2012 Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards The Teachers’ Guild of New South Wales held its Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards on Saturday 1 September 2012 at Trinity Grammar School, Dining Hall. More than 45 guests gathered to celebrate the presentation of this year’s award that included the Presentation for Excellence in Teaching and Certificates of Excellence were presented to a number of outstanding young colleagues. The Teachers’ Guild’s Research Award was also presented on the evening. These Awards honoured Mr Rick Stevens, who was in attendance to present the Awards. The Council also had a pleasure in presenting Life Membership to Mr Alan Murray Harper in recognition of his outstanding commitment and contribution to the Teachers’ Guild of New South Wales. This report also includes Mr Rick Stevens address and photos taken on the evening. Congratulations to all award recipients.
Mr Richard (“Rick”) Stevens FTGN, AFACEL, FCollP, FRGS
Mrs Fleeton, Councillors, Fellows, Members and guests. I must say I was truly surprised to receive the invitation to present this year’s awards. I do not in any way rank myself among those who have gone before me but am most grateful for the confidence place in me by the Council and, Mrs Fleeton, for your very generous and undeserved words of introduction.
After a long career in education there is a temptation to say a lot and ramble on but I am aware that the main reason we are here is to celebrate excellence and not listen to me. I shall, therefore, limit myself to a few thoughts and, hopefully, not wander along. I owe the Teachers’ Guild of NSW a great deal. First, because I was most fortunate to have completed my initial teacher training through the Guild College. It was a wonderful system where I was employed as a full time student teacher gaining experience in all aspects of school life and learning the craft from experienced professionals and mentors. They modelled all that good teachers should be – knowledgeable, patient, organised, passionate, and who really enjoyed what they did. I am still in contact with one of those teachers and count it a great privilege to be able to reminisce about our times together and discuss current issues in education. At the end of most days – which were always full on, active, challenging and tiring, I would head off to the city for my lectures; the theory presented by academics and the curriculum and practice by highly experienced men and women who were engaged in full-time teaching themselves and not remote from the real day to day and long-term classroom experience. I often wonder if this form of teacher training should be re-explored; it has much to commend it. Only yesterday, a final year bachelor of education student said to me that she thought an apprenticeship style of training would be far more beneficial. It was during this time that I was saved from the clutches of the then Principal of the Guild College who had taken an intense dislike to me. Many years later I found that my rescuer had been Miss Phyliss Evans, then Chairman of the Teacher Training Committee. I still don’t understand why she thought I was worth saving but I owe her a deep sense of gratitude for considerably lengthening my career and for her long-standing friendship. Second, the guild has provided over the years a collegiality I’ve seldom found elsewhere; an organisation where teachers at all levels of training, experience and seniority have, and continue to meet as equals, and I have always been grateful for the advice, support and opportunities given so freely by so many people. If you are not a member, may I encourage you to join up and experience what so many of us have had the privilege of enjoying. As someone now not engaged in full-time teaching, I want to convey my sympathy to all of you who are currently caught up in a system that has made teachers slaves to and victims of an overemphasis on outcomes, the meaningless paperwork that goes with it and overworked phrases such as rich tasks. A recent issue of Education Today, journal of The College of Teachers in the United Kingdom, includes an article in which it is said: The whole panoply of mechanisms of delivery flimisly disguised as learner-centredness and personalisation…. is a parochial perception of pedagogy… a set of skills, such as anyone who acquires them, can teach, is a patently monocular and improverished notion of teaching. It takes no account ….of all of the spur-of-the-moment, not-to-be-predicted, instinctive decisions that are about responding to pupils’ needs and which several writers have compared to a performance art. I feel sorry for those of you who want to tell it like it is to parents but reporting entices you to tick the middle box and select a letter A to E that really does not accurately describe you assessment. I am very grateful that I am not organising an excursion which requires a mountain of paperwork and you to foresee every possible risk or event. Perhaps fortune telling should be a compulsory course during training? Finally, I think it is deplorable that the profession is subject to mounting pressure from parents who expect teachers to do everything, and be available at the drop of a hat, personally and electronically. I believe systems and schools need to be much tougher about this. For a humorous, yet sobering and frighteningly realistic view of this problem, download James Valentine’s column in the Sydney Morning Herald of 18th February this year.
Pg-2 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild
What advice then, may I humbly offer, especially to those new, or relatively new, to the profession? First, continue to appreciate and hold onto the notion that teaching is a calling where you can make a very real impact on young lives. In her address to the Guild at a function last year, Jane Caro, the well- known media personality, said that the real hope for the future was in teachers being a beacon of light to pupils. In today’s society where there is such an over-representation of family dysfunction, consumerism and pressure to have what everyone else has, bullying of all kinds, and pressures to achieve at high levels in everything, teachers may indeed be many students’ only place of refuge, their only steady moral beacon, their only place where common sense prevails. It is an awesome and onerous responsibility but a truly grand one. Therefore, and second, hold on to what you know is right and good. It will need you to make some tough calls and to make a stand but the end result will be worth it. It may need you to be sometimes hard-headed but it was Sir Humphrey Appleby in the Yes Prime Minister series who said: Better to be hard-headed than mindless. Third, stand up proudly for the profession. There are plenty of critics out there and they need to understand what teaching is really about. Let me quote to you from a story in which a teacher was being put down for what she made as a salary: You want to know what I make, she said. I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make them wonder. I make them question. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions. I make them read, read, read, I make them write and show all their working in maths. I make their classroom a place where they feel safe. And I make them understand that if they use their God-given gifts properly, work hard, and follow their hearts, then they can succeed. In my role as a tertiary adviser, I am greatly encouraged by the wonderful talent that is passing through teacher training and this evening we are seeing more examples of exceptional earlycareer educators and the research award winner. My hope is that when the time for comes for you to finally clean the whiteboard or turn off the Smartboard for the last time, you will be honoured by statements from former pupils such as those quoted by Wendy Harmer writing earlier this year in a local newspaper about the retirement of a very long-serving teacher. Here are a few: You made us feel we were clever and important. You had a smile that made us feel happy and safe to enter the classroom. You always encouraged children to get involved and feel they could do it. Most importantly, you taught us how to be good people. Let me conclude by returning to where I began by thanking many colleagues over the years for their wonderful friendship, support and expertise and by again expressing my gratitude to the Guild. I wish The Teachers’ Guild of NSW many, many more years of success; may it continue to flourish for another 120 years and at that time may it be celebrated by another group of passionate educators as we are tonight.
2012 Address by Mr Richard (“Rick”) Stevens
Pg-3 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild
Collage of Photos during the Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards
Pg-4 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild
Collage of Photos during the Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards
Pg-5 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild
Collage of Photos during the Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards
Pg-6 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild
Collage of Photos during the Annual Dinner and Presentation of Awards
Pg-7 Prepared by: Dr Frederick Osman Vice President of the Guild