February 27, 2023 • 31 mins
Episode Overview:
In this episode Veronica Sharkey, experienced remote teacher, talks about her 6 years in the APY lands, the benefits and opportunities as well as the challenges.
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About The Remote Teacher Podcast
The Remote Teacher Podcast is a podcast ‘talking all things remote education’ to support remote outback teachers to be the best they can be… and in turn can help our students be the best they can be. We chat with remote outback teachers, leaders, First Nations educators and remote service providers about career, leadership, mental health, teaching strategies, culture, language, special needs, bucket lists for remote adventures and more.
Host: Hakea Hustler
Guest: Veronica Sharkey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Remote Teacher podcast. We're excited to have you here.
(00:09):
I'm Hake Hussler, an experienced regional rural and remote teacher, author of children's
middle and YA books and co-creator of the Facebook group, teaches in remote communities
past, present and future, along with Karl Merrison and Lynette Gordon, and the co-owner of
website, the remote teacher. The remote teacher, podcast and all our support platforms come
(00:32):
from a passion to improve the experience of remote teachers and in turn create positive
outcomes for our remote students and communities.
You can find out more about us on www.vremoteteacher.com.au, over on our Facebook group, teaches
in remote communities past, present and future, and of course by listening to this podcast.
(00:55):
I remember you can also download these podcasts so you don't need internet access and you
can listen to them wherever you need, including on your long drives out to your remote and
rural communities. Please remember to like us on Facebook, on Instagram and by signing up
to our email list. Before I introduce our guest for today, it's important to acknowledge
(01:16):
that the discussions that we have here are the opinion of the guest and myself alone and
do not represent anyone including Department of Education or any particular organisation,
unless of course they've come on stating that they're representing that organisation.
It's also important to consider. First-ation peoples, communities, students and families
(01:38):
are all diverse and unique and what works for our guests and myself, may or may not work
for you, your students, your families, your communities and your schools. So take what
you need, leave what you don't, fit back and enjoy, let's begin.
For I begin our discussions, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians on the
lands on which we meet today, the Bungalong people of Northern New South Wales, and the
(02:03):
Butterong and the Regery where Veronica is for her holidays and this interview. We power
respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to any first
nation's people, listening along with our podcast today. Welcome Veronica. Can you tell
us a little bit about your background before you went remote teaching?
I worked as an SSO for many years in schools and mostly low socio-economic schools and
(02:30):
special schools and then I decided I wanted to teach. So as a mature aged student I went to
university, I subsequently spent 60 years out in the 81 lands in South Australia and remote
central Australia. And can you, because you stayed for six years, which is longer than the
average, the average is nine months and contracts in WA for example are three years. So you've
(02:53):
stayed a lot longer than many people do. Can you talk about your professional and personal
growth over that six years teaching the role?
A professional growth in a setting such as I did, you had to learn to be flexible and
with everything with your teaching and your professional development and looking at different
ways to get that professional development because you know, working so far away from the city,
(03:18):
you can't just go go to the latest PD. Personal growth, I can't explain it, it's been pretty
market just working with the community members and the students that I had and gaining so much.
I think I actually talk on more than I actually imparted in the end personally, yeah.
You'd already worked in low socioeconomic special needs in the classroom, so you'd had all this wealth
(03:44):
of experience already, but then the difference is exactly like you said that that cultural growth
that you had and that experience as you had remote.
Yeah, it's pretty hard to put into words. Like I think when I first got there, it was like a little
bit of a culture shock, you know coming from the city, that didn't last too long because the
community members were so warm and welcoming and so open to share their culture and their
(04:10):
their language and just everything. The people out there say that when you leave, you take a
bit of the red dust in your veins and that's exactly how I feel. Yeah, I'm still, I've just left not
long left and I'm still feeling a little bit, you know, I've got that yearning to go back already,
but I know it's time to go, come home for a little bit, so yeah. Yeah, because you stayed so long,
(04:32):
you would have seen a lot of teachers come and go, some that only stayed for a day, a week, a term,
some that stayed a long time along with you. What did you see as the attributes and success factors
for teachers who would stay and make those real differences to their students? Yeah, starting with
the ones that stayed for a short while, even stayed for a short while, you can take something good out of
(04:56):
it, but just for the children, mostly for the children. When even after a couple of, you know, a couple of
years, the kids were saying to me, every holiday, "Are you coming back next holidays?" So, you know,
they've really filled that, they really filled, I can't imagine how many people they've seen come and
go in their short lives. First and foremost, you know, you build those relationships with your
(05:16):
students and the families and once you, once you start building the relationships with the families
and the community members, and as I said, they're so generous with their culture, go out,
push you go on, push trips, you go out hunting and whatnot and so they'll invite you into things
like that and just make you feel so welcome and want to stay. So, it's the people that are getting
(05:37):
out there and getting involved and being open to forming relationships that are the ones more
likely to stay longer? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely being open to form those relationships and,
yeah, I didn't intend on staying as long as I did but, you know, I'm glad I did, yeah.
And also, you mentioned children asked if you're coming back and how you were, you can't comprehend
(06:02):
the impact that this high turnover of some stuff would have on students. So, I suppose that
ties into the real difference that people who are staying can make. You don't have to do that,
getting to know your stuff as much and you just know your students' learning levels and those kind
of things had that impact. You was a teacher when you were... Yeah, yeah, look, it was just a matter of like,
even though it was so far 1500 homeless from home, it's like, it was easy, just pack the car
(06:28):
and go because I know what I had to do, you know, I knew my students ready to go and do know what one of
the best things is when you're driving into community and the kids see you and they're so excited
and they're running after your car, I was like, welcome back, you know, it's just, it's beautiful,
it's, yeah, the best feeling. So, what do you think then the impact of on our students having that
(06:51):
high turner of stuff, like you mentioned, like the attachment perhaps, that they and the issues with
with not being able to form these attachments with teachers, like we perhaps have, I don't know
how you grew up, but I had the same teacher, I knew who the teacher was going to be the year
the next year on because they stayed for 20 years at my country school. Because they have to
(07:11):
build those relationships true with the new teacher and we know how trauma affects our students and
you know, they don't have the capacity oftentimes to, when they're trying to tell you something,
you know, it doesn't come out the right way often. One of my students, I remember, I've known her
(07:32):
situation very little and for about two years she didn't really speak to me, very, very shy,
and then when she finally did, you know, it was just like chatter, chatter, chatter. And then I
actually did leave in 2021 for a couple of six months, but I came back to my community. But when
I left that time, she was very upset, very angry and you know, not saying, swearing at me and that was
(07:58):
the last thing that I had was a swear word, but she didn't, I didn't take that personally because she
was, she was just upset that I was, you know, someone was leaving again and then when I came back at the
beginning of last year, I had to, it took a little while to rebuild that relationship again because,
you know, she felt a little bit, she still got upset. But yeah, so it has great impact
(08:20):
with them having to keep having to rebuild the relationships. It's not just the students,
it's also our Aboriginal education workers having to do that every single time. A new staff
member comes in. I had my, my AEW, we worked together for five years, so we had a really strong relationship
as a side that's, she's probably one of, I'm going to miss the most that person. But for them, it's,
(08:46):
so I can imagine how many people they've had to go through this and that and the other thing
every single time. So yeah, it has great impact on, it has impact on the students' behaviour.
Find more challenging behaviours due to that and it's not necessarily because they're challenging
students, it's because they have to go through the whole rigmarole of that relationship building
(09:08):
again. And it's also knowing the ways that this new teacher works or new colleague if we're talking
about Aboriginal education assistance and, and also like testing the boundaries of, of what works
with this person, what doesn't, how they respond if I do this, there's a whole lot behind that
developing of relationships, isn't there? There's lots and lots and it's, um,
(09:30):
nothing I said, you can't imagine what it is like for them having to do that, how tiring it is for
them every single time and, and there must be, I know they must be thinking how long you can
stay and, yeah, pretty stressful for them. So it's just something a new teacher or someone
anyone going up there has to understand, you know, don't take anything personally because it's,
(09:51):
you know, things will come out the wrong way often, yeah, not the way they mean it.
The benefits of teaching in a multi-campus school, you're at the land schools that heard great things,
so for professional development across campus and supporting and connecting.
Well, number one, flexibility, because oftentimes you, you might be a J.P. teacher,
junior primary teacher, you've got to actually teach, take, you know, the senior students because
(10:15):
it's often hard to get staff out there and, well, it's been particularly hard the last couple of
years. With the land schools, particularly, we, we work in hubs, I was out in Amateur and so that's
out far out west, the schools in the western hub would work together and you come together regularly
as band levels maybe, the senior teachers or the junior primary teachers and, and, and, and do some
(10:38):
planning, trying to, consistent planning, so because our children are quite, um, a tenant, they,
they've got family all over the lands, so we're trying to be consistent with our approaches or,
or the topics you're teaching, so, you know, one student of mine might go to another school and, you
know, there's that consistent routines or stuff that they're doing. We, we do try to do that with
(11:00):
behaviour management, we all use the trauma from practice, the same practice across all the nine
schools, but yeah, we tend to work in hubs and there's the ones out west, like Yalata, Ovali, they work
really closely together and do the same kind of thing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really good, it's a good,
it's a good thing to do because a tenant nature of our families and our students.
(11:22):
It just makes me think that if anyone's listening right now and, and, and not in a land school,
like you were, the importance of forming connections with the schools around us, so even if you're,
you know, in the Kimberly like I was connecting and doing that shared planning, taking the load off,
so you're not reinventing the wheel, but, but also like you said, the so important with the
trans agency between communities, I remember feeling like I'd lost a student, I couldn't track,
(11:45):
I didn't know where they'd gone, but if we had have had that network, then I would have known what
community and I could have shared, you know, their background, their, their needs, their education
levels, the power of not having to double up on testing when they're going to a new school.
Yeah, it's just, oh, what an amazing opportunity to support students.
Yeah, it really, really is and it's not a perfect system, but oftentimes if you're not,
(12:10):
you know, one of the students doesn't come in that day, just ask the other kids, hey, do you know where,
so and so is they know, they all know, they've gone to that community or whatever, and then you can
ring through and check and see if they're there and then, like I said, it's not perfect and I think it's
something that the land schools are looking at trying to consolidate and actually do properly,
you know, like do as well as an attendance program as well, so, you know, because they can often
(12:36):
be marked as a way when they're actually in the school in the next community, so, yeah, so we're
looking at a consistent attendance approach throughout the land schools too, so hopefully that,
yeah, that sort of comes to fruition in the near future. But I also imagine it would have been,
like a built-in support network that you could call the teacher from the other class of the other
(12:57):
campus and, you know, talk about the challenges that you're facing or you wouldn't have perhaps felt
isolated as people who didn't have this multi-campus? Yeah, we're a reasonably big site,
not huge, but, you know, nine teachers, class teachers, yeah, so, you're having that support is,
(13:19):
you need that support to, yes, to get you through the isolation and having that critical friend
is really important as well, everyone needs one of those. And that's actually a really highly
important point because in other podcasts we've talked about not having deficit conversations or
all-velization in the staff room, but having that critical friend is something we haven't talked about yet.
(13:41):
Did you want to talk a little bit about this critical friend idea? A critical friend is just someone
that you can openly share everything they're good or the bad with because the need to debrief
at the end of every day is so important because, you know, if you don't and you're dealing with,
you know, lots of things that we deal with, you just, you could, you could implode and, you know,
(14:04):
it could be, it's bad for you, it's bad for your students, it's just bad for your,
bad for your professional practice when you're, when you're not able to release,
would come out in, in a proper way, as in the classroom, you could be impatient with the students,
and, you know, that has happened to me a little bit as well and as it does, everyone,
so having that critical friend to bounce off is so, so, so important. Just, you know, go for a walk,
(14:28):
have a cup of tea, whatever you need to do, you know, it just, yeah, it's really, really important.
And I think knowing that someone that you, you know, go to, so they understand the context,
you've, you've talked with them often, and then they can tell you how it is as well, so like,
know you're being too dramatic about that or did you try this approach because I remember this kid
(14:49):
that you're talking about all the time and you're like, "Oh, try this," or "sometimes you can say to
your friend, "actually, I just need you to listen to me." I don't know, and these solutions just hear me
what? Yeah. Actually, my, the first principle I had out there was a bit like that, I'd often just go into
her office and say, "Don't need you to do anything about this, I just need you to listen to one of
what I've got to say." And she was really great like that, but I've been lucky enough to have
(15:12):
several really, really great people out there who are lifelong friends now, and, yeah, without them,
several of them, it would have been really, really hard because there is that isolation tune that,
and we can't just go and get that cup of coffee or whatever, because our nearest beef city was
500 clang this way, so, yeah, it's so important, so important. Just a short break to share books and
(15:37):
resources by Hake Hustler and Karl Merrison. The Children's Book Council of Australia book week
on a book in 2019, Black Cocker 2, is a middle reader, short novella, set on gyro country.
Well, short, there are many jumping off points to explore. Tracks of the missing is a WA
(15:58):
premier book award, Daisy Atomara Award, shortlisted YA Suspense Thriller. Set an outback Australia,
it follows Declan Archer in his race to find a missing busload of students. My deadly boots is a
First Nations picture book about confidence, identity and connection. Karl and Hake Hustler have
(16:19):
many more books out across the next few years, perfect for remote classrooms. Full teaching packs
are available over on the website, Karl and Hakeah.com.au. We also create remote teacher resources,
getting to know you, to learn, daydoc, and much more over on our TPT store. So let's get back
(16:41):
to this deadly interview. Would you like to talk anything about the professional development
into campus or delivering professional development and sharing skills amongst each other?
Seeing the early years would go too, because there's something we've got some people to trade
Chinese centre out there in Omoa, and they have all the senior students go there and do vet courses.
(17:02):
So the senior teachers do get together and collaborate on things like that. The junior primary
teachers all through the land, get together once a year and have a big conference. And so they'll
they'll meet obviously, you know, collaborate and talk about the year and whatnot. You might just
even contact a teacher in the next community who's got the same year level as you, what are you teaching,
(17:25):
what are you working on? Can we work together on this? I did that often. And actually sometimes it's
good to work with someone who's not teaching your year level. So actually it's really good for our
students to be working with all young ones and working with older ones because they're often family
members. It's good for your practice to be working with maybe students that you would normally work with
(17:46):
a year level, you would work. It's great for the great for the students because like I said, they're
the family and they can help. So planning to do a year level to do it in the unit or an activity
together, yeah? That's exactly right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I also found up in the Kimberly, our
principals would contact the schools around and share what professional development they were doing.
(18:06):
So sometimes people would come and do Kagan with us or team teach with us from the different
outlying schools. So that opportunity, because like you said, getting access to like the greatest
and latest PD or conference when you're so far away and have to organize relief teaching and all
that can be hard, but utilizing what you've got close to is useful. Yeah, absolutely right. So
(18:26):
oftentimes you might have one or two of your stuff go out and you know, send out two Adelaide
where ever to do the PD then bring it back to you. That that's probably one of the common ways to
to get professional development because it's very expensive to send people, bring people to the
communities that we in the lands we use a mass approach and that that fellow that delivers that
(18:50):
he comes out two or three times a year at least and for the beginning of the year to you know,
get the new staff on board, but two or three times a year you know, just to go through whatever's new
and whatnot and he offers online classes and support and whatnot. Yeah, so predominantly,
(19:11):
predominantly you generally need to bring those professionals in or send someone out to then
bring the knowledge back. Yeah. Well, having those knowledge holders and those experts in schools
also really important because with the high turnover of staff, if you've got a teacher that's starting
term two or three, then you've got someone in school that can go, hey, I can upskill you on this.
(19:32):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You also, like you said, had a little break, so you've had
to do the move on your original time, but perhaps the second time as well. Did you want to talk about
logistics of move and emotions and and now moving back time after remote? Yeah, so I did
2021. I thought I was ready to leave and so I was looking at transitioning. So I went to Yata,
(19:59):
which is another AP1A in Swalbo, that's out west, so I went there for the last six months of 2021.
I was looking at transitioning back into Adelaide schools, but no, I just I didn't quite
ready to leave that yearning to go to, I just missed it too much, I missed the students, I just missed
(20:20):
the country, I just missed everything, I missed my A.E, my classroom A, I missed everything,
so I went back, so I went back last year and then finishing the year there, I now I needed to
go back to know I was ready to come back to Adelaide. Logistically, I have a car, so that's easy
(20:43):
enough for me, but also our department has a fellow that organizes all the moves and he's amazing,
he does the whole self, the state of South Australia. It's very easy, so I just pack your stuff and
I pick it up and take it. I guess emotionally it's not that easy, it was packing your stuff up,
(21:03):
actually packing your stuff up and looking at all packed up, ready to go, leaving your little house,
leaving the kids, yeah that was pretty hard, my last day there, I had done, I think I was taking my
rubbish out on the last night and I could hear some commotion out of the front and there was a few
kids just outside the gate and I said, "are you leaving?" And that was pretty late, you know, like 30 or
(21:25):
something like that and I'm like, "yeah, I'm leaving, it's hard, it's hard, I mean I was ready to go,
but it's gonna be, it's gonna be different from your transitioning back into, you know,
mainstream star school, but I'm ready, we'll see." And I think the exciting thing will be how you use
(21:48):
all that knowledge that you've got six years in the lands in your mainstream, Adelaide school,
what do you think you're going to bring back to it in terms of hands-on and brain breaks and culture
and Aboriginal perspectives? What do you think you're going to do now? All of that most definitely,
but actually I'll be working with the students, the high school students who go to a school in Adelaide,
(22:09):
so like a boarding school situation? Yeah, so there's a boarding school in Adelaide here for
Witcher and the students, so you know, you transition, so I ran a program from my site for students
to transition their life, so it can take a long time for a student to be, you know, it can take a
couple years for students to transition to full-time school when you sit in and then then they may
(22:33):
not always be ready. So there's the boarding school and then they attend a school in Adelaide called
Abinus College and then so they're kind of like an annex within Abinus College and yeah, so then
they're heavily supported there and you know, the ideal is to have those students finish their
(22:53):
space and transition into mainstream school. So I'll be working with all the land students that are
in Adelaide, along with some other students, so yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. Some kind of
a couple of people are still in the dorm, yeah. I do, yeah, so working with them. I'm very curious
(23:13):
because this school readiness and this transition to boarding schools, for people listening
to the railways, that some schools don't have high school classes at all, so it finishes in
year six and what next for some kids and some kids don't have the subjects that they need in remote
schools, some kids just want to experience life in a city and school the way. So this school readiness
(23:35):
and transition, something that we haven't talked about yet and that lots of people don't know what
to do to prepare their kids if they go. It starts quite early, so you kind of have your eye on some
students and not necessarily do they have to be highly academic, is just are they able to
cope with the the rigors of school because you know, it's long it's long school days and more importantly
(24:01):
boarding away from home. I mean we sometimes 12 year olds going out they far away from home.
Even younger so the last group I took were 11, one again, one lady was 10, so the way the way
it works in the acual ends is you select a group of students and you work with the the principal
(24:23):
and the youth workers at the boarding school to select some students who you think are ready, so they
go with the teacher first, they suck at a trial for a week with the teacher and an Aboriginal education
worker wouldn't take them down anywhere without one you know, unarmed staff. They may need three,
four attempts with the teacher and and so if you think they're ready they'll go for two to like a two
(24:49):
three weeks in on their own at the end of the term and they again they may need many attempts at that
and then turn by turn and the good thing about the boarding house, it's the wheelchair boarding house,
is the senior youth workers have been there for 20, 22 years and they have children that I would have
(25:12):
taken their mothers and fathers, so it's a it's a real family feel and then some of the teachers who
are teaching them at the high school have been doing that for years and years as well, so there's
real continuity but still the home sickness is very strong. We we know as teachers being away from
(25:32):
our families, but we feel it, but our students feel it 10 fold even being away for a week, so
and it's not for every student you know, they're not failures if they come back and the importance of
reinforcing to them because we I know of students that don't have a successful transition the first
time but when they're ready they'll successfully do it the second time if they want to all,
(25:56):
that you don't need to school the way that you can get that we should be giving kids a quality
education at our home schools as well. Absolutely, but you know some some of our students just
they want that experience and it's they crave it, so you know, but yeah like I said it's not it's
(26:16):
the ones that are successful are the ones that mostly can manage that that home sickness and but you
we can help do that from our end as well, so you know you're checking on them regularly and even go
and visit them if you have to, so yeah. What a what a very interesting program they've got set up
there because I know that it's not the same for all boarding schools and I know some like Wesley
(26:38):
College up in the Kimberley has that two campus situation but not all schools do sometimes kids just
essentially popped in this new school some that aren't culturally aware and don't have these
relationships so it's no wonder that those kind of situations don't work. This this sounds like a
really powerful programming lens. It's successful is there's less students at the moment because of COVID,
(27:00):
but yeah I think when I first started 2017 I reckon there was about 50 odd students there
currently I'm not sure how many there is but it's not just the kids from the lands,
students from NT also attend as well so yeah it's it's it's a really good program. Yeah.
With five minutes to go on the recording is there anything else you'd like to talk about maybe going
(27:25):
as a parent without your child who lives in Melbourne and leaving your older children behind?
No my my my children were older so I was able to leave them that's you know my daughter was she was
a little bit nervous about me going but in she came to visit and then fine she loves she's been to
visit several times absolutely loves it there. We've had a teacher a few years ago who brought her
(27:49):
on well actually several who brought her own children with them it's an amazing experience for
their children you know like what kind of what an amazing childhood you'll have growing up there
and just like they pick up language quicker than then add than ask and so you know I wouldn't
I wouldn't say I wouldn't say let that stop anyone going going going to a remote school if they
(28:12):
have children just number one go there with an open mind be willing to just try anything and
everything have a go take on language as quickly as you can community members just love teaching
the children love teaching you language and they love seeing you have a have a go and just
(28:34):
relationships relationships relationships is so important and it's not just in our context every
context isn't it but particularly in a remote setting just relationships so so important fostering
them nurturing them yeah thank you so much for your time today Veronica and good luck with your new
(28:56):
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(30:29):
over 12 years and has held teacher senior teacher assistant principal and principal roles
and together they are songlines art culture and education well worth checking out for your remote
classroom for resources and ideas check them out the link will be in the bio you've been listening to
the remote teacher podcast a podcast where we discuss all things remote outback teaching make sure you
(30:54):
follow us on Facebook Instagram join our email list and our Facebook group teachers in remote
communities past present and future any important links mentioned or businesses or organizations to
support your remote teaching that our guests has mentioned today will be in the show notes so make
sure you have a look at them to find out more and a reminder again that this podcast can be
(31:18):
downloaded so you can access it when you do not have internet coverage or reception so you can
listen to it on your long drives between communities in the outback thank you for listening we look
forward to seeing you in the next episode of the remote teacher
Welcome to the Remote Teacher podcast. We're excited to have you here.
(00:09):
I'm Hake Hussler, an experienced regional rural and remote teacher, author of children's
middle and YA books and co-creator of the Facebook group, teaches in remote communities
past, present and future, along with Karl Merrison and Lynette Gordon, and the co-owner of
website, the remote teacher. The remote teacher, podcast and all our support platforms come
(00:32):
from a passion to improve the experience of remote teachers and in turn create positive
outcomes for our remote students and communities.
You can find out more about us on www.vremoteteacher.com.au, over on our Facebook group, teaches
in remote communities past, present and future, and of course by listening to this podcast.
(00:55):
I remember you can also download these podcasts so you don't need internet access and you
can listen to them wherever you need, including on your long drives out to your remote and
rural communities. Please remember to like us on Facebook, on Instagram and by signing up
to our email list. Before I introduce our guest for today, it's important to acknowledge
(01:16):
that the discussions that we have here are the opinion of the guest and myself alone and
do not represent anyone including Department of Education or any particular organisation,
unless of course they've come on stating that they're representing that organisation.
It's also important to consider. First-ation peoples, communities, students and families
(01:38):
are all diverse and unique and what works for our guests and myself, may or may not work
for you, your students, your families, your communities and your schools. So take what
you need, leave what you don't, fit back and enjoy, let's begin.
For I begin our discussions, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians on the
lands on which we meet today, the Bungalong people of Northern New South Wales, and the
(02:03):
Butterong and the Regery where Veronica is for her holidays and this interview. We power
respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to any first
nation's people, listening along with our podcast today. Welcome Veronica. Can you tell
us a little bit about your background before you went remote teaching?
I worked as an SSO for many years in schools and mostly low socio-economic schools and
(02:30):
special schools and then I decided I wanted to teach. So as a mature aged student I went to
university, I subsequently spent 60 years out in the 81 lands in South Australia and remote
central Australia. And can you, because you stayed for six years, which is longer than the
average, the average is nine months and contracts in WA for example are three years. So you've
(02:53):
stayed a lot longer than many people do. Can you talk about your professional and personal
growth over that six years teaching the role?
A professional growth in a setting such as I did, you had to learn to be flexible and
with everything with your teaching and your professional development and looking at different
ways to get that professional development because you know, working so far away from the city,
(03:18):
you can't just go go to the latest PD. Personal growth, I can't explain it, it's been pretty
market just working with the community members and the students that I had and gaining so much.
I think I actually talk on more than I actually imparted in the end personally, yeah.
You'd already worked in low socioeconomic special needs in the classroom, so you'd had all this wealth
(03:44):
of experience already, but then the difference is exactly like you said that that cultural growth
that you had and that experience as you had remote.
Yeah, it's pretty hard to put into words. Like I think when I first got there, it was like a little
bit of a culture shock, you know coming from the city, that didn't last too long because the
community members were so warm and welcoming and so open to share their culture and their
(04:10):
their language and just everything. The people out there say that when you leave, you take a
bit of the red dust in your veins and that's exactly how I feel. Yeah, I'm still, I've just left not
long left and I'm still feeling a little bit, you know, I've got that yearning to go back already,
but I know it's time to go, come home for a little bit, so yeah. Yeah, because you stayed so long,
(04:32):
you would have seen a lot of teachers come and go, some that only stayed for a day, a week, a term,
some that stayed a long time along with you. What did you see as the attributes and success factors
for teachers who would stay and make those real differences to their students? Yeah, starting with
the ones that stayed for a short while, even stayed for a short while, you can take something good out of
(04:56):
it, but just for the children, mostly for the children. When even after a couple of, you know, a couple of
years, the kids were saying to me, every holiday, "Are you coming back next holidays?" So, you know,
they've really filled that, they really filled, I can't imagine how many people they've seen come and
go in their short lives. First and foremost, you know, you build those relationships with your
(05:16):
students and the families and once you, once you start building the relationships with the families
and the community members, and as I said, they're so generous with their culture, go out,
push you go on, push trips, you go out hunting and whatnot and so they'll invite you into things
like that and just make you feel so welcome and want to stay. So, it's the people that are getting
(05:37):
out there and getting involved and being open to forming relationships that are the ones more
likely to stay longer? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely being open to form those relationships and,
yeah, I didn't intend on staying as long as I did but, you know, I'm glad I did, yeah.
And also, you mentioned children asked if you're coming back and how you were, you can't comprehend
(06:02):
the impact that this high turnover of some stuff would have on students. So, I suppose that
ties into the real difference that people who are staying can make. You don't have to do that,
getting to know your stuff as much and you just know your students' learning levels and those kind
of things had that impact. You was a teacher when you were... Yeah, yeah, look, it was just a matter of like,
even though it was so far 1500 homeless from home, it's like, it was easy, just pack the car
(06:28):
and go because I know what I had to do, you know, I knew my students ready to go and do know what one of
the best things is when you're driving into community and the kids see you and they're so excited
and they're running after your car, I was like, welcome back, you know, it's just, it's beautiful,
it's, yeah, the best feeling. So, what do you think then the impact of on our students having that
(06:51):
high turner of stuff, like you mentioned, like the attachment perhaps, that they and the issues with
with not being able to form these attachments with teachers, like we perhaps have, I don't know
how you grew up, but I had the same teacher, I knew who the teacher was going to be the year
the next year on because they stayed for 20 years at my country school. Because they have to
(07:11):
build those relationships true with the new teacher and we know how trauma affects our students and
you know, they don't have the capacity oftentimes to, when they're trying to tell you something,
you know, it doesn't come out the right way often. One of my students, I remember, I've known her
(07:32):
situation very little and for about two years she didn't really speak to me, very, very shy,
and then when she finally did, you know, it was just like chatter, chatter, chatter. And then I
actually did leave in 2021 for a couple of six months, but I came back to my community. But when
I left that time, she was very upset, very angry and you know, not saying, swearing at me and that was
(07:58):
the last thing that I had was a swear word, but she didn't, I didn't take that personally because she
was, she was just upset that I was, you know, someone was leaving again and then when I came back at the
beginning of last year, I had to, it took a little while to rebuild that relationship again because,
you know, she felt a little bit, she still got upset. But yeah, so it has great impact
(08:20):
with them having to keep having to rebuild the relationships. It's not just the students,
it's also our Aboriginal education workers having to do that every single time. A new staff
member comes in. I had my, my AEW, we worked together for five years, so we had a really strong relationship
as a side that's, she's probably one of, I'm going to miss the most that person. But for them, it's,
(08:46):
so I can imagine how many people they've had to go through this and that and the other thing
every single time. So yeah, it has great impact on, it has impact on the students' behaviour.
Find more challenging behaviours due to that and it's not necessarily because they're challenging
students, it's because they have to go through the whole rigmarole of that relationship building
(09:08):
again. And it's also knowing the ways that this new teacher works or new colleague if we're talking
about Aboriginal education assistance and, and also like testing the boundaries of, of what works
with this person, what doesn't, how they respond if I do this, there's a whole lot behind that
developing of relationships, isn't there? There's lots and lots and it's, um,
(09:30):
nothing I said, you can't imagine what it is like for them having to do that, how tiring it is for
them every single time and, and there must be, I know they must be thinking how long you can
stay and, yeah, pretty stressful for them. So it's just something a new teacher or someone
anyone going up there has to understand, you know, don't take anything personally because it's,
(09:51):
you know, things will come out the wrong way often, yeah, not the way they mean it.
The benefits of teaching in a multi-campus school, you're at the land schools that heard great things,
so for professional development across campus and supporting and connecting.
Well, number one, flexibility, because oftentimes you, you might be a J.P. teacher,
junior primary teacher, you've got to actually teach, take, you know, the senior students because
(10:15):
it's often hard to get staff out there and, well, it's been particularly hard the last couple of
years. With the land schools, particularly, we, we work in hubs, I was out in Amateur and so that's
out far out west, the schools in the western hub would work together and you come together regularly
as band levels maybe, the senior teachers or the junior primary teachers and, and, and, and do some
(10:38):
planning, trying to, consistent planning, so because our children are quite, um, a tenant, they,
they've got family all over the lands, so we're trying to be consistent with our approaches or,
or the topics you're teaching, so, you know, one student of mine might go to another school and, you
know, there's that consistent routines or stuff that they're doing. We, we do try to do that with
(11:00):
behaviour management, we all use the trauma from practice, the same practice across all the nine
schools, but yeah, we tend to work in hubs and there's the ones out west, like Yalata, Ovali, they work
really closely together and do the same kind of thing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really good, it's a good,
it's a good thing to do because a tenant nature of our families and our students.
(11:22):
It just makes me think that if anyone's listening right now and, and, and not in a land school,
like you were, the importance of forming connections with the schools around us, so even if you're,
you know, in the Kimberly like I was connecting and doing that shared planning, taking the load off,
so you're not reinventing the wheel, but, but also like you said, the so important with the
trans agency between communities, I remember feeling like I'd lost a student, I couldn't track,
(11:45):
I didn't know where they'd gone, but if we had have had that network, then I would have known what
community and I could have shared, you know, their background, their, their needs, their education
levels, the power of not having to double up on testing when they're going to a new school.
Yeah, it's just, oh, what an amazing opportunity to support students.
Yeah, it really, really is and it's not a perfect system, but oftentimes if you're not,
(12:10):
you know, one of the students doesn't come in that day, just ask the other kids, hey, do you know where,
so and so is they know, they all know, they've gone to that community or whatever, and then you can
ring through and check and see if they're there and then, like I said, it's not perfect and I think it's
something that the land schools are looking at trying to consolidate and actually do properly,
you know, like do as well as an attendance program as well, so, you know, because they can often
(12:36):
be marked as a way when they're actually in the school in the next community, so, yeah, so we're
looking at a consistent attendance approach throughout the land schools too, so hopefully that,
yeah, that sort of comes to fruition in the near future. But I also imagine it would have been,
like a built-in support network that you could call the teacher from the other class of the other
(12:57):
campus and, you know, talk about the challenges that you're facing or you wouldn't have perhaps felt
isolated as people who didn't have this multi-campus? Yeah, we're a reasonably big site,
not huge, but, you know, nine teachers, class teachers, yeah, so, you're having that support is,
(13:19):
you need that support to, yes, to get you through the isolation and having that critical friend
is really important as well, everyone needs one of those. And that's actually a really highly
important point because in other podcasts we've talked about not having deficit conversations or
all-velization in the staff room, but having that critical friend is something we haven't talked about yet.
(13:41):
Did you want to talk a little bit about this critical friend idea? A critical friend is just someone
that you can openly share everything they're good or the bad with because the need to debrief
at the end of every day is so important because, you know, if you don't and you're dealing with,
you know, lots of things that we deal with, you just, you could, you could implode and, you know,
(14:04):
it could be, it's bad for you, it's bad for your students, it's just bad for your,
bad for your professional practice when you're, when you're not able to release,
would come out in, in a proper way, as in the classroom, you could be impatient with the students,
and, you know, that has happened to me a little bit as well and as it does, everyone,
so having that critical friend to bounce off is so, so, so important. Just, you know, go for a walk,
(14:28):
have a cup of tea, whatever you need to do, you know, it just, yeah, it's really, really important.
And I think knowing that someone that you, you know, go to, so they understand the context,
you've, you've talked with them often, and then they can tell you how it is as well, so like,
know you're being too dramatic about that or did you try this approach because I remember this kid
(14:49):
that you're talking about all the time and you're like, "Oh, try this," or "sometimes you can say to
your friend, "actually, I just need you to listen to me." I don't know, and these solutions just hear me
what? Yeah. Actually, my, the first principle I had out there was a bit like that, I'd often just go into
her office and say, "Don't need you to do anything about this, I just need you to listen to one of
what I've got to say." And she was really great like that, but I've been lucky enough to have
(15:12):
several really, really great people out there who are lifelong friends now, and, yeah, without them,
several of them, it would have been really, really hard because there is that isolation tune that,
and we can't just go and get that cup of coffee or whatever, because our nearest beef city was
500 clang this way, so, yeah, it's so important, so important. Just a short break to share books and
(15:37):
resources by Hake Hustler and Karl Merrison. The Children's Book Council of Australia book week
on a book in 2019, Black Cocker 2, is a middle reader, short novella, set on gyro country.
Well, short, there are many jumping off points to explore. Tracks of the missing is a WA
(15:58):
premier book award, Daisy Atomara Award, shortlisted YA Suspense Thriller. Set an outback Australia,
it follows Declan Archer in his race to find a missing busload of students. My deadly boots is a
First Nations picture book about confidence, identity and connection. Karl and Hake Hustler have
(16:19):
many more books out across the next few years, perfect for remote classrooms. Full teaching packs
are available over on the website, Karl and Hakeah.com.au. We also create remote teacher resources,
getting to know you, to learn, daydoc, and much more over on our TPT store. So let's get back
(16:41):
to this deadly interview. Would you like to talk anything about the professional development
into campus or delivering professional development and sharing skills amongst each other?
Seeing the early years would go too, because there's something we've got some people to trade
Chinese centre out there in Omoa, and they have all the senior students go there and do vet courses.
(17:02):
So the senior teachers do get together and collaborate on things like that. The junior primary
teachers all through the land, get together once a year and have a big conference. And so they'll
they'll meet obviously, you know, collaborate and talk about the year and whatnot. You might just
even contact a teacher in the next community who's got the same year level as you, what are you teaching,
(17:25):
what are you working on? Can we work together on this? I did that often. And actually sometimes it's
good to work with someone who's not teaching your year level. So actually it's really good for our
students to be working with all young ones and working with older ones because they're often family
members. It's good for your practice to be working with maybe students that you would normally work with
(17:46):
a year level, you would work. It's great for the great for the students because like I said, they're
the family and they can help. So planning to do a year level to do it in the unit or an activity
together, yeah? That's exactly right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I also found up in the Kimberly, our
principals would contact the schools around and share what professional development they were doing.
(18:06):
So sometimes people would come and do Kagan with us or team teach with us from the different
outlying schools. So that opportunity, because like you said, getting access to like the greatest
and latest PD or conference when you're so far away and have to organize relief teaching and all
that can be hard, but utilizing what you've got close to is useful. Yeah, absolutely right. So
(18:26):
oftentimes you might have one or two of your stuff go out and you know, send out two Adelaide
where ever to do the PD then bring it back to you. That that's probably one of the common ways to
to get professional development because it's very expensive to send people, bring people to the
communities that we in the lands we use a mass approach and that that fellow that delivers that
(18:50):
he comes out two or three times a year at least and for the beginning of the year to you know,
get the new staff on board, but two or three times a year you know, just to go through whatever's new
and whatnot and he offers online classes and support and whatnot. Yeah, so predominantly,
(19:11):
predominantly you generally need to bring those professionals in or send someone out to then
bring the knowledge back. Yeah. Well, having those knowledge holders and those experts in schools
also really important because with the high turnover of staff, if you've got a teacher that's starting
term two or three, then you've got someone in school that can go, hey, I can upskill you on this.
(19:32):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You also, like you said, had a little break, so you've had
to do the move on your original time, but perhaps the second time as well. Did you want to talk about
logistics of move and emotions and and now moving back time after remote? Yeah, so I did
2021. I thought I was ready to leave and so I was looking at transitioning. So I went to Yata,
(19:59):
which is another AP1A in Swalbo, that's out west, so I went there for the last six months of 2021.
I was looking at transitioning back into Adelaide schools, but no, I just I didn't quite
ready to leave that yearning to go to, I just missed it too much, I missed the students, I just missed
(20:20):
the country, I just missed everything, I missed my A.E, my classroom A, I missed everything,
so I went back, so I went back last year and then finishing the year there, I now I needed to
go back to know I was ready to come back to Adelaide. Logistically, I have a car, so that's easy
(20:43):
enough for me, but also our department has a fellow that organizes all the moves and he's amazing,
he does the whole self, the state of South Australia. It's very easy, so I just pack your stuff and
I pick it up and take it. I guess emotionally it's not that easy, it was packing your stuff up,
(21:03):
actually packing your stuff up and looking at all packed up, ready to go, leaving your little house,
leaving the kids, yeah that was pretty hard, my last day there, I had done, I think I was taking my
rubbish out on the last night and I could hear some commotion out of the front and there was a few
kids just outside the gate and I said, "are you leaving?" And that was pretty late, you know, like 30 or
(21:25):
something like that and I'm like, "yeah, I'm leaving, it's hard, it's hard, I mean I was ready to go,
but it's gonna be, it's gonna be different from your transitioning back into, you know,
mainstream star school, but I'm ready, we'll see." And I think the exciting thing will be how you use
(21:48):
all that knowledge that you've got six years in the lands in your mainstream, Adelaide school,
what do you think you're going to bring back to it in terms of hands-on and brain breaks and culture
and Aboriginal perspectives? What do you think you're going to do now? All of that most definitely,
but actually I'll be working with the students, the high school students who go to a school in Adelaide,
(22:09):
so like a boarding school situation? Yeah, so there's a boarding school in Adelaide here for
Witcher and the students, so you know, you transition, so I ran a program from my site for students
to transition their life, so it can take a long time for a student to be, you know, it can take a
couple years for students to transition to full-time school when you sit in and then then they may
(22:33):
not always be ready. So there's the boarding school and then they attend a school in Adelaide called
Abinus College and then so they're kind of like an annex within Abinus College and yeah, so then
they're heavily supported there and you know, the ideal is to have those students finish their
(22:53):
space and transition into mainstream school. So I'll be working with all the land students that are
in Adelaide, along with some other students, so yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. Some kind of
a couple of people are still in the dorm, yeah. I do, yeah, so working with them. I'm very curious
(23:13):
because this school readiness and this transition to boarding schools, for people listening
to the railways, that some schools don't have high school classes at all, so it finishes in
year six and what next for some kids and some kids don't have the subjects that they need in remote
schools, some kids just want to experience life in a city and school the way. So this school readiness
(23:35):
and transition, something that we haven't talked about yet and that lots of people don't know what
to do to prepare their kids if they go. It starts quite early, so you kind of have your eye on some
students and not necessarily do they have to be highly academic, is just are they able to
cope with the the rigors of school because you know, it's long it's long school days and more importantly
(24:01):
boarding away from home. I mean we sometimes 12 year olds going out they far away from home.
Even younger so the last group I took were 11, one again, one lady was 10, so the way the way
it works in the acual ends is you select a group of students and you work with the the principal
(24:23):
and the youth workers at the boarding school to select some students who you think are ready, so they
go with the teacher first, they suck at a trial for a week with the teacher and an Aboriginal education
worker wouldn't take them down anywhere without one you know, unarmed staff. They may need three,
four attempts with the teacher and and so if you think they're ready they'll go for two to like a two
(24:49):
three weeks in on their own at the end of the term and they again they may need many attempts at that
and then turn by turn and the good thing about the boarding house, it's the wheelchair boarding house,
is the senior youth workers have been there for 20, 22 years and they have children that I would have
(25:12):
taken their mothers and fathers, so it's a it's a real family feel and then some of the teachers who
are teaching them at the high school have been doing that for years and years as well, so there's
real continuity but still the home sickness is very strong. We we know as teachers being away from
(25:32):
our families, but we feel it, but our students feel it 10 fold even being away for a week, so
and it's not for every student you know, they're not failures if they come back and the importance of
reinforcing to them because we I know of students that don't have a successful transition the first
time but when they're ready they'll successfully do it the second time if they want to all,
(25:56):
that you don't need to school the way that you can get that we should be giving kids a quality
education at our home schools as well. Absolutely, but you know some some of our students just
they want that experience and it's they crave it, so you know, but yeah like I said it's not it's
(26:16):
the ones that are successful are the ones that mostly can manage that that home sickness and but you
we can help do that from our end as well, so you know you're checking on them regularly and even go
and visit them if you have to, so yeah. What a what a very interesting program they've got set up
there because I know that it's not the same for all boarding schools and I know some like Wesley
(26:38):
College up in the Kimberley has that two campus situation but not all schools do sometimes kids just
essentially popped in this new school some that aren't culturally aware and don't have these
relationships so it's no wonder that those kind of situations don't work. This this sounds like a
really powerful programming lens. It's successful is there's less students at the moment because of COVID,
(27:00):
but yeah I think when I first started 2017 I reckon there was about 50 odd students there
currently I'm not sure how many there is but it's not just the kids from the lands,
students from NT also attend as well so yeah it's it's it's a really good program. Yeah.
With five minutes to go on the recording is there anything else you'd like to talk about maybe going
(27:25):
as a parent without your child who lives in Melbourne and leaving your older children behind?
No my my my children were older so I was able to leave them that's you know my daughter was she was
a little bit nervous about me going but in she came to visit and then fine she loves she's been to
visit several times absolutely loves it there. We've had a teacher a few years ago who brought her
(27:49):
on well actually several who brought her own children with them it's an amazing experience for
their children you know like what kind of what an amazing childhood you'll have growing up there
and just like they pick up language quicker than then add than ask and so you know I wouldn't
I wouldn't say I wouldn't say let that stop anyone going going going to a remote school if they
(28:12):
have children just number one go there with an open mind be willing to just try anything and
everything have a go take on language as quickly as you can community members just love teaching
the children love teaching you language and they love seeing you have a have a go and just
(28:34):
relationships relationships relationships is so important and it's not just in our context every
context isn't it but particularly in a remote setting just relationships so so important fostering
them nurturing them yeah thank you so much for your time today Veronica and good luck with your new
(28:56):
move to Adelaide thank you appreciate it each podcast episode we also try and highlight or spotlight
or do a shout out for amazing businesses organizations groups and services that are working in
remote communities this could be run or owned by First Nations people or services that
(29:18):
regularly are committed to going into remote communities and and listening and working with First
Nations people so here is our shout out and spotlight for this episode songlines art culture and education
the lifetime of knowledge and skills combined with extensive experience songlines art culture and
(29:41):
education offers a range of services including First Nations education resources clothing and
design founded to provide innovative ways to empower Aboriginal people through art culture and
education while embedding and putting in digitus perspectives at the centre of organizations and
learning services this is a team project between director and artist Russell Brown who is a proud
(30:05):
Garwa and Mara Man from the Roper River area of Northern Territory Russell is a strong advocate
for self-determinations of indigenous peoples and cultural integrity and partner Claire Shola director
and educator she's a passionate educator and leader who has dedicated her career in education to
working in remote indigenous communities Claire has lived and worked in indigenous communities for
(30:29):
over 12 years and has held teacher senior teacher assistant principal and principal roles
and together they are songlines art culture and education well worth checking out for your remote
classroom for resources and ideas check them out the link will be in the bio you've been listening to
the remote teacher podcast a podcast where we discuss all things remote outback teaching make sure you
(30:54):
follow us on Facebook Instagram join our email list and our Facebook group teachers in remote
communities past present and future any important links mentioned or businesses or organizations to
support your remote teaching that our guests has mentioned today will be in the show notes so make
sure you have a look at them to find out more and a reminder again that this podcast can be
(31:18):
downloaded so you can access it when you do not have internet coverage or reception so you can
listen to it on your long drives between communities in the outback thank you for listening we look
forward to seeing you in the next episode of the remote teacher
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The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.