but we're getting there.”
"Students will be better prepared for the jobs of the future."
Increasing student engagement with digital technology has many positive impacts. Not only will students be better prepared for the jobs of the future but, they’ll also be able to tap into emerging business incubator opportunities to start their own businesses, and engage in the global economy while living locally.
“There’s no stress. Warrnambool is a beautiful place to live. You live by the beach, the weather is lovely, the city is being revitalised and upgraded. You're also only an hour and a half away from the Grampians and you're only about five hours away from Adelaide as well. You can go there for the weekend and enjoy all of the beautiful areas like the Coonawarra. In the southwest you've got the Limestone Coast and of course, the Great Ocean Road. It's all down here. We very rarely go back to Melbourne but even then the city is only two and a half hours away now that the freeway goes all the way down to Colac. Why wouldn't you move to the country to start teaching? Why would you want to live anywhere else? I wouldn't,” Duane said, which suggests he’ll be riding the digital innovation wave starting to wash across Warrnambool for a long time to come.
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Conversations CANBERRA
In September, a group of six Alumni and Associates joined Teach For Australia CEO Melodie Potts Rosevear and other staff on a trip to Canberra to share their stories with Australia’s political leaders. Associates Anish Badgeri and Lilli Morgan travelled from WA, while Alumni Holly Stewart, Peta Johnstone, Jack Collins and Tim Warwick journeyed from Tasmania and Victoria. Each attendee brought to the discussions their educational journeys, passion for educational equity and their hopes and aspirations for Australian students. ANISH BADGERI: "My Teach For Australia journey really started when my parents migrated to Australia when I was 10. They moved for education - for my brother and I to have the best possible education - and that’s something that’s been incredibly important to me as a value. I think it’s something incredibly important for all students to have." HOLLY STEWART: "I joined Teach For Australia after my law degree because it aligned with my sense of social justice and all of my values including educational equity. In Tasmania, I have been working at setting up some engagement programs for some of our already disengaged, or at risk of being disengaged, students across Kindergarten to Grade 12 and it’s been a fantastic and rewarding experience.
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I just got a text about some kids who are currently building a pizza oven – these are kids who have done very little all year in their classes and are spending their day being super productive using lots of literacy and numeracy skills in a hands-on environment." PETA JOHNSTONE: "I’m part of the third cohort, meaning I have now been part of schools and in the classroom and working in leadership for the last eight years. I developed a great sense of joy out of being in the classroom with the kids and developing learning centred around science and love of science. I’ve been at Mill Park Secondary College for four years in a couple of different leadership roles. Over that time, I have developed some skills around coaching other teachers and working with them to develop their practice, to be able to reflect on their impact in the classroom, and build their own confidence in the way they are doing things and helping students learn." JACK COLLINS: "Getting this opportunity to come to Canberra was pretty daunting to start with but I’m absolutely thrilled I said yes and have had the experience. The best thing about it was reconnecting with the program and hearing from a number of other incredible Alumni about what they were able to achieve, which has reinvigorated me to go back to my own school and keep working hard towards the common goal of trying to end educational disadvantage."
LILLI MORGAN: "I definitely have found the relationships I’ve built with the kids so incredibly meaningful, especially having the space with the Year 11 and 12s to look at their transition into life after school and what that’s like for them. That's probably been one of my favourite parts of teaching. What I’ve seen in the last couple of years of living in Karratha and teaching there is the huge impact that individual teachers make on their students. " TIM WARWICK: "I’m part of cohort four which sent me to Shepparton, Victoria, where I’ve been for the past awesome seven years. I was very lucky to become Assistant Principal at Gowrie Street Primary School, also in Shepparton - the world’s best school with the most amazing kids. For the last year I’ve been extremely fortunate to be Principal of that school, introducing a whole range of different programs and initiatives to work alongside our wonderful kids and community. I would really encourage other Associates and Alum to get involved with this type of [Teach For Australia community engagement] work. It’s a great opportunity to reconnect yourself to the mission of Teach For Australia, to what got us in to teaching in the first place, to what we’re all working towards, and it's an amazing opportunity to share stories of our not just our work, but more importantly, those of the amazing students that we work with."
Colorado calling
I hope that when she goes out and advocates for education, for everyone’s right to a high-quality education, that I had a small part in influencing her values and belief.
ON A JOURNEY TO INCLUSION
MEET MELANIE HENRY Cohort 2011, Leadership Development Program I first met Hannah properly in 2015. What I remember most about that year was how willing Hannah was to give my quirky classroom ideas a go. I feel immensely grateful for the trust she placed in me for our class and for her own future.
Even better, she had been offered a place at La Trobe in her first choice – Arts/Law! I cried when she gave her graduation speech – she sent me a video sharing how I had influenced her path (unfortunately I couldn’t attend because I was having a baby at the time).
I could see that Hannah had a lot of potential and that drove me to become quite ambitious with the goals we set.
I’m so glad that I have been able to keep in touch with Hannah and watch her grow and progress. I hope that when she goes out and advocates for education, for everyone’s right to a high-quality education, that I had a small part in influencing her values and belief.
I left the Pavilion at the end of 2015 but kept in touch. I was so proud to learn that she had achieved her goal of completing VCE and with an ATAR of 80.80 no less!
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Six months into her Colorado sojourn and Emily Gaughwin was happy to hear an Aussie accent at the end of the phone. The Cohort 2017 Alum is in Colorado where she is pursuing her dreams of delivering truly inclusive education that embraces the great outdoors. hile Colorado is a long way from Tasmania, Emily Gaughwin is no stranger to the Rocky Mountains’ beautiful natural landscape. As a child she grew up on the Rockies’ ski slopes where her family enjoyed many ski holidays. Following her Leadership Development Program placement at Reece High School in Devonport, Tasmania, it felt natural for Emily to head to the United States and the familiar high mountain ranges on a journey towards inclusive, nature-based learning. “I’m working for a company called the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Centre (BOEC). It’s an adaptive outdoor education centre, where we're working with people who have special needs,” Emily says of the facility located west of Denver.
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“I’ve worked on courses for people who have multiple sclerosis, we’ve had traumatic brain injury camps, and I’ve done a lot of kids’ courses – that’s sort of my jam, what I enjoy doing – so I’ve worked with at-risk kids, kids from low socioeconomic communities or kids who have been in the juvenile justice system. We’ve done a lot of cognitive behavioural therapy work with them, taking in a lot of Teach For Australia’s teachings in terms of high expectations and negotiating respect and trust and all of those valuable soft skills, which has been wonderful.” “The camps are largely based around outdoor education so we do high ropes courses in the tree-tops, white water rafting, hiking, kayaking and canoeing. We also do a lot of cooking together, sharing meals and the housekeeping.”
Emily started to teach her classes outside; doing trigonometry with trees and the angle of the sun, delivering an ecosystems unit in the local forest, which allowed her students to identify real decomposers rather than looking at them on a slideshow.
Emily studied Health Science in the Physiotherapy stream for her undergraduate degree, and taught maths and science as well as health and well-being classes at Reece High School.“I enjoyed the health and well-being subjects and really believed that that was the most important things to be teaching that particular group of kids, because without that they couldn’t really focus on their activities in the classroom,” Emily said. “I guess my outdoor education interest came from me noticing there was a lot of disengagement in the classroom. These were often kids who had suffered a lot of trauma – and they couldn’t stay still and this was impacting on the students who hadn’t suffered trauma. After all, if a kid throws a chair the whole class falls apart pretty quickly.” Emily’s response was to start teaching her classes outside; doing trigonometry with trees and the angle of the sun, delivering an ecosystems unit in the local forest surrounding Devonport, which allowed her students to identify real decomposers rather than looking at them on a slideshow. “Attendance rates really improved, students’ scores improved, their enjoyment of learning was boosted.
“There’s something to be said for going on a high ropes course with a student who has really low self-esteem; the person that they are when they come off the high ropes course or when rock climbing is often quite different to the person who went up. The self-talk that they have to give themselves to get up that climb is huge.” "That was when I had the idea to look into whether there were any schools in the world that were teaching curriculum outside as a means of re-engaging students in education,” Emily said. “That’s what brought me to Colorado. There's a bunch of forest schools and science schools in this area, including a school I’m working with at the moment called Keystone Science School. They teach outdoor education, environmental science and they’re about to go into their snow science unit as winter comes up. There’s a lot of exciting movement over here.” On the way to the States Emily found herself detouring via Victoria where she sat in on classes at the John Marsden-founded Candlebark and Alice Miller schools. “They have a bush kinder project at Candlebark and I was really lucky to be part of that. The kids went down to the river, they ran and played and made cups of tea and talked about different species of plants and how to protect the land. It was really wonderful,” Emily said. “Alice Miller School, the secondary version of Candlebark, is focused around critical thinking and current events, sustainability and raising good people. That was one of the best days I ever had teaching; at Alice Miller I just felt so alive. In every classroom there were really great conversations going on and kids were thinking about thinking and about the self.” With her experiences in Australia fresh in her mind, Emily’s discovery of BOEC proved a way to focus her thinking.“I’m in a pretty left– leaning greenie community up here. People are talking about climate change and the environment and it’s kind of similar to Tassie, which is nice,” she said.
“The next step for me is how to deliver these sort of educational experiences while targeting those students who are disengaged in schools or maybe had a bit of a rough go. I’m thinking now in terms of how do I publicly fund a school that takes the curriculum outside, and that is feasible?" Emily’s research pointed her to Canada where she found a couple of schools that are publicly funded and running the curriculum largely outdoors – although those models seem to be more geared towards the primary years rather than secondary schooling. “The US seems to be doing a lot more adaptive–style outdoor education for people who traditionally would be excluded, which has been wonderful to be a part of. It’s definitely made me feel that anything is possible for anybody,” Emily said, adding, “There’s something to be said for going on a high ropes course with a student who has really low self-esteem; the person that they are when they come off the high ropes course or when rock climbing is often quite different to the person who went up. The self-talk that they have to give themselves to get up that climb is huge.” “I’ve been looking at alternative models to education and what I’ve been coming up against is that a lot of these non-traditional models of education are unfortunately rarely available for kids who can’t afford them. I think it would be wonderful if we could get something up and running in Australia which was like John Marsden’s school, like the BOEC, that was really trying to make change through outdoor education and trying to engage students in learning through doing and finding and falling in love with the world again.”
Emily said that she had been looking into longitudinal research on therapeutic recreation. She believed that the amount of anecdotal evidence made it difficult to quantify effectiveness, but argued that when combined with mindfulness, neuroplasticity research and the like there’s enough to suggest that "learning by doing" is the best way to build critical thinking. It’s certainly a focus of her plan to explore and potentially open a school with outdoor education at its core. “The best outcome would be to target students who have been marginalised in any capacity. I hadn’t worked with people with a disability since I did physiotherapy studies but I think it’s a really important place to be and there’s a lot to be learned from those students. Inclusivity would be my focus; it would be about promoting inclusion, excitement and engagement in learning, and offering a different model for those students who have had enough of traditional classrooms and feel disenchanted by the whole thing,” Emily said. Emily will spend some time travelling in the US following the end of her initial contract with BOEC, hiking through Glacier National Park and visiting family in Ohio before returning to Colorado to spend the northern winter working through the ski season. There she’ll deliver courses that will see her largely working with people with vision impairment and quadriplegia. She’ll also be working with Keystone Science School, helping to write curriculum to improve inclusion. And of course, she’ll be researching and planning her vision for an education model that lives and breathes the outdoor life. Photography credit: Jeb Bisset
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EMPOWERING CHANGE IN TAIWAN Teach For Australia Alumnus Stanley Wang (Cohort 2012) has taken his leadership talents to Taiwan, where he was recently appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Teach For Taiwan. tanley Wang finds himself straddling two worlds. In Taiwan, where he has returned to live since August 2018, he is considered Australian; in Australia, where he lived for two decades, he was often seen as "Taiwanese," or simply "Asian". While the softly spoken Alum carries a burden of otherness in two countries, there’s no question that he’s a leader and changemaker whether here in Australia, or in Taiwan. “I was born in Taipei, but I spent my childhood in a city 90 kilometres south of Taipei called Hsinchu, where most of the big Taiwanese tech firms like Acer, Asus – all the Taiwanese brands people know – are based. So even though I am based in Taipei now, I actually have no childhood memory of the city. My family moved to Australia when I was 10, so if I had to choose, I’d say Melbourne really still feels like home,” Stanley said. “You know, sometimes in Australia, people seem more sure about my cultural identity than me, which can feel both inclusive and exclusive at the same time. I had romanticised a little that by re-engaging with the society where I am part of the ethnic and cultural majority, I’d be able to leave these bicultural challenges behind. "But funny though, now, when I am in Taiwan talking about something like leadership development, people think straight away that I’m Australian. Maybe it’s because of the way I structure my arguments, or the way I interpret the concept of leadership… 18 | Stories From Our Community | SUMMER 2019
"Taiwan's aging and shrinking population also means there is little demand for new teachers, and there is little incentive for teachers to consider teaching in non-urban areas."
I’m often reminded by moments like these that if you manage your bi-cultural identity well, it can be a great asset; if you don't, you could be in crisis mode in both worlds.” Stanley took on the reins as Teach For Taiwan’s new Chief Executive Officer in the middle of 2019, having been at the organisation for 12 months in a strategy role. Teach For Taiwan’s founder and former Chief Executive Officer, Anting Liu, was juggling two roles as Chair of the Board and CEO, and hand-picked Stanley as her replacement so she could focus on the board role. The two had initially met in 2014 when Stanley reached out to offer his support to the newly founded organisation that was focused on tackling educational inequity in the country of his birth. Stanley had just completed three years at his placement school, Charles La Trobe College, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, and was considering a career move. Anting commissioned Stanley to write the Teaching As Leadership course for Cohort One of Teach For Taiwan, and while Stanley considered joining the fledgling organisation on an ongoing basis, the timing just wasn’t right. “In 2014, I was actually quite keen to join Anting in Taiwan, but I was also a passionate linguist, and Haileybury College gave me an offer to be the Head of Languages,” Stanley recalled. “I had never imagined that a top-tier independent school would be willing to consider a 27-year-old for a Head of Department role. It was the largest team in Australia in language teaching; when I entered I was responsible for 34 staff across 3 sites, and when I left, I was leading a team of 78 across 12 sites.”
Stanley was rightly excited by the offer from Haileybury and said to Anting that without significant professional experience in leadership, what he was able to offer Teach For Taiwan’s leadership development program would very much be a band-aid approach, primarily translating a lot of things learned during his time as a Teach For Australia Associate and localising it in a way that was meaningful for the Taiwanese context.
"I strongly believe that the best innovation comes from the fringes." “I said to Anting that the opportunity at Haileybury where I got to actually lead a big department was a really good way of investing in myself and developing my own leadership, which I thought was an essential next step before considering a senior management role,” Stanley said. He took on the Haileybury role for three years but inevitably the pull of the Taiwanese opportunity grew too strong and Stanley moved to Taipei in 2018. Anting and Stanley have big plans for the organisation. It employs 45 people and there is an intention to grow it to more than 50 this year. Teach For Taiwan’s sixth cohort of 49 Fellows began delivering classes in six of Taiwan’s 21 counties in September this year, a marked increase from the 29-strong cohort of the previous year, and plans are in place to drive continued growth. “Within each county classified by us as highdemand areas, there is still a lot of room for development, a lot of room for growth. In fact, a lot of the more open and progressive principals approach us, work with us for a year, and spread the word, really leveraging their networks to try and get other schools involved,” Stanley said.
There are of course challenges, the primary one being that Teach For Taiwan is an NGO, and the Taiwanese public tends not to see NGO work as a valid career option. As a result, creating a talent pipeline for TFT’s staff team and persuading parents to allow their children to join the Fellowship is one of the biggest hurdles for TFT’s Fellows, recruiters and HR. Stanley said that the nation’s aging and shrinking population also means there is little demand for new teachers, and there is little incentive for teachers to consider teaching in non-urban areas. So to see such rapid growth in a short period of time is testament to Stanley and Anting’s leadership and suggests a positive future for the organisation. “We are in a similar boat to Japan and Korea in that we also have a severe declining birth rate. It's actually quite sad to see. I used to walk into my primary school classroom and there were 40 of us in the room. These days there are plenty of classrooms with only five kids, or eight kids. While there’s an oversupply of teachers they're not going to the right places, leaving us to fill the gaps for schools that are struggling to find teachers. Having said that, Anting and I strongly believe that the best innovation comes from the fringes, so these classrooms are actually some of the best places for training future leaders,” he said. “For me, the two years in the Teach For Australia program showed me that when you have strong leadership skills, the ability to combine them with your specialisation, and the opportunity to apply the by-product in context to meet the needs of the community and the students, the result can be quite powerful indeed.”
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MAKING THE MOST OF
MusicClass Milly Bawski completed a Bachelor of Performing Arts at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts before joining the Teach For Australia program in 2019. Milly now finds herself teaching her passion, Music, to students at Warwick Senior High School on the outskirts of Perth. first-year teacher can be forgiven for taking their time getting accustomed to school life, however Milly Bawski has jumped into the deep end and revitalised Warwick Senior High School's Music program in her first six months in the classroom. Before joining Teach For Australia’s Leadership Development Program, Milly studied a Bachelor of Performing Arts at the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. This is where she found her passion for music.
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“I was studying contemporary music with a focus on voice,” Milly says looking back on her time at the Academy of Performing Arts. “Whilst studying, I also got into a bit of songwriting and sound engineering, which lead me to working alongside amazing musicians in the industry.” As well as juggling full time study, Milly was also committed to her job of teaching competitive Gymnastics to young children at a gym just outside of Perth in Joondalup. “The time I spent with the children at the gym was invaluable, this is where I really found that I had a passion for teaching and I wanted to pursue that career further,” Milly said. Looking back on her childhood, Milly finds it hard to believe that she has gone down the music path. “No one in my family was ever musical or came from a music background. Growing up, we didn't even have a radio in the house," Milly says, reflecting on her early years. “I remember my first music lesson in Primary School, everything I learnt that day I went home and taught the kids in my neighborhood out of excitement.
“I remember my first music lesson in Primary School, everything I learnt that day I went home and taught the kids in my neighborhood out of excitement. I wasn’t a naturally talented musician, but my music teacher could see how much I loved to experiment with sounds in class."
I wasn’t a naturally talented musician, but my music teacher could see how much I loved to experiment with sounds in class and therefore she pushed me to learn different instruments which was just the most incredible opportunity.” Fast forward to today, and Milly now finds herself teaching and encouraging a new wave of budding musicians at Warwick Senior High School in Perth. Before her arrival at the beginning of 2019, the school offered a very limited music program to students, something which Milly was determined to change from the very outset. “They did have a program in place before I arrived at the school, however not many students were given the opportunity to learn instruments and those who were limited in their performance opportunities.” Milly said. “With help from the Instrumental Music School Services (IMSS), I expanded the school’s instrumental intake and was successful in giving 24 weekly instrumental lessons to incoming Year 7s with a wide range of musical abilities.”
Students have gone from showing little to no interest in music, and more often than not, not showing up to class, to Milly seeing almost all of her students in attendance and all of her students super engaged in the classes. The ambition that Milly has shown from day one has seen the schools’ music program thrive in the first half of the year. Students have gone from showing little to no interest in music, and more often than not, not showing up to class, to Milly seeing almost all of her students in attendance and all of her students super engaged in the classes.
At the end of Term 2, Milly’s class performed their first recital to a packed out audience full of their families and friends from school. “It was incredibly rewarding to see students showcasing their musical ability and playing instruments that they never would have had the opportunity to learn without these lessons. The students have become incredibly supportive and engaged in this musical community they have built amongst each other.” As Milly continues her journey throughout the Leadership Development Program, she hopes to continue to inspire the next generation of West Australian musicians through both her teaching methods and her love of music.
“It has been great! The students have been so dedicated and engaged in the lessons and they are even now begging me to do more and more performances,” says Milly.
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The Leadership Development Program is delivered as part of the High Achieving Teachers Program with the support of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.