[A blue screen appears with text that reads ‘Subject Matters: A guide to teaching in Victoria. Vodcast hosted by Gorgi Coghlan’.]
Gorgi Coghlan, Host: Hello and welcome to Subject Matters. The vodcast series that aims to share all you need to know about teaching in Victoria, I'm Gorgi Coghlan an Australian TV presenter, and former secondary school teacher with a passion for biology, science, and storytelling. And throughout this series, I'm going to be joined by some incredible inspiring guests who are at the frontline of the education profession. From new to experienced teachers, we're going to be chatting about everything from people's misconceptions about teaching through to the best bits about the job and how you can train to teach in Victoria.
Gorgi: Welcome to episode one. Today we're tackling the question, Is teaching my future? We're chatting to Kapil Bhargarva and Brett Lamb about their experiences of teaching, what has surprised them about the profession, and some of the best moments of their jobs.
Kapil Bhargava, Secondary School Teacher: Hello, Georgie. Hello, Brett. My name's Kapil Bhargava. I have been a teacher for two semesters. Started teaching during remote learning last year, which was a great introduction to the profession. I teach a few different subjects. At the moment I'm doing year 8 Humanities, year 10 Careers and Industry, unit one, two, and unit three for Legal Studies, so year 11 and year 12 Legal Studies.
Brett Lamb, Secondary School Teacher: Hey, my name is Brett Lamb. I've been teaching for 21 years now. I teach VCE Media and I teach English.
Gorgi:
Well, welcome Kapil Bhargarva and Brett Lamb, two teachers with very different experiences in education. I'm really excited to get to know you and I know our listeners will be really looking forward to hearing your stories. Kapil, maybe take us through, what were you doing leading up to deciding to go into teaching?
Kapil: I was dipping my toe in everything basically. There's a bit of a list. I was doing eight different jobs at once before I was going into teaching. I started out studying a Law degree after year 12 and while I was doing that, I think I was trying to figure out what I liked because I don't think I liked law very much. I was also volunteering my time in United Nations Youth Victoria as the Vice President. I was volunteering with the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, AIME. I was mentoring indigenous kids at high schools just helping them with their homework. I was running a scout troop for a few years coaching debating at a school.
Gorgi:
Wow. So busy. And fingers in lots of different pies there but there seems to be a theme maybe Kapil of working with young people, yeah?
Kapil:
Yeah. Definitely that was. I didn't even realise it was happening but it just seemed to be this pull towards working with young people, because during the day I'd be nice and miserable working in a different profession and not really enjoying it that much. I'm not dissing the profession of law, just for me personally wasn't my cup of chai latte.
Gorgi:
Brett Lamb, you teach in a suburban school just outside of Melbourne. Brett, maybe talk me through your teaching career, how long you've been teaching for and your areas of passion in terms of curriculum.
Brett:
Yeah, no worries. First of all, I've got to say how wonderful it is to have young teachers like Kapil come along with their enthusiasm and their desire just to have a really positive impact on kids. I've been teaching for 20 years now. And I guess this wasn't always where I wanted to end up because I studied journalism and teaching at university. And I guess the more time I spent in the classroom, the less I wanted to be a journalist basically.
Gorgi:
What has surprised you the most, Kapil, about teaching?
Kapil:
There's been a few things that have surprised me. Firstly, it's really fun. Brett will probably agree with this but I have a lot of fun at work. Because what is it that makes this environment a fun learning environment? And for me, it's two words, sincerity and being genuine. If I'm genuine with my kids, that is I let them know when I'm not having a great day, or I let them know if I'm really passionate about something, or I let them know that I find this really boring, but we'd have to go through it. If I'm just genuine and sincere with them, kids pick up on that, they know that straight away. And so they can feed that back to me. If I'm honest with them, they're honest with me. And this honesty just creates this amazing opportunity to do really whatever you want within the parameters of the curriculum. And those parameters are pretty large when you really look at it or when you give yourself the opportunity to look at it like that.
A blue screen appears with text that reads: How does the school community impact teachers?
Gorgi:
Tell me about the sense of community, Brett. You've been a teacher for 20 years now, and obviously the connections that you've formed with the students is a huge part of teaching. But what about the whole sense of community within the school? You have a relationship with the students, with the staff, with the parents, with the wider community, how much has that impacted your love of teaching?
Brett:
Absolutely. As a Secondary Teacher, I started secondary teaching with a love for cinema, with a love for literature and all of those things that I want to impart to the kids. And along the way I realised that probably the most important thing about teaching are the relationships that you form, not only with the students in the classroom, but also with the other teachers. I think people who go into teaching kind of have an innate sense of curiosity and a love for learning. And it's great to be surrounded by those people every single day.
And at my school, I'm also the High Ability Practice Leader, which means that I deal with a lot of high ability kids and run a programme for them. And increasingly I've been working with some Maths teachers, and I really appreciate the way that they help to develop kids problem solving and their critical thinking and all of those sorts of things. So I find myself increasingly spending time with a greater range of teachers and learning from them as well. It is a wonderful environment to be in, surrounded by those sorts of people. The other thing is of course the parents, because all parents are really keen to see their kids get the most out of their education. And I think we've got a fairly vibrant parent community and one of the things that's been happening lately, which is very exciting is, one of our parents has helped to set up a coding centre for our kids, so they can be creating their own video games.
Gorgi:
For someone who's considering teaching and is listening to you now, how powerful are the relationships that you can establish between your students?
Kapil:
Yeah so really powerful. The relationships we have with students are really powerful for everyone involved, for myself as the teacher and for the students. And I know that because I was talking with my friend who's a teacher recently about how some of us are sowers and some of us are reapers. I feel like teachers, we’re sowers of the seeds and we're not always the ones who see the fruit of our labour. We don't necessarily see what happens when we are vulnerable with a student. We don't see what happens down the track. We just have to sort of trust that there is a change and that there is an impact.
But when you receive a letter from a student detailing how you've changed them and their life and what you mean to them, that is a really good and comforting reminder that yes we are sowers of seeds and we can sometimes reap those fruits of the labour, and really see that, "Yeah, there is something happening here.
Gorgi:
So you've been teaching for 20 years Brett, has the way you teach changed?
Brett:
I think the way that we all teach is changing considerably. And I think the Department of Education is putting out a whole bunch of great resources on instructional practice and more than ever there's a great deal of rigor when it comes to instruction and teaching kids and all of those sorts of things. So yeah, I think the profession and the art and the craft of teaching. So, the art of planning a sequence of learning and engaging the kids in that and getting them to reflect on their learning and assessing and giving them feedback. It is becoming a lot more rigorous I think. I think as a community we're doing it better than we ever have before.
Gorgi:
And take us through Brett, most people I think might look at teaching and go, "Oh my God, how do you teach the same content for 20 years and not just get maybe bored with that?" Is every day literally different because you have so many variables?
Brett:
Absolutely. Teaching continues to be challenging and it continues to be interesting. On a curriculum level, as a Media teacher, I think the role that the media chain plays in their life, it continues to change and continues to develop. So really following up on that new research and those new areas is really important as well. It's never boring. In English as well we're constantly introducing new texts and all of those sorts of things. So from a curriculum point of view, it continues to be challenging and vibrant and interesting. And you're absolutely right. The students are different every single year, every single class, sometimes every single day. So responding to that and I guess embracing it can also be fun.
Gorgi:
We haven't really talked a lot about the challenges of teaching, because with any job, there’s always challenges and tough stuff. What would you both say would be your biggest challenge with teaching?
Brett:
I think one of the challenging things about teaching is you're dealing with maybe five or six different groups of kids every day, and you have to have something organised for all of those students. I think probably the best parallel I can come up with is public speaking, which makes people very anxious if they have to talk to a group of people. As teachers, we're doing that maybe five or six times a day. We're talking to these big groups and we have to be prepared, we have to be happy, we have to have our game face on and deal with all of the problems that come along with it. So we're not only doing that five or six times a day with different bunches of kids, but we're doing that five days a week, in a 10 week term.
So it's pretty unrelenting and it can be quite exhausting but again, we've talked about how rewarding it is. I think when you reflect on those more difficult times you do have that consolation, because I know a lot of people who have, sort of, get to 20 years into their career and actually find that their job isn't all that fulfilling. It's something that I've never had to worry about as a teacher. My work has meaning and it's important. So that is reassuring, even on those hard days.
A blue screen appears with text that reads: Why should people consider a teaching career?
Gorgi:
What would you say to people considering a career in teaching?
[Brett:
Well, I won't give the advice that I was given. So when I mentioned to people, "Hey, I might like to become a teacher." Some of my teachers said “Don’t.” Which I think is pretty terrible advice because it is a rewarding profession. It’s a profession that has really helped me to grow and helped me to develop. So I would encourage people to explore it, to speak to teachers. Kapil was saying that he did a lot of volunteer work with teenagers and kids and that sort of thing. As I was going through uni, I volunteered at the local primary school and did reading and all of those sorts of things. So get out there, find opportunities to work with teenagers. If that is something that appeals then give it a go certainly.
Kapil:
Yeah. That's so true, Brett. And I would just add that if you're thinking about a career in teaching, just ask yourself a few questions. Do you want your work to be fun? Do you want your work to feel meaningful? Does the thought of being a sower of seeds inspire you? And just ask yourself those questions and you'll come to realise that teaching really is the answer to a lot of them. That's just something that I thought through in my process in becoming a teacher.
Gorgi:
Well, Kapil and Brett, thank you so much for joining us on Subject Matters. It's been wonderful to get an insight into your careers. And I think everyone listening will agree with me, they're very lucky students to have you. Good luck for the rest of the year.
Brett:
Thanks so much Gorgi.
Kapil:
Thanks Gorgi.
Gorgi:
Well that brings us to the end of today’s episode. Thanks so much for watching Subject Matters. I’m Gorgi Coghlan. For more information about teaching in Victoria visit vic.gov.au/teachthefuture.
[End of transcript]
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