Employment after graduation

Employment after graduation

April 6th, 2016

Adelle has spoken to some recent graduates on their experience with

employment as a graduate teacher

As many of my year level are looking to graduate and gain employment at the conclude of this year, questions about resumes, applications, cover letters, portfolios and criteria are floating around.

Attend the universities workshops on resume writing, interviewing, speaking workshops and cover letter writing. These are designed to assist you in getting that job which is ultimately the aim of many who are completing a university degree.

However,

Due to my extra experiences while at university my graduation date has been extended by my own accord and while I am perfectly happy with being older when I graduate and gaining more life experience before starting a career, others respectfully have different plans.

My original year level's classmates graduated last night and although there is a pang of jealousy that they all got to celebrate together while I went to a 9am class this morning, it is apparent that more than a few of them haven’t been successful in obtaining a job.

I asked a few of them why they thought they hadn’t found that job yet and I got mixed responses.

A few are doing emergency teaching and loving the variation and experience they are gaining through that. Others feel they don’t interview well and need work in this area. Some have reviewed revised and redone their resumes and cover letters countless times and with the feedback they are getting from potential employers, identify that as an area that needs work also.

However, each of the graduates I have spoken to have one thing in common. Although they feel quite sad at times about not securing that dream position yet, that is the reality. They will wait, apply and use their gained skills for other uses until that dream job presents itself.

The main message they all tried to convey was, that just like getting into uni or working your way up through a company, there are always pathways and options to get to a result. If things aren’t going to plan straight away, bide your time, use your skills for other purposes, obtain feedback and get a mentor for applications, apply for a CRT agency to gain experience, teach overseas, explore other options, your degree isn't going to expire. The job market is always unfavourable with the amount of graduates in one area from various different universities so if your applications aren’t receiving the praise that you feel they should or your interviewing skills aren’t quite what the employers want, try again. If you fail, learn from that and remember why you want to be a teacher in the first place. If you put in the work, your chance could come at any time and you have to be ready.

I have recently read a book by Daniel Flynn who is a co-founder of the company thank you (responsible for thankyou water and various other products) he himself was a university drop out because he had an idea and dream that he thought would work and ultimately it was a game changer. He followed this dream, failed and learnt from that and took action and risks to make his idea come to life. He is very successful in his field and has funded and aided an incredible amount of people living in poverty. This number is still increasing and he is quite an inspirational young person whose story can be very relatable to a lot outside of his own business. I would highly recommend this book, you can purchase it from their website https://thankyou.co/ or from any airport in Australia and New Zealand.

Remember that things can always be better and hidden opportunities reveal themselves through our ‘failures’.

-Adelle

French School Experience

ABOVE TRANSLATION: Adelle, Australian placement school teacher will be present in the class all week.

International school placement

4th February, 2016

Adelle explores the differences between children aged 4 and 5 in French and Australian schools

I have been lucky enough to have a week placement in a French school in the city of Grenoble, the capital of the Alps, in France. This experience was really interesting. You see, the class I was in had children from two levels, a composite class, and the children were 4 and 5 years old. In Australia these children would have been in grade prep, starting their first year of school. This is the first point of difference in France. It is not mandatory to put children into school until they turn six and they do not technically start their curriculum education until this age. They can however, and most do, start in a school setting called maternelle which is comparable to three years of kinder before. In these years before, children speak, are taught to recognise letters and numbers, they develop their fine motor skills and use a lot of play to learn.  Below is a table I have constructed of a day comparison from a grade prep placement in Australia to maternelle placement in France.

Notice the times that school starts and ends as well as how many play times there are as well as lunch breaks.

**Note. This may not a typical day in every French or Australian school, it is just from the experiences I have had in my French and Australian placements of the same aged children.

French school day AGE 4/5 maternelle	Australian school day AGE 4/5 Foundation
8.45am school starts	9.00 School starts
9.00 Gym. Exercising in the morning using games for muscle development	9.15 literacy, perhaps game and play based
10.00 Recreation, students play outside	10.00 Maths skills
10.45 Cross curricula activity, eg: maths and literacy, science and literacy * I experienced drawing observations and verbally explaining how a carrot top grew leaves resting in water	10.30 Recess
11.45 LUNCH BREAK	11.00 Music
·      Students have the choice to go for lunch with their parents or eat in the school cafeteria ·      Lunch break is 1 hour and 45 minutes	12.00 Language * specialist subjects
1.30 resume school with quiet time, (music or audio story) while some children finish their ‘after lunch nap’ in the sleeping room.	1.00 LUNCH BREAK
1.45 Spanish lesson in small groups, all teachers and some extra helpers teach Spanish.	1.45 Religion
2.30 Recreation, students play outside	2.45 Whole school assembly
3.00 cross curricula activity, eg: maths and literacy, science and literacy	3.20 FINISH SCHOOL
4.00 FINISH SCHOOL

As you can see Australian children are guided during the day with the necessary curriculum and as I have seen in the French school it is possible to only do two activities over the whole day. Grade prep children in Australia, I feel, are taught to read and write a lot earlier and are perhaps less free inside the classroom than the French.

Inside the classroom is much the same. Colour and work is displayed, the room is filled with books and art supplies, educational games and desks. However in the classroom I observed in, children did not sit on the ground in front of the teacher. Instead they all shared large bench seats in the class. Children would either call the teacher Maîtresse or by their first name. Calling teachers by their first name is something I have started to see more of in Australia and I think it creates a more open trusting and familiar relationship between teachers and students.

France is general is more ‘touchy’ country. They do not have ‘hands off rule’ as Australian schools do. Touching is a part of social normalities here and it is important for school aged children to learn to respect each other. The act of touching or not touching when appropriate is a part of their education early on. Instead of saying hands off completely they are taught respect and boundaries without the banning of touching at all. It is a part of everyday life to greet friends and family with two kisses on the cheeks, or three depending on the region of France. Normal for male-male, female-male and female-female connections.

After just a week I have observed a lot of differences as well as similarities within the French school and I think its important to remember that there are multiple ways for students to go through their schooling lives. The goal in a school is to educate regardless of the culture, country, age or system.

I am researching into more international school systems and it is clear that there are successful stories and processes from all of them. As educators, our field of work is constantly updating or changing and although there is not one perfect system there are countless ways to teach and it’s important to find the one that works for your classroom. We are aware of different teaching styles and maybe you have one that is natural for you or one you prefer. However, does that style suit the needs of your students?

- Adelle

Seeing the world for what it truly is

 Seeing the World for What it Truly is

15th December, 2015

Claire, a guest blogger and pre-service teacher, talks about her experience teaching in Thailand and how it has influenced her views on the world

Many people all over the world experience an enormous amount of difference in terms of life-style, culture, schooling, relationships, family life, employment and religion. These differences can shape one’s life outcomes, how they view the world and reflections on life. I have been brought up in the same house, suburb, and city for my entire life and it has only been recently that I have had the pleasure of experiencing the diversity around my city and around the world.

I have currently just finished my 2nd year of a Bachelor of Education (Primary) and just in these two years I have learned so much about other people’s lives, their children’s lives and how much of an impact this and the schooling teacher can have on children. At the start of the year I traveled to Thailand to volunteer my teaching skills to a local school an hour outside of the Chiang Mai. I was only there for 3 weeks in total, however as a person and as a teacher I developed drastically. I loved it so much that I have booked a trip to Cambodia to volunteer my teaching passion for 4 weeks in 2016. Upon returning I was selected to work for my university in the Community Engagement section where little did I know I would be exposed to and confronted with a wide range of social issues.

In my job there are programs where I dealt with adults who had/were suffering from many different mental health issues, forms of addiction and abuse. I was heavily involved in running and facilitating another program with the local school called a Homework Support Program. This school was situated below the commission building houses where low socioeconomic status families live. These families are subjected to many of the same issues of mental health problems, addiction, abuse and poverty. Within these buildings a large percentage of people are refugees from Sudan and Vietnam. I had never experienced working with children from this background and it was definitely an eye opener.

All of these different programs and experiences have opened my eyes to the wider community and the world around me. From seeing blind, deaf, amputees begging on the streets of Thailand to having drunken, bashed up fathers barging into our homework club in order to take his son away, to dealing with mentally unstable adults dumping all of their emotions and state of events on to you. It has definitely influenced my outlook on life and my outlook on the teacher I want to be.

I do think all of my events and experiences have had a positive influence to me as a person and as a forthcoming teacher. They have taught me important lessons such as, don’t judge someone by how they look without understanding their background (yes, the classic saying of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’), go with the flow in terms of learning how to live in someone else’s culture, and always have an open heart, mind and an ear to listen with for when it comes to people that both look like they need help, and for those who smile it away.

I believe all of these insights are very relevant for me as a future teacher. If I was to say one thing to fellow pre-service teachers it would be to experience as much as you can and learn from these experiences, even if it may look like it negatively impacted you, think of the positive outcomes.

I don’t believe I have seen the entire world for what it truly is, however I am definitely making my tracks through it.

- Claire Todeschini

Claire just completed her 2nd year as a pre-service teacher and also works as a Community Engagement Assistant for her University. Part of this role involves managing a homework support program for a local school.