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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Quantifying my Attributes as a Teacher



Q is for Quantifying my Attributes as a Teacher…



For the first time (in the last ten years) I’ve had to write myself a resume in order to sell myself to schools on the Gold Coast.

The trouble is I haven’t really done anything notable… as far as joining committees and getting on the latest bandwagon “trendy crap in education” thing goes.

I’ve been a bit of a lone wolf during my teaching career, apart from teaming up with an excellent music teacher who I partnered up with to produce three musical productions for the school I worked at. 


Aside from that I’ve just done my own thing.

Mostly it’s stuff I can’t put on a curriculum vitae.

For example, these are the things I’m most proud of but can't put on my resume:

For every ten years I worked at the school, at LEAST one child would forget to bring five bucks for the Mother’s Day craft stall and in order to put a stop to the ear-piercing relentless sobbing, I would dig into my own pocket to buy someone’s Mum a mother’s day present.

Every year it happened.

I never received any acknowledgement for it, but what the hell. It was mother’s day and that’s special to kids until they become arsehole teenagers, isn't it?



I mothered and cuddled at least five children whose actual mothers were in prison, listened to their heart wrenching cries of abandonment and hid my tears as best I could.



Bought shoelaces for a child who’d come to school for two weeks with no laces because his Mum was going through a rough divorce and was too busy drinking herself into a stupor to go out and buy new shoelaces.



Petitioned (a very kind) school principal to fork out for uniform shirts for the boys from the family above because they were wearing shirts two sizes too small, their buttons were popping and they were getting teased and lashing out… then getting into trouble in the playground.



Visited students in hospital, taking up letters from the class and buying carefully selected presents in order to cheer the sick student up.



Gave multitudes of students my lunch because they’d come to school with nothing in their bag. Not that missing a meal or two hurt my waistline.



Visited a dying mother at home who was too sick to come to a parent/teacher interview, attempted to comfort her that her son would be fine and not to worry whilst all the time blubbering, snotty tears inside.



Held the devastated child of the mother above during the weeks after the funeral and tried to find the right words to say. Struggled a lot.



Grieved for the Mum and the whole family all the while thinking about my own five children and how they’d feel if it had happened to our family.


I won't carry on too much, you get the drift.


The thing is, I’m not alone. Every teacher does this sort of thing every day.

We just take it on as part of our job. Most of us do anyway.

But how do you write, “I really care” on a resume?


I don’t even know how a teacher can write a bloody resume really.