Starting out

[Interviewer]
Okay. Action!

[Jennifer Zimbachs]
Oh. I remember my first day vividly. I was late. It was pouring with rain. I had a little Mini and car stopped and I never got there till just before recess time. So you can imagine how distraught I was on that day. I had a wonderful, wonderful principal who just, I don't know, stepped in, helped me out. After three weeks, something just happened and I never looked back.


[Geoffrey Pell]
I recall there were teaching bursaries where you got a small amount of money, of course, then bonded you to the work for the Department of Education for three years. I guess I've overstayed that by a little bit.


[Peter Ruff]
Well, I don't know about first day, but I can tell you why I started teaching. And that's because when I was in year ten, I had a 79 year old teacher and his name was Charles Denehy. He was a lieutenant colonel in the First World War. He was a very hard man, but he was scrupulously fair. He was the one that really inspired me, and I always thought about that as the years went by.


[Geoffrey Pell]
I think the advice to my younger self in in sort of some of those early years in teaching would be to…


[Judith Meikle]
… look for every opportunity I can to advance the students that I teach.


[Jennifer Zimbachs]
I would say relax and enjoy the journey more than I probably did at certain times.


[Peter Greenwell]
You don't realise what you don't know. So it's all new. All the people are new. It does assault your senses a it.


[Peter Ruff]
The thing that I did back then was to make sure that I entered into the community life. I was given great acceptance by the community in doing that.


[Geoffrey Pell]
To not get ahead of yourself and enjoy it, which I did, by the way.


[Leonie Fitzgerald]
Every day in a school's interesting. Every day you get a few laughs. You get, you know, heartwarming moments. And I like working as part of an organisation feeling that we are investing in the lives of human beings, and we are trying to give those children the best opportunities they can.

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