Best-selling author wants parents to fire up and lead the way on education change

Her first book Teacher was a bestseller now Gabbie Stroud is in Brisbane tonight talking about her new book Dear Parents - putting the spotlight on parents and why “the world is bigger than their child”. Here’s what she had to say about why we need a new education system.

Author Gabbie Stroud is in Brisbane to talk about her new book Dear Parents which she hopes will raise awareness about the challenges facing students and teachers. Pic supplied.

Leading education activist and best-selling author Gabbie Stroud says “teachers are drowning not waving” and parents have the biggest role to play in raising a grassroots movement to demand change in the education system.

Ms Stroud, who is in Brisbane to launch her new book Dear Parents tonight, said “education feels like a fast food service”.

“It’s grab your fries and run … it’s not serving the needs of children and I hope parents start asking questions about why it isn’t,” Ms Stroud said.

“I think children are learning in spite of the system not because of it.”

“We need to turn the ship around … I feel really concerned for new teachers and those going into the profession .. we need to make it better for teachers.”

Ms Stroud said a lot of “very sympathetic parents” were aware that the “world is bigger than their own child”.

“They know if we make it better for teachers we make it better for students,” she said.

“Teachers voices are missing from policy making on education .... so many teachers today are drowning not waving and they are struggling.”

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Dear Parents by Gabbie Stroud. Cover supplied.

Ms Stroud said education needs a “dramatic reimagining and we need to let go of the things that don’t work”.

“The things that aren’t serving us .... we need to cast that off and reimagine what it could become – ‘what if’ is one of the most exciting things you can ask in a classroom,” Ms Stroud said.

She said she didn’t want to see policy “rush to something new – in a knee-jerk reaction”.

“This book is about giving teachers a voice ….for people to understand what it is like to be in the classroom and when we talk about all the sound bits like Gonski funding and NAPLAN teachers are the absent voice .... the relentlessness and joy and humour and that environment of children and the voice of teachers … that is absent when we use those sound bites.”

Ms Stroud said what she was hearing from teachers in “real life and on social media is a lot of gratitude for speaking up .... I feel like we are on the cusp of change.”

“I am hoping this book will fall into the hands of parents and politicians and policy makers. Parents have a very strong voice and with the grassroots kind of movement and push back from parents … then teachers will find that encouraging and we will be able to reshape the clunky wheel,” she said.

“Parents need to ask the right questions about why their children are being failed by the education system.”

Ms Stroud said she was on a mission in 2020 to see “every teaching staff experience a standing ovation from the parents that they serve.”

“We need to put them on the stage at the end of the year and hear the applause … for parents and students to be on their feet standing … that small gesture would lift morale so high and it would repair so much between parents and teachers.”

“It is a very small gesture …. it’s such a simple thing. They don’t have to donate a gold coin or put your kids in a costume just be up on your feet.”

Hear Gabbie Stroud speak at the Michael Zeuschner Hall at Bulimba State School tonight at 6.30pm.

DEAR PARENTS

Dear Parents, a funny, heartfelt and impassioned series of letters to the mothers, fathers and caregivers of Australia, Gabbie Stroud makes a plea to all parents to understand the fundamental changes to the way their children are being taught, and the results of this process on the development of future generations. She wants parents to recognise their responsibility as their children’s primary educators and to appreciate the lifelong benefits that committed and dedicated school teachers can bring to their kids. Source: ALLEN & UNWIN