Rebecca Baker: Why good teachers deserve to be paid more

SO our Catholic chalkies want to be paid more to spend less time in the classroom? I, for one, am cheering for them.

NEWS: Generic pic of a teacher standing at the blackboard while talking to students in a classroom.

SO our Catholic chalkies want to be paid more to spend less time in the classroom? I, for one, am cheering for them.

Yes, I know, they’ve just come back from a seven-week break but good teachers are well worth celebrating and I’ll even cough up extra school fees if need be.

A few years back as mum of two children aged under four, I decided to go back to uni to complete a Diploma in Education.

I had this idyllic notion of working 9am to 3pm while my own kids were at school — and getting to spend THOSE long summer holidays with my precious cherubs.

Seriously, how hard could working with 30 little people be?

I was wrong. It might be okay if all children — and their parents — were easy to get along with but they’re not.

Then there are the after-school activities, staff meetings, parent interviews, marking, planning, excruciatingly-long sports days, excursions, school camps — not to mention having to be a parent to those kids whose own mums and dads are “too busy” to do it themselves, as well as negotiating tricky family situations.

I quickly headed back to the office when I discovered my favourite thing about being back at school was having recess and lunch.

We learned last week Catholic teachers across South Australia are threatening strike action, angry at a wage offer of 2 per cent, below the 2.5 per cent on offer in the public sector and they also want teaching hours brought into line with public schools.

Of course, the financial viability and sustainability of the move has to be thrashed out, but we can’t undervalue the worth of a good teacher.

And we need to find ways to attract and keep top educators across all sectors, private and public.

From what I have seen and heard first-hand teachers are being asked to do more and more, for little extra reward, often in stressful environments in which incredibly challenging students hold entire classrooms at ransom by virtue of how they choose to behave on any particular day, sadly impacting on the ability of fellow students to learn and enjoy their school day.

The Weekend Australian reported Australia is producing more low-performing and fewer top-of-the-class students compared to other industrialised countries.

According to Learning First, an Australian education research group, Aussie teenagers now lag high school students in China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada.

Surely, investing wisely in those at the frontline charged with inspiring and shaping our most precious resource — our kids — will go some way to reversing this situation.

Arguably, it’s money better spent than the ludicrously high rises to department heads, such as the more than $50,000 extra paid to Education and Child Development Department chief executive Tony Harrison in the 12 months to July last year, taking his salary package to $450,000.

Of course, as in any profession, there are teachers who are a waste of space but the vast majority are wonderful, selfless souls who daily go above and beyond what is expected of them to help, nurture and encourage other people’s children.

Take for example my sons’ sport teacher, who at the end of last year received a special commemorative book from the AFL in recognition of her contribution to the sport. Knowing how much my boys love both reading and footy, she kindly lent them the book to read and enjoy in the school holidays.

The generous gesture wasn’t lost on my boys who arrived home with wide grins from ear-to-ear.

Who can’t remember a teacher who has inspired them?

I credit my choice to study journalism to an English teacher I had as a 13-year-old, at a small country school in the 1980s.

And when my father-in-law, a retired teacher, passed away last year, his wife received letters from former students who’d written to acknowledge the influence and impact he’d had on them — some more than 60 years earlier.

So shine up an apple for your child’s teacher and let’s say thanks for the important work they do.