Parap Primary School teacher Susan Bishop reflects on relationship with students

A primary school teacher has revealed the heartwarming impact she -and other educators – have on their students, including a young girl on a refugee visa.

Parap Primary School teacher Susan Bishop

“Thanks for being in my life, you’re amazing.”

It’s a sentiment any educator would be thrilled to hear and Parap Primary School teacher Susan Bishop was overjoyed to read those exact words from former student Jerushi Kathir almost a decade after their time shared in the classroom.

Ms Kathir reached out to her former teacher on Facebook in 2021 to say she missed Mrs Bishop.

The passionate educator said she had taught Ms Kathir as a Year 6 student in 2013 while she was on a refugee visa from Sri Lanka.

“She was only here with her dad and her cousins, her mum and other siblings had to stay back in their country,” Mrs Bishop said.

“She was emotional in that sense of not being with family and her mum … so it was probably like a mother figure with her as well.”

Parap Primary School student Jerushi Kathir in 2013.

Mrs Bishop said she helped her young student through the trials of girlhood while living far from home and helped Ms Kathir learn to express herself through art.

She said the student’s painting still hung above her desk at home, and she kept a “happy box” of letters and drawings from her students over the years.

A painting from Jerushi Kathir to Parap Primary School teacher Susan Bishop in 2013.

Ms Bishop said she had hoped to link her story with the federal government’s Be That Teacher campaign.

After completing a hairdressing apprenticeship when she left school, Mrs Bishop said she had never given teaching any thought.

But after moving to the NT and opening a daycare business, she quickly changed her mind.

“I had to do a bridging course for six weeks and then I got into uni and while I had my daycare business, I studied my degree,” she said.

“I went to Parap in my last placement and I finished on a Friday and I was teaching the Tuesday, my paperwork went through so fast.”

Mrs Bishop described her career as a teacher as having a “family feel”.

“The beginning of the year, you think, ‘gosh, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get these kids across the finish line?’ You don’t realise throughout the year, you’re moulding them,” she said.

“It’s not just teaching, you’re showing them your values in life and you’re encouraging them to be good people.

“I get paid to make a difference.”