Slides for my presentation at Adolescent Success in August 2022

2. Norms
• Respect
• Cultivate curiosity
• Expect and embrace a
lack of closure

5. Proportion of NSW
teachers who would
recommend teaching as
a career fell from 44%
in 2019 to 24.5% this
year. (Monash Uni)

8. • Profound changes in work
and workload of teachers
(Gallup Inquiry)
• More bureaucratised system,
asking more of teachers and
getting less (Drysdale, et. al.)
• Pandemic exacerbating
teachers’ feelings of being
silenced (J. Berkshire, The
Nation)
• Lack of respect, staffing
challenges, low pay, high
workload, conflicting
demands and the pandemic,
are generating a perfect
storm (NEiTA)

10. • 30% of
Australia’s teachers are
over 50
• Education applications
have plummeted by 20%
• 48% of teachers are
thinking of leaving the
profession
• Teacher workloads are
“massive” and
“unrealistic”, although
87% of teachers still find
teaching rewarding
(NEiTA).
What is your reaction to this
data?

11. ‘Burn-out’ or ‘moral injury’?
“What it means to be a teacher is
being replaced by notions of
outcomes, data and evidence void
of context.”
(Ngametu & Hardy, “The
Devalued, Demoralized and
Disappearing Teacher”, 2022)

13. Reprioritising the work of
teachers so that their focus
is on actual teaching is
critical to the success of
schools.
What can we clean off the
plate?

14. When the number of meetings goes
down:
• Stress declines
• Micromanaging plummets
• Autonomy soars
• Productivity increases
• Satisfaction climbs
(Harvard Business Review)
Which meetings could we cancel?

15. Can the
requirements
of the marking
policy be
reduced while
still meeting
its aims?

16. How might we lighten teachers’
lesson planning load?

17. How might we
arrange for non-
teaching staff to
cover extra
responsibilities?

18. How might we
trial innovative
timetable models?

19. What other ideas and
solutions can we come up
with?

21. • Gen Z have an entrepreneurial
mindset and are looking to work with
flexibility. (McCrindle)
• 2 in 3 workers say they are willing to forgo
a pay rise in favour of increased flexibility.
(Deloitte & Swinburne University of
Technology)
• Teachers should be treated like adult
professionals who can manage their own
lives.

22. “Redesign jobs around a simple
but powerful concept: love for
the content of the work itself.
That word may seem strong in
this context, but people’s affinity
for their work can and should
reach this level, and when it
does, amazing things can
happen.”
(Marcus Buckingham, HBR)

23. • Press the pedal on
creative possibilities
• Pull the reins back on
the crushing
bureaucracy
• Trust and support
teachers to be the
outstanding
professionals that they
are
How might we build a
profession of empowered
educators?
SMH, August 2022

27. One-word
whip reflections

28. T: @cpaterso
E: Cameron.Paterson@
wesleycollege.edu.au