Steve Sedergreen: Music teacher and jazz pianist wants job back after pleading guilty to slapping student
A prominent jazz musician and former teacher has told a tribunal slapping a boy when “the lad was late to class” was “the worst thing (he had) ever done” in a bid to teach kids again.
Prominent jazz musician and former schoolteacher Steve Sedergreen has launched a bid to return to the classroom, despite slapping a student and “frogmarching” him into class when “the lad showed up late”.
Sedergreen’s lawyer told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal he “might, but for this, have received an Australia Day Award for services to music and education” and that there was no risk of him assaulting students again.
Sedergreen is seeking to have his Working With Children Clearance reinstated, which, if successful, would allow him to reapply for registration as a teacher and fight the Department of Education decision to blacklist him from government schools.
Sedergreen resigned from his job at Blackburn High School shortly after being charged with assault, and pleaded guilty at his first court hearing in August 2023, where he was fined $3500, without conviction.
Psychologist Juliajana Chochhovski told the tribunal Sedergreen had “high standards and a preference for order” which “makes him a great teacher” but led him to lash out at the boy.
“That’s just a personality style, not a mental illness,” she said.
Sedergreen has been working on “not bottling things up” and coping techniques including “adjusting his expectations”, “breathing”, “temperature checks” and “colour coding” his emotions.
“If I’m at a point where I feel like I might lose my cool, I have a colour system for that,” Sedergreen said.
“Therapy has been very good for me.
“I was a really good teacher.
“I was pushed to the limit too much … I’m not blaming anyone else, I’m blaming myself.”
Sedergreen’s resignation letter said slapping the student was “the worst thing I have ever done in my life”.
“I will regret it for the rest of my days.”
Sedergreen was stripped of his Working With Children Clearance in July last year, but won a conditional stay of the decision so he could privately tutor two VCE students, so long as a parent was supervising their lessons.
He claims to have lost 60 per cent of his income since quitting his teaching job, and now makes ends meet by performing and teaching adults.
Lawyers for the Department of Government Services, which oversees Working With Children Clearances, told the tribunal there were concerns about him returning to work.
They said assaulting the boy was a very serious offence, and that he had not been able to test his new-found coping techniques in real-world, high-stress situations like an unruly classroom.
VCAT senior member Anna Dea will decide the case in coming weeks.
She said the wording of the law meant Sedergreen was “up against it” to return to working with children.
Sedergreen was a member of nine-piece band Jazz Cat, whose other members founded internationally-successful band Cat Empire.
