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Teachers write about their experiences of workplace harassment, false allegations, etc.

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Tuesday July 1, 2008

Retired teacher Lynda Beck of Rozelle wrote a Letter to the Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

She retired one year ago.

The Sydney Morning Herald had reported that parents did not generally perceive that their children had serious conduct problems.

But teachers do.

In  Lynda Beck's experience, children are now more disruptive and violent than they were a generation ago.

But modern parents do not acknowledge this, due to the cult of preciousness and encouragement of egocentricity that has evolved.

If a child was disobedient or violent in the 1970's and 80's, generally a discussion with the parents would result in a workable solution.

Now the parents frequently inform the teacher that the child's misbehaviour is someone else's fault.

Or that the teacher is picking on them.

 

The Bad Apple Bullies webmaster comments:

I taught in Sydney primary schools during the 70's and 80's.

Children simply were not disruptive and violent in those days.

 

I began teaching in Queensland at about the time that the cane was banned in schools.

And the children's behaviour rapidly deteriorated.

Every year there seemed to be more and more children in each class with significant behavioural problems.

 

I observed that Queensland school principals were often reluctant to contact parents and tell them the truth about their children.

The principals seemed to be afraid that the parents would complain about them.

 

Thursday June 19, 2008

Russel Riley, Thornlie, describes some of the major incidents during the past few years at his Perth primary school.

His school was one of the first in Western Australia to experience a police lock-down and search of the grounds by armed TRG with dogs.

The lock-down lasted from 9am to 12.30pm.

During that three and a half hours, teachers, staff and students were all locked in the classrooms together with no access to toilets.

 

Two armed parents began fighting over a carpark space at the end of a school day, while students were trying to get home safely.

 

Three staff were held hostage in the principal's office by a recently released prisoner who was armed.

 

A parent was not happy because their child had been stopped from fighting with another student.

So the parent went to a staff member's house at the weekend and began making threats and throwing stones and gum nuts. 

  • Try a stint at my school, Russel Riley, Letters to the Editor, p.22, The West Australian, quoted on the PLATOWA website http://www.platowa.com/

 

Dwight Lemke, Lecturer in management, School of Business, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, wrote a letter to the editor of The Australian.

... A large proportion, if not a majority, of my students canot write a clear, concise and grammatically correct paragraph to save their lives. Those of us who care about the quality of the students we send out into the world are therefore compelled to correct their English so that they have a last chance to learn to communicate well.

This is not something we should be doing at university. Students are supposed to graduate from high school with a basic knowledge of maths, English, science and social studies.

Why isn't it happening?

  • Letters to the Editor, Opinion, p. 15, The Australian.

 

Friday June 6, 2008

Bob Wilkinson of Lions Street, Malanda, wrote to The Cairns Post.

He said that the system fails to support teachers.

Teachers teach their students "good manners" and they expect good manners, respect and obedience from their students.

But they are not allowed to enforce this teaching.

Anytime they try to enforce their expectations, there is some bureaucracy to thwart their efforts.

In any school, there are phone numbers for students to ring if they feel wronged by some adult.

But there are no phone numbers for teachers (or parents, etc.) to ring for help in dealing with unruly, recalcitrant children.

In fact, most of the students using these help phone numbers are the ones causing the trouble, who ring with invented stories and are believed.

Nor is there any help from the authorities "in charge".

They either don't want to know or their hands are tied.

Bob said that when he taught in the ghettos of industrial England in the 1970-80's, it was more pleasant than teaching in many Queensland schools today.

  • System fails to support teachers, Bob Wilkinson, Your Say, p.13, The Cairns Post, Friday June 6, 2008.

 

The Webmaster of Bad Apple Bullies comments:

I also taught in the heartland of industrial England during 1969-1973.

I agree with Bob.

But when I commented to an inexperienced acting deputy principal that behaviour was far, far better in the early days of my teaching career, she decided that I had to be put into a Diminished Workplace Performance Program because "we want to change the way that Annie is thinking".

So I hope that Bob has retired, or he will almost certainly be put into a punishment program for telling the truth about the lack of support for teachers in Queensland schools.

It is so much easier to punish the teachers for talking about the behaviour problems than to deal with the children's behaviour.

 

Friday 30 May 2008

A former South Australian teacher has been awarded a $390,000 damages payout for excessive workload and bullying.

The South Australia Supreme Court found that the teacher had been overworked and was the victim of bullying and victimisation.

The male teacher had been asked to take on extra, unpaid duties whilst working as a teacher at Mt Barker High School and Brighton Secondary School.

He had gone on sick leave in 2001.

He was eventually dismissed.

Justice Tim Anderson found that the South Australia Education Department should have foreseen that the extra workload, even undertaken willingly, would have caused stress.

He awarded $392,850 in damages for loss of past and future earnings as well as loss of reputation and dignity.

Workplace OHS

 

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

06:03pm

This morning a teacher working at the Umbakumba School on Groote Island was threatened by a man wielding an axe, spears and a bow and 12 arrows.

Groote Island is a remote Aboriginal community in the Gulf of Carpentaria (Northern Territory),

The man was allegedly looking for a relative at the Umbakumba School on Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, at about 8am (CST) today.

Police said the man threatened the teacher with the axe when he was asked to leave the school.

The man then damaged a school building with an axe.

Community members seized the weapons and disarmed the man.

He ran off into the bush before police arrived.

He remains at large despite police efforts to locate him.

 

Earlier this month, two teachers at Umbakumba School were threatened by a young man wielding a lump of concrete and a wooden log.

The 18-year-old had an altercation with his wife inside the school grounds before he allegedly became agitated and approached a classroom full of students.

 

Monday April 28, 2008

Toni Sharkey , principal of Newcomb Secondary College in Geelong, had worked as a teacher for 38 years.

For most of that time she had worked at "difficult" schools.

A parent at the school was known to have a short fuse and to indulge in angry rants.

Ms Sharkey had managed to calm her down before.

But in 2006 the mother was out of control.

Ms Sharkey had suspended her son because he had arrived at school one day with baseball bats,

Two other boys were with him, neither of whom were pupils at the school.

They were planning to settle a score with another student.

"After screaming and carrying on at me, she (the mother) grabbed me by the top of the arm and around my neck with the other hand and threw me on the ground," Ms Sharkey recalls. "I didn't know what was happening,"

Fortunately the assistant principal, who was working in his nearby office, heard the escalation of the swearing and abuse.

He was able to intervene.

The physical injuries that Ms Sharkey suffered during the assault, and the mental and emotional effects of the assault, have affected Ms Sharkey's health.

She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and she is unlikely to return to work.

She is shocked by the situation in which she now finds herself.

She had never thought about retiring or resigning from her work.

 

Ms Sharkey says that schools are too exposed.

She wants to see security procedures developed to protect staff and students.

"Schools are very much open slather to anybody who wants to create a fuss," she says.

" ... I am so tired of hearing about teachers being under the scrutiny of bullying in schools. For goodness sake, let's put the other side of the story out there."

 

Brian Burgess, president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, described an incident at Eumemmerring College which prompted an emergency lockdown at the school.

A male parent was rampaging through the school yard, trying to find a teacher.

The parent thought the teacher had abused his son.

The teacher concerned was pregnant.

The student concerned was a difficult year 9 student who had told his father a pack of lies.

The father had over-reacted.

 

Mary Bluett, president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union, described a recent incident.

A father walked into a classroom and abused a teacher in front of 27 grade 2 students.

He then turned to the students and told them that their teacher was a cr*p teacher and that they should tell their parents.

Then he stormed out.

 

Saturday April 19, 2008

Robert Bartholomew , an American sociology professor, has lived in Australia for 13 years.

He has spent several years working as a teacher in remote schools.

He was working as a teacher in Ali Curong (also called Alekarenge), 170km south of Tennant Creek and on the edge of the Tanami desert in the Northern Territory.

He "blew the whistle" on the Northern Territory's crumbling education system.

He said that walking into the Alekarenge School was like entering the third world.

Conditions at the Alekarenge school are so bad that only one of the six teachers who statrted work at the school in January 2008 have made it through to Term 2.

A spokesman for the Northern Territory Education Department said four teachers, not five, had left the school: two had taken up promotional positions, one was on maternity leave and one was following her partner to his new job in a different community.

In 2005 a report had identified an asbestos risk to children and staff both inside the school and in the playground.

The report alarmed the community.

Dr Bartholomew claims that the Education Department ignored the asbestos report.

The Education Department claim that this is untrue, and that all of the recommendations of the report had been implemented.

Dr Bartholomew said that he raised his concern about education and safety standards within the school for weeks.

"I was told my standards were too high," he said.

Then the department told him he was going be transferred to a different school.

But, despite having successful interviews at other schools, he has not been able to get another job as a teacher.

Dr Bartholomew believes that he has been "blackballed" by the department.

He is now technically an illegal immigrant.

Former colleagues of Dr Bartholomew, including school principals, spoke of him as a model teacher.

The Australian Education Union's Northern Territory branch secretary, Adam Lampe, said that Dr Bartholomew had been treated with contempt.

This week, Northern Territory Education Minister Marion Scrymgour admitted that remote schools were in crisis.

  • Community rallies for teacher, Natasha Robinson, P.10, The Nation, The Weekend Australian.

 

17 April, 2008

Andrew Massey, a teacher in England, has been paid "substantial" compensation because his job ruined his health.

Mr Massey, 54, was teaching design and technology at New College in Leicester in 2004.

He has been unable to work since he became sick from stress.

He took legal action against Leicester City Council and was offered an undisclosed but substantial out-of-court settlement.

Leicester City Council declined to comment to the BBC on the case.

Mr Massey told the BBC; "It was grim. I was late for lessons because I was dealing with fights and other incidents in corridors."

Mr Massey said that balconies in the school building were dangerous places because teachers and students could be spat on, or they could have books dropped on them from the balcony.

Students would set fire to another child's hair.

One morning there were 13 false fire alarms at the school.

"We were told steps would be taken, but nothing effective ever happened." Mr Massey said.

Mr Massey said that he felt angry because he had been "reduced to what I am, that I should have lost so many of the good qualities that I had."

"I can't do rapid speech, my whole body hurts with the determination to get words out. I have become so much more difficult to live with."

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) supported Mr Massey.

 

When did you last read about the Queensland Teachers' Union supporting a bullied teacher?

 

Peter Flack is assistant secretary of the NUT's Leicester branch.

He said: "This problem is certainly getting worse. The pressures are far greater."

Leicestershire city council does not know exactly how many of its teachers are affected by stress.

The BBC has obtained figures under the Freedom of Information Act that show that in Leicester more than 2,500 teaching days were lost last year because of stress among 65 staff members.

But the NUT believes that these figures do not show the full extent of the problem, because many teachers do not like to admit that they are sufering from stress.

 

Monday April 7, 2008

A male teacher was hit over the head as he tried to stop five teenagers armed with baseball bats and a machete rampaging through Merrylands High School at 8.50am (AEST) today, police said.

The teacher was taken to hospital with bruising to the back of his head while trying to restrain one of the youths, the Ambulance Service of NSW said.

18 students were injured in the attack, most with cuts and abrasions from broken glass, although one girl was taken to hospital with a swollen cheek after allegedly being assaulted by one of the teenagers.

One student was taken to Westmead Children's Hospital with a facial injury.

Police said five youths stormed an assembly in an outdoor quadrangle, brandishing baseball bats and a machete, prompting teachers to "lock down" the school.

Students were locked inside their classrooms for safety.

Det-Insp Stewart said he was stunned by the brazenness of the incident.

"It beggars belief ... ," he said.

 

The unnamed mother of a Year 12 student praised the actions of teachers who put their lives on the line to protect students at Merrylands High School during the attack.

"The children were told to go into "lockdown procedure" and so they went to whatever lockdown classroom they're meant to be in and they go through the roll call to make sure their groups are there at which point these people started to smash windows."

The students were told to get under tables while the youths were smashing windows.

"The teachers were actually (barricading) the door for these guys which is really way above the call of duty, which is really good," the parent said.

"They showed the parents that they put their life on the line for the kids."

 

Friday April 4, 2008

12:18pm

Maree Anne McCormack, aged 54, was employed as a textiles, health and art teacher at Patterson River Secondary College, at Carrum in Melbourne, from February 1994.

Ms McCormack became anxious and stressed after a number of confrontations with students.

Ms McCormack was abused "in a particularly nasty fashion" in mid-2005 by a male student.

Ms McCormack told her doctor about the difficulties she faced in her job and about a lack of support from her employer.

In March 2006 she was working in a portable classroom with no way of contacting the office.

A female student accused Ms McCormack of kicking her.

Then the student withdrew the allegation.

But the principal made a remark that seemed to indicate a lack of support for MsMcCormack.

The situation affected Ms McCormack's health.

Workcover rejected her claim for compensation.

But Melbourne County Court Judge Bowman ruled that there was overwhelming evidence that Ms McCormack had suffered an injury at work and that she should receive compensation.

 

Friday 21 March, 2008

11:00pm

A female teacher, who did not want to be named, came forward to highlight serious safety issues facing teachers who are working in the Torres Strait Islands.

She said that her department accommodation in the Torres Straits was not secure.

An alleged attacker easily broke through a door, threatening to sexually assault her.

She fought him off and screamed, causing him to flee.

Wanting to call her parents but without a reliable phone in her house, the teacher ran to the school principal's house.

The principal advised her to wait until she settled down the next day before calling.

She was also told not to leave the island on the next barge in three days because she might not get another teaching job.

Police came three days later but did not arrest and charge the man until six weeks after the alleged assault, she said.

On the night the man was arrested, his friends allegedly harassed the teacher, banging on her window and doors.

After this incident she began sleeping with a knife under her bed and a mallet next to her pillow.

She left the island soon after.

She asked the Education Department's regional office if they were aware of the incident.

A spokesman said the department was aware but did not call the teacher unless it was a life and death situation.

 

Thursday 20 March 2008

10:38

 Nurses, teachers and other public servants are placed in remote North Queensland left to fend for themselves.

Working in these areas is a dangerous affair.

When I was in NQ recently I caught up with a family friend I hadn't seen for ages.

After he graduated from teacher training, he put his hand up to teach in a certain remote area.

As time went on, break-ins to his place of residence became more and more frequent and then started occuring at night when he was out.

It got to the point he was worried for his safety, especially at night when he might be asleep.

He asked for a transfer but, guess what, no one else wants to work in the area - I wonder why?

His only way out was to quit.

The damage has been done though, as the young man has suffered close to a nervous breakdown and, of course, there is no assistance coming from his former employer. ...

Posted by: Vince

Comment 49 of 129

 

Tuesday 18 March 2008

12:00am

Dance teacher Despina Rosales claims she was "punched, kicked, spat at and hit repeatedly" by up to seven female students while trying to drive out of the carpark of Randwick Girls High School in Sydney's east.

One of the students accused Ms Rosales, 35, of driving over her foot.

But it was Ms Rosales who required medical treatment at Prince of Wales Hospital for a "serious blow to the right side of her head".

 

One lunchtime at a western Sydney high school a male Year 7 student was playing tackle football in the playground with his friends.

The female teacher on duty asked the boys to stop tackling because it was against school rules.

They ignored her so she confiscated their football.

After negotiations the students agreed to stop tackling and the teacher handed the ball back to them.

But the Year 7 boy confronted the teacher and held a replica automatic pistol to her head for "about one minute".

 

At a regional high school in southwest NSW a Year 9 male student left his seat and creept up on the teacher.

He placed a toy gun against her head and pulled the trigger.

Then he ran into other classes, hurling abuse and waving the gun around.

A teacher's aide also had the weapon placed against her head and the trigger pulled.

 

The father of a disturbed Year 7 boy became aggressive during a meeting at a secondary school on the NSW Central Coast.

He pulled out a "mini replica pistol" and pointed it at the school counsellor's face.

 

At a special school on the North Coast of NSW a 14-year-old student threw 15 punches at the teacher trying to restrain him.

Three or four punches connected with the teacher's face and head.

 

"Special needs" teachers seem to be particularly vulnerable to being attacked at work, injured and driven into an impoverished early retirement.

You need to consider this possibilty very, very carefully if you feel 'called' to work with 'special needs' children.

 

In southwest Sydney a Year 9 boy sprayed a can of deodorant into a teacher's mouth with such force that it caused his nose to bleed.

 

A man reports that his teacher partner was hit with a lump of concrete that was thrown at her while she was writing on the blackboard.

 

A NSW primary school teacher was threatened with assault by an intoxicated mother.

Her husband, a police officer,  forced the reluctant principal to ban the parent.

"At least I can protect myself when dealing with violent persons, however these teachers cannot," he says.

"It is disgraceful situation and is getting out of hand and the Education Department should hang its head in shame.

"The slap on the wrist approach has not worked in the past 15 years and it is about time some changes were made to make children and their parents accountable for their crimes."

 

 

Monday 17 March 2008

Former NSW Central Coast teacher Richard Neville is one of many who has left the profession out of fear for their safety.

He ended his 12-year career as a high school teacher after two students attacked him with scissors and a lump of wood.

Now a fireman, Mt Neville said he found the job "safer than teaching".

"The boy who came at me with the pair of scissors and the one who took the swing at me with a lump of wood were 13 year olds," Mr Neville said.

Department of Education and Training incident reports show teachers are regularly threatened with firearms or other weapons - from broken bottles to knives - by students, parents or intruders.

The issue tops the list of teachers' concerns in secondary schools (more than 65 per cent).

 

Thursday 6 March 2008

 

Dr David Solomon AM, Chair,

FOI Independent Review Panel.

GPO Box 5236 Brisbane

Queensland 4001
 
 
March 6 2008
 
 
Dear Dr Solomon,
 
Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission in relation to the administration of Freedom Of Information in Queensland.
 
I hope that the Independent Review Panel will not allow themselves to be abused as puppets to destroy Queenslanders' rights to Freedom of Information.
 
Freedom of Information sometimes seems to be the only Queensland Government 'accountability process' that is functioning.
 
Without the right to Freedom of Information, Queensland teachers and other Queensland public servants would have no workplace rights.
 
There would be no accountability.
 
They would be even more exposed to workplace abuse.
 
 
 
 
Freedom of Information enables Queensland teachers who are dealing with workplace abuse to -
 
 
  • Find out if the official records of their complaint about the workplace abuse have been falsified.
 
  • Find falsified 'official records' that may have been secretly placed on their departmental files.

 

  • Find details of internal and external 'investigations' concerning them that have been conducted without their knowledge.

 

  • Realise that what may have been represented to them as an 'investigation' is not described as an investigation in the official records. 

 

  • Read 'Briefings For The Minister' and gain an understanding of the strategies used by public servants to avoid 'knowing' about their complaint.
 
  • Identify Education Queensland officers who have made untruthful statements to them and about them.
 
 
Why I made a Freedom of information application in September 2003.
 
 
In 2000 I was employed as an Indonesian teacher in a Queensland State School.
 
Groups of Grade 7 children at my school were missing from their classrooms, roaming unsupervised around the school.
 
I discused the situation with the acting principal of the school.
 
The acting principal advised me to speak about it to the staff at the next staff meeting.
 
But, before I spoke to the staff, the acting principal spoke the staff at some length about 'a person' on the staff who was humiliating children.
 
One of the teachers later told me that I was 'the person'.
 
The shock of the acting principal's seemingly irrational and deeply unprofessional behaviour made me ill.
 
I was advised to ask the acting principal  for a mediated meeting.
 
She told me that 'a lot of allegations' had been made against me and that 'she had lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened'.
 
This statement was recorded and placed on my Education Queensland official record.
 
Two days later the acting principal gave me a letter to advise me that she and the usual principal - who had not discussed the situation with me - had decided to put me into the Diminished Work Performance Process the next year.
 
Since September 2003 I have been making FOI applications for copies of these 'lot of allegations' in 'lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened'.
 
To this date I have not found any document that answers that description.
 
 
To this date I have not been allowed Freedom of Information.
 
But I have found that my official Education Queensland records have been extensively falsified.
 
Many of the falsified documents are described in detail at http://www.badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm
 
My FOI applications are detailed in detail at http://www.badapplebullies.com/freedomofinformation.htm 
 
I anticipate that my experience will be portrayed to you as a 'problem with a vexacious applicant'.
 
But I would argue that it is not my repeated applications for these missing 'lot of documents' that is the problem.
 
It is the refusal of the acting principal to either produce these documents or to admit that the whole thing was a lie.
 
My FOI experience suggests to me that the real problem is not a problem with the official Education Queensland policies, but with the abusive workplace practices of Education Queensland administrators.
 
My own bully administrator managed to form inappropriate 'bonds' with certain Head Office staff, including an officer who was involved in 'searching' for my documents and a senior officer controlling the investigation into my complaint. I have found the evidence of these inappropriate 'bonds' in the FOI documents. These inappropriate 'bonds' have disadvantaged me.
 
  • There is a real need for Education Queensland Head Office and District Office staff to be given psychopath awareness training and to be able to recognise the 'grooming' behaviours practiced by psychopaths.
 
Falsified records can be placed secretly on a Queensland teacher's official files to his or her disadvantage.
 
It is too easy for malicious and untruthful 'records' concerning a teacher to be secretly placed on a teacher's Education Queensland official files.
 
Notes on loose scraps of paper can be secretly placed on a teacher's file. These loose scraps of paper can be changed at any time by an abusive principal.
 
Principals have their own computers and their own offices. There is no excuse for keeping files of sticky-notes and loose scraps of paper 'recording' their secret thoughts about teachers.
 
It is much too easy for a malicious Education Queensland principal to secretly place 'records' of imaginary conversations with children, administrators and parents concerning you on your official record. If you ever manage to find them under FOI, the names of the children, etc. will have been edited out.
 
And then, even if the child, teacher, principal or public servant concerned tells you that they did not have the conversation 'recorded' on your official file, CMC officers will advise you that the "record" of the imaginary conversation is 'not a lie, it is a different recollection'.  So you can never, ever disprove these malicious 'different recollections'.
 
Undated, unsigned scribbles on sticky-notes can be secretly placed on a teachers file. The scribbled notes may convey no clear meaning. They can be interpreted to suggest more or less anything.They can be stuck on dated and signed documents to create the false impression that they are related to that incident and that time. And then they can be moved to create a different impression. Because the scribbles on the sticky-notes are undated and unsigned, nobody can be held responsible for the suggestions concerning you that are being created by the scribbles.
 
Similarly, unsigned and undated notes can be scribbled in pencil onto documents that have been written, dated and signed by another person. This can create the false impression that the events described in the scribbled notes happened at the same time as the events in the original document.
 
'Records' concerning the actions of another teacher may be secretly placed on your Education Queensland file.
 
The FOI policy of deleting all names from documents exposes Queensland teachers to workplace abuse. It is too easy for an abusive principal to claim that a complaint has been made about a teacher, and to place the falsified 'records' of such a complaint secretly on a a teacher's file. Even if the teacher does eventually find the document under FOI - and that process could take many years - the teacher has little chance to prove that the allegation has been falsified because the name of the 'compainant' is concealed.
 
 
  • All documents concerning teachers should be signed, dated and shown to teachers before they are placed on teachers' files.
 
  • There should be space on the document for the teacher's response. A response should not be attached because it could be too easily 'lost'.
 
  • No document should be placed on a teacher's Education Queensland file if the teacher has not had the opportunity to respond to the document.
 
  • There should be serious consequences for administrators who are in breach of this policy.
 
  • This simple strategy would have protected me from workplace abuse in 2000.
 
  • If this simple strategy had been in place in 2000, I would not have needed to make any FOI applications.
 
  • This simple strategy would save a lot of public money.
 
 
Falsified records of meetings can also be secretly placed on a Queensland teacher's file to his or her disadvantage.
 
Records of meetings may be falsified to the disadvantage of teachers.
 
For example, a teacher's responses to allegations may be 'edited out' of the records.
 
Or the allegations may be changed and the names of people making the allegations may be changed.
 
The teacher may not realise that the allegations have been changed till they receive the FOI documents. A lot of effort may have been wasted 'responding' to allegations that have been changed.
 
The teacher may be used as a puppet to do themselves harm in the official records - falsified records may secretly be made of of the teacher's 'confessions', 'demands' or 'poor professional conduct'.
 
Union organisers may be abused as puppets to 'hear / not hear' what happened at the meeting and to do the teacher harm. QTU organisers seem to feel helpless to prevent this because of the QTU policy of 'no help for a member in conflict with a member'.
 
The teacher may be given verbal assurances which are the opposite of what is written in the official records.
 
  • All Education Queensland meetings to discuss complaints should be tape-recorded and transcribed.
 
  • A copy should be given to each meeting participant.
 
  • This simple strategy would raise the standard of professional conduct and eliminate many workplace problems.
 
  • It would also reduce the need for teachers to make FOI applications for falsified 'meeting notes'.

 

 
Education Queensland officers seem to deal with documents, letters and emails of complaint by 'losing' them or by instructing each other not to read them.
 
The standard of documentation of complaints / reviews / investigations in Education Queensland is appalling.
 
And it puts Queensland teachers at great risk of harm.
 
Education Queensland has a responsibility to protect employees from exposure to the risk of harm because of poor workplace practices.
 
The horror of the incompetence / dysfunction / corruption of the Education Queensland Grievance /  Investigation practices is beyond the powers of belief of any ordinary person.
 
I would suggest that this systemic dysfunction is the cause of many repeated FOI applications.
 
  • If Education Queensland officers documented their activities to a professional standard (as do CMC and Ombudsmen officers) less public time and money would be wasted responding to / avoiding responding to FOI applications.
 
My experience is described in detail at http://www.badapplebullies.com/thefalsifiedrecords.htm
 
 
The  Education Queensland  'investigation process'  does not work -
 
Again and again, the person you are complaining about (or a person under their direct control, or a person who has a conflict of interest in the situation) is allowed to 'investigate' your complaint about their own behaviour.
 
They then write a report 'finding' no evidence of their own bullying.
 
All later decisions are then based on this 'finding'.
 
Your letters of protest are disregarded.
 
When you make an FOI application for the documentation of the 'investigation' of your complaint, the Premier and senior public servants agree that you have written a lot of letters and that they will not read any more of your letters.
 
Then all copies of the first 'investigation' finding are lost by all Queensland Government Departments.
 
When you write to protest that your official record has been falsified, your protest letters are 'lost' or not read.
 
And no public servant can be held responsible for not reading your letters and 'knowing' that your record is being falsified.
 
Because they have all been instructed by the senior officers not to read your letters.
 
 
Strategies used by Investigators / Reviewers
 
An investigator may change the wording of your complaint to avoid investigating the real problem.
 
This seems to be a very common Queensland public service strategy.
 
The record of your complaint / grievance may have been falsified by being 'lost'. In this way the official record of a 120 page complaint can be reduced to three pages.
 
An 'internal reviewer' may have simply copied from documents that he knows to be falsified.  He may have been instructed not to ask questions and find out the real facts. Your own responses to the falsified records may have been ignored.
 
An Internal Reviewer can be instructed to 'infer from the documents'. This gives the Internal reviewer carte blanche to claim to have 'inferred' more or less anything from the documents, even if the evidence in the documents totally contradicts the 'inference' drawn by the reviewer.
 
Official 'investigation reports' may be ambiguous and suggest several different meaning to different readers.
 
What you are told at a meeting about the findings of an investigation may be quite the opposite to the real findings of the investigation. There may not even have been an investigation.
 
 
The word 'investigation" is used carelessly by Education Queensland senior officers.
 
A phone call to a 'mate' is not an investigation.
 
And it is unjust, abusive and deceptive for senior public servants to allow one of the people whose behaviour is the subject of a complaint to organise a tightly controlled 'internal review' - which simply consists of "drawing inferences" from falsified documents, refusing to allow any questions to be asked, refusing to allow the complainants responses to the falsified documents to be considered - and then to describe this in phone calls to other government departments and in the official records as 'an investigation'.
 
I suspect the careless use of the word 'investigation' to describe poor professional practices is the cause of much wasted FOI time.
 
I suspect that FOI officers being are asked to search for the documentation of 'investigations' that were really little more than quick phone calls to a 'mate'.
 
  • The official records of an investigation should contain an accurate copy of the original complaint.
 
  • Reference should be made to the specific document that supports any statement, finding, etc. made in reports. If Education Queensland reports were referenced to a professional standard - the standard expected by universities of their students, for example - it would improve accountability, reduce workplace abuse and greatly reduce the need to make repeated FOI applications for this documentation.
 
  • A copy of all documentation that supports the findings of an investigation should be kept with the investigation report so that it cannot be 'lost'.
 
  • The Education Queensland practice of making 'inferences based on the documents' should stop. It is wide open to abuse.
 
  • When Education Queensland officers make statements of fact in their 'Briefings for the Minister', etc. they need to do this in a more professional manner, identifying the documentary evidence that supports the statements that they are making.
 
  • And when Education Queensland officers claim that 'I am told', or 'I understand' something, a reference should be given to the documentary evidence that supports that claim. This would improve the quality of professional records and reduce time spent searching for documents.
 
 
There are problems with the Education Queensland FOI process .
 
The process takes many years. I am have been waiting since September 2003 for copies of the 'lot of allegations' that the acting school principal stated on 27 November 2000 had been made against me in 'lots of pieces of paper to prove how things may have happened'.
 
When a teacher first makes an FOI application, they know very little about the FOI process, and it is easy for them to be bluffed out of their rights. I now realise that my first application - FOI 2361 - was personal and that I should have been given the documents free of charge in late November 2003.
 
To this date I have not received these FOI documents, despite applying for them over and over again, and paying many application fees. 
 
Several documents that existed in early 2004 have mysteriously vanished during the FOI process.
 
Several 'investigation reports' have also vanished.
 
Education Queensland FOI officers have a practice of suggesting responses to officers who are being asked for documents. They sometimes seem to suggest that respondents simply say that they can't find any documents.
 
Sometimes you suspect that the FOI officer did not even contact the officer concerned.
 
  • All FOI 'searches' should be conducted in writing, and all respondents should be allowed to respond in their own words, because this allows you to check that the FOI officer did actually search for the documents and that the documents that the FOI officers have 'searched' for are the documents that you actually requested.
 
Sometimes Education Queensland Internal Reviewers do not search. They just give you their opinion about the documents. Their comments may be misleading but they know that they cannot be held responsible for their misleading response because they did not search and so they did not 'know' that they were misleading you.
 
One Education Queensland FOI officer to wrote to me one day, accepting my application fee, then write to me the next day, refusing to search for the documents. This is an unjust and abusive practice.
 

Some FOI documents are photocopied half 'off the page' so that the number of the page is missing /  key words / key dates / key names are 'edited out' of the photocopy that is provided to you. So you have to re-apply for a full copy of the document.

 
Some FOI officers choose not to photocopy information on the cover of folders, so that the fact that a Discipline file has been opened on you, for example,  may be concealed from you.
 
  • The covers of all folders should be included in photocopies of FOI documents.
 
FOI Officers are fairly low down on the 'pecking order'. Sometimes they have to ask their superior officers for FOI documents. This seems to be a problem.
 
In my opinion, documents related to bullying and mobbing should be provided free of charge under FOI. Bullying and mobbing are not part of the official duties of a Queensland public servant. They are personal. Documents that you produce in order to protect yourself from bullying and mobbing, and documents that you use as evidence of bullying and mobbing, are also personal. 
 
And allowing the bully administrator to investigate his own behaviour and find 'no evidence of bullying' is not evidence that this was not workplace bullying because 'you were not being bullied'. It is evidence that the mobbing problem is systemic.
 
Two very senior Education Queensland public servants claimed to have lost all emails and letters to and from me over a period of several months. I presume that they lost all of their other official documents as well.
 
You may think that this is an appallingly dysfunctional way to run a Queensland Government Department.
 
  • There is an urgent need to raise the standard of record-keeping in Education Queensland. This level of workplace dysfunction is a waste of public funds and it creates a psychopath-friendly working environment.
 
When I made my first FOI application, the files containing the mass of falsified documents were numbered backwards, so the last page of the last document was number one, etc. Many of these 'documents' were unsigned and undated. They were scribbled by hand on loose scraps of paper and sticky-notes. They concerned events that I knew nothing about - I eventually realised that many were 'records' of entirely imaginary conversations with me, children, parents, other principals and other administrators. These 'records' were not shown to me or discussed with me at the time that they purported to have been written, and when I did receive FOI copies of the documents, the names had all been 'edited out'. There was no document that actually explained what was 'going on' at the school - why all of these falsified 'records' had been secretly placed on my official file. At least one document seemed to be substituted for another. Several documents 'vanished' at various stages of the FOI process.
 
All of this muddle made it really, really difficult for me to comprehend the situation and to develop any kind of concept of what had been 'going on' at the school and what missing documents I should look for.
 
The FOI problem here is not my behaviour in making repeated FOI applications. The problem is my struggle to make sense of the deliberate fasification of my Education Queensland records, and the careless indifference to professional record-keeping and to my welfare that Queensland public servants have demonstrated.
 
 
Education Queensland senior officers seem to abuse Human Rights and Equal Opportunity-trained 'discrimination solicitors' and Aboriginal employees 'in training" to facilitate discrimination and workplace abuse.
 
If you make a complaint about discrimination, and an Education Queensland Human Rights and Equal Opportunity - trained 'discrimination solicitor' is employed to conduct an internal review of your FOI documents, and then quite a lot of your documents vanish during this process, you might suspect that this Human Rights and Equal Opportunity - trained discrimination solicitor is being employed / abused by Education Queensland to facilitate discrimination by losing the evidence of discrimination.
 
And if the employee chosen to investigate your complaint is an Aboriginal 'trainee' with no qualifications in psychology, Law or Education, and if he is asked to 'review' a mass of falsified documents that have been secretly placed on your Education Queensland file, and if he is instructed that he cannot ask any questions to find out the facts, and if he is not given all of your documents, and if he is instructed / persuaded to ignore your responses to the falsified documents - you might think that this Aboriginal employee is being abused.
 
And if you have spent ten years of your life studying to get two good degrees from prestigious universities, and if you have been inspected for a whole day in NSW and placed on the First Primary Promotion List, and if your health and your career are then destroyed in Queensland by an incompetent administrator with malicious gossip and sticky-notes, and if your complaint about this utterly dysfunctional 'decision-making process' is given to an Aboriginal employee 'in training', who has no qualifications in law, psychology or education - you might think that you are also being abused.
 
 
 
Some Infocomm policies and practices facilitate abuse.
 
  • Infocomm officers demand that you prove that a document exists before they will search for it.
 
But under FOI I have found -
  • huge numbers of falsified 'records' that have been secretly placed on my file to my disadvantage.
  • many references to 'lost' investigation reports.
  • and my own documents have been extensively falsified.
In an environment of this nature - where my documents have been so very extensively falsified over such a long period of time - asking me to 'prove' the existence of documents is ridiculous. 
 
  • Infocomm officers need to appreciate that teachers who have been abused at work are not dealing with logic, reality or facts. They are dealing with extensively falsified 'official records'. Anything is possible.
 
 
You may not discover a refererence to a lost / missing / falsified document for several years.
 
Then a FOI document is released which makes reference to the earlier document.
When you apply for this lost / missing / falsified document, Infocomm officers refuse to search for it because they have closed down the FOI search for the period of time during which the lost / missing / falsified document was created.
 
This policy seems to be abusive.
 
  • You should be able to ask for a document, the existence of which has been concealed from you, even if you do not find the evidence of the existence of the document till after the FOI application for that period of time has been declared closed.
 
 
Infocomm officers 'authorise' Education Queensland FOI officers to release documents to you. But they won't send the documents to you themselves.
 
These are the documents that the Education Queensland FOI officers have refused to release to you at least twice previously. Infocomm officers advise you to contact the Education Queensland FOI officers and apply for the documents again. But the documents that the Education Queensland officers eventually send to you may not be the same as the documents that the Infocomm Officers have 'authorised' them to release to you.
 
This seems to me to be an organised 'cop-out' strategy by Infocomm officers. They do not want to be responsible for 'knowing' that the right documents are not being released to you.
 
When you point out that the documents released to you have been falsified, Infocomm and Education Queensland officers then enter into long and improbable explanations to each other and to you of how the changes came about.
 
This all seems to me to be an absolute waste of time. And it facilitates the endless falsification of your FOI documents.
 
  • Infocomm officers should release documents directly to you.
 
 
Education Queensland and Infocomm officers seem to employ abusive strategies to avoid searching for documents.
 
The 'No fishing allowed' strategy. There can be a very significant difference between the search response reported by an Education Queensland officer and the actual words written by the person whose documents are being 'searched'. An FOI applicant needs to make an second FOI application for the documents that record the 'search' conducted by the 'internal reviewer' in order to know if the FOI officer has 'searched' for the correct documents and reported his findings accurately.
 
The 'can we deal with the second application first?' strategy. In this disgracefully abusive strategy the FOI officer / Infocomm officers ask you to wait for the first documents that you asked for till a second, 'broader' FOI application is finalised. They argue that the first documents that you asked for may 'turn up' in response to the second application. You agree to wait. You wait for years. No work is done on the second application for months. The first documents that you asked for do not 'turn up' in the second application. Five years later the FOI / Infocomm officers are still refusing to search for the first documents that you asked for. And, in the meantime, public servants change jobs or retire and the likelihood of the first documents ever being found is hugely reduced.
 
 
The two-stage release strategy. In this strategy the FOI officer "allows" a copy of an email from the bully administrator in which certain statements are made. Then months later, a second email is discovered. It appears to have been sent later on the same day as the first email - but who would really know? - In this second email significant changes are introduced into the 'story'.
 
Or
 
Version 2 of the two-stage release strategy. In version 2 of this strategy, a file of falsified documents are released. The Target responds to these falsified documents. Then a second file containing many of the same documents is released. But this file has been significantly re-organised, and undated, unsigned handwritten notes have been made on the original documents, intrducing significant changes to the official 'story'.
 
 
The 'am I understanding you correctly?' strategy. This Infocomm strategy is really draining and it can be used to delay your application for as long as a year. It consists of re-writing the applicant's review application so that it is unrecognisable. Then asking the applicant to confirm that this is the application that they are making in the next eight days or they will lose all of their FOI rights. The applicant then has to 'drop everything' and struggle for hours to find any relationship between their own original application and this strange document.  Finally the applicant comes up with Hybrid version 2 of their own application. They mail it off and hear nothing for months. They receive no documents. Suddenly yet another unrecognisable version of their review application arrives. And again they are asked to confirm in the next eight days that this is the application that they want to make or lose all of their FOI rights. Again they 'drop everything' and work for hours, comparing their own original document with this unrecognisable document. Finally they come up with Hybrid version 3 of their FOI application. They mail it off and again hear nothing for months. Finally one or two documents arrive.
 
  • This continual re-writing of applications must consume a lot of the time of the FOI officers. I would respectfully suggest that Infocomm consider simplifying the FOI process for the applicant, be more accepting of layman's concepts and original languge, and thereby reduce their own workload. 
 
Actually, I think that the Infocomm officers are so highly trained that they genuinely do not realise the demands that the FOI process makes on the skills of an ordinary person. They can become a tad 'snappy' and impatient with the bumbling efforts of applicants at times. I have a good Master's degree in linguistics and I have found making FOI applications demanding. It must be very, very hard for somebody who is less literate and who has less time.

 

The Queensland public service  promotion system is psychopath-friendly.

 
The Education Queensland promotion system, for example, favours glib talkers who 'interview well'. Psychopaths are glib talkers. Glib talkers may not really comprehend the words that they are babbling. They may not apply the words to their own behaviour. They may not comprehend what other people say to them. They may not be willing readers or writers.
 
When faced with a problem, glib talkers may not bother to read the official Education Queensland policies related to the problem. They may just ring somebody at the District Office and ask for their advice.
 
This 'verbal advice seeking' is a waste of the time of the District officers.
 
It also functions as a grooming strategy.
 
The advice given by the District Officers is based on the glib talker's version of the situation. If a grievance is later made about the consequences of the advice, the district office staff are compromised and may feel obliged to protect the glib talker who followed their advice.
 
  • There is a need for teachers who are seeking promotion to demonstrate an understanding of the Education Queensland official policies before they are allowed to 'act' as principals. By this I mean some sort of written test that teachers seeking promotion have read the offical Education Queensland polices, understand the polices and can apply the policies. If a person is not willing to read the Education Queensland policies and demonstrate a basic understanding of the policies, they should not be considered for promotion.
 
  • Then, when promoted, they should be expected to follow the policies and to be accountable for their own actions.
 
  • District office staff should not become involved in giving 'advice' on policies over the phone. This is a waste of time and public funds. It also facilitates workplace abuse. At the very most District officers should refer principals to the relevant policy documents.
 
Problems with the Queensland public service promotion system are impacting on Freedom of Information.
 
My experience suggests to me that the Labor Party is vulnerable to people who join the party because it is a quick and easy way to gain rapid public service promotion. 
 
Joining the Labor Party seems to be a quicker and easier way for public servants to gain promotion than studying for a Master's degree in Education, Administration or Law. And much quicker than making the effort to read the Official Policies of their Department.
 
Public servants who are members of the Labor Party seem to be very rapidly promoted.
 
And their inexperience and incompetence may render the Queensland public service dysfunctional and put other Queensland public servants at risk of workplace harm or abuse.
 
 
 
Members of Parliament who are on the Committee that selects a new Information Commissioner should carefully consider whether they have a conflict of interest in the situation.
 
If, for example, a Member of Parliament's husband, their husband's boss and their campaign manager are the subject of current Infocomm searches, and if one of the people being considered for the position is the wife of their husband's boss, the Member of Parliament may consider that they have a conflict of interest.
 
 
 
And If you are the person searching for these documents, and if your documents are not searched for and not found, you might also consider that there was a conflict of interest in this appointment.
 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
(Name and contact details given)

 

Friday February 22, 2008

P. McGowan of Thornlie wrote a Letter to the Editor of The West Australian (The letter was also quoted on the PLATOWA website) -

"I am in my 50s and have been a teacher for more than half my life.

I have always had a sense of pride in my chosen profession and my ability to do a good job.

I feel that I have been a positive influence in the lives of the many children I have taught.

"I still enjoy the craft of teaching but now I find myself feeling that I would like to pull the pin on my career.

I am unable to do this because of my personal circumstances; in fact, I will need to continue working for a significant number of years.

I will continue to do my utmost to do the best job that I am capable of. The (job) is too important to do otherwise.

"I now find myself heading into the last phase of my career feeling undervalued, overworked, frustrated and depressed.

Sadly, I suspect that I may be voicing the feelings of many of my mature-age peers. ...

"The workload has more than doubled in the course of my career, actual teaching seeming to have become secondary to the continually increasing demands on teachers to produce data, evidence and assessment facts and figures.

These massive and growing demands for documentation, although having a place, rob teachers of time which could be better spent devising effective, interesting and even innovative ways by which they could be optimising the learning opportunities of the children in their classrooms.

"Those who know and live with teachers bemoan widely-held negative attitudes about our "short" working days, long holidays and "high" salaries; they are often our only advocates.

 

Tuesday, February 5 2008

NSW Kindergarten teacher (discussed in a series of emails) -

 
I was a Kindergarten Teacher in NSW and I had been offered a full year's contract.
But I was pregnant.
The principal told me that I could no longer remain on the class because I was pregnant.
She was worried that I would need time off for medical appointments and that I might become ill during the pregnancy.
So I lost the job.
 
I contacted the union.
They told me that it was discrimination and they promised me help.
But I heard nothing.
I called again and there was no record of my phone call.
This happened on a number of occasions.
 
The principal gave me a job for half a day, every day, sharing with the reading recovery teacher.
 
She asked me if I would return in Term 4, after my baby was born, to teach in the mornings only every day.
I could not guarantee this as it is difficult to get child care for half a day.
She told me that if I didn't come back in term 4 that I would not get a job the next year.
So I arranged care for half a day every day through family and friends.
 
But then the reading recovery teacher decided to have the class full time, so I lost that job as well.
 
I ran the bookclub for the school.
I sought some help on how to set it up from one of the admin ladies.
This admin lady suggested that the bookclub be run a certain way so that cash was not taken out of the school grounds.
I followed her suggestion.
Later the admin lady seems to have complained about how the bookclub was being run in the hearing of the principal.
 
I felt very disadvantaged on a part-time contract.
For example, I was not allowed to attend a professional development course because I was only contracted for half a day.
 
I was only a first year teacher, and I can honestly say that I don't think I could return to teaching.
 
I could not hand in a resume to another school and have then call the school I previously worked as for a reference, as I know that I would not get good comments.
 
I am unable to work casually as I can not afford to put my baby into childcare in the hope that I will get a phone call each day.
 
I have worked so hard to get where I am.
I had a baby at 16 but struggled my way through fulltime school and uni, all to become a teacher.
And this is where I am today.
Its very sad and such a waste of time and effort.
I just wish there was some help for teachers out there, especially temp teachers that get walked over.
 
The system is against us.

 

Monday, February 4 2008

John Daicopoulos, a four-year honours (physics) graduate with a second degree specialising in physics education, wrote an On Line Opinion Article:

Having happily taught physics for 17 years in two countries he has recently opted to leave the profession because -

 A physics graduate with hopes of becoming a teacher has no ability to adjust or amend the collective teacher working conditions that govern education.

This lack of negotiating power (or even permission) is perpetuated by union collective agreements (negotiated in good-faith by all stake-holders).

What is the motivation to gaining a full honours degree in physics then learning to teach, when you can simply enter a teacher training program learning some physics along the way?

And Western Australia is toying with the idea of allowing lower than normal TEE scores for acceptance into teacher training programs and the dilution of academic skills and qualifications continues.

What value should we place on a full honours degree qualification?

Great value.

Assuming one decides to give-it-a-go entering the profession fully qualified with a contract negotiated in good faith, what are the conditions that will affect the physics-teacher’s level of work satisfaction?

Outside of the same demands placed on all teachers, it will most likely be the physics (and science) curriculum.

Today’s physics curriculum (or syllabus if you prefer) has become entrenched with an emphasis overly based on teaching engineering, or on entertaining students with so-called hands-on activities.

With an incessant compulsion for making physics practical, hands-on or worse yet, fun, the educational establishment has watered down physics to the point that it is of little interest to the physicists who teach it.

Although physics can (and should) be applied, it is a fundamental science that must be taught promoting scientific ideals.

Building bridges of spaghetti is not enough.

If the very calibre of teacher we desire to teach difficult and technical subjects like physics and mathematics is choosing not to teach, then many features of education need to change before they choose otherwise. The compulsion to change ought to rest within the system.

 

This is an interesting article that raises quite a few new issues.

It is written by an intelligent teacher - a species that may soon become extinct.

John also writes about the endless paperwork necessary to gain teacher registration in Queensland.

What John may not realise is how easily his qualifications, his career and his health can be destroyed in Queensland with malicious gossip and a few scribbles on sticky-notes.

A full copy of the article can be found at -

 

Tuesday, January 15 2008

Louise Boyle of Toowoomba, Queensland, wrote a letter to the Editor of The Australian.

She recently retrained as a mature-age student in primary education.

But she has discovered that there are many obstacles to gaining permanent employment in the state system.

There is a strict requirement that new teachers do country service for a number of years.

Louise can't leave her family.

So she can only do supply and contract work.

It is soul-destroying to always be teaching someone else's class.

Louise has been advised by the local QTU representative that there are approximately 5000 teachers without a permanent position.

In the 90's, older teachers were persuaded to change to a new superannuation system.

So now these older teachers need to work for longer.

They worry that they have not got enough money for their retirement.

Louise has recently been advised that Education Queensland plans to base permanent teachers in primary schools.

Presumably these are teachers who have completed their country service and who have requested a transfer to a "better" area.

These permanent teachers will be given the supply and contract work.

So Louise has decided to seek employment elsewhere.

She has no job and a $15,000 HECS bill to pay.

She agrees with Kevin Donnelly that her teaching qualifications are inadequate, in particular for the teaching of literacy.

So she is an unsatisfied customer of the university system.

And a casualty of a dysfunctional state education system.

 

Friday 21 December, 2007

Ray Chambers, 52, teacher in western Queensland, claims that short-term teaching contracts are cynically designed to save money.

Ray claims that the contracts are designed to avoid paying teachers holiday entitlements.

Ray said that he recently returned to teaching after a 17-year break.

But he is now looking for other work because he has become disillusioned with the Queensland government's treatment of teachers.

Ray has taken a series of teaching contracts in western Queensland since 2005.

He hoped that his service in rural communities would eventully be recognised with a permanent position.

But he has noticed that all of the contracts that teachers are on end before the school year finishes.

Nobody gets a contract right up to the end of the year.

And that this saves the Queensland government from paying eight or ten weeks wages.

Ray says that this is not a fair system.

 

Wednesday December 12, 2007

Zakarie Sloan of East Brunswick wrote a letter to the Editor of the Age.

His wife is a teacher.

He is angered and disgusted by the way that his wife has been treated.

She has worked hard for three years.

Her pay has been poor, but they put up with that.

But now she has been effectively sacked.

She will have no holiday pay and she will have no maternity leave (she is pregnant).

She was not sacked because she was performing poorly.

She has worked hard and performed beyond the expected level of commitment.

She was sacked because she was on a contract. 

How many people have to re-apply for their jobs every two or three years?

 

Wednesday December 5, 2007

Michael Griggs of Lidcombe, NSW wrote a letter to the editor of The Australian:

He has taught high school for more than 30 years.

During that time his salary has been eroded, his conditions of work undermined, and his time wasted by "one idiotic panacea after another" emanating from politicians, university academics, journalists, greasy-pole-climbing principals and well-meaning parents, all of whom knew "diddly-squat" about teaching and learning.

Syllabuses changed almost as often as he changed his shirt.

Nobody ever checked to see if any of these "idiotic panaceas" were actually doing any good.

 

Monday December 3, 2007

Ex-teacher R.J. Burns emailed The Courier-Mail :

I walked away from a 20-year teaching career that I loved due to undisciplined students who have no respect, are openly arrogant and receive no serious consequences for their behaviour.

I became tired of explaining to parents that their child behaves like a brat at school.

When you try to convince them that their son / daughter really is a little monster in the classroom, you then have to defend your own teaching style, classroom management and even your personality.

Parents - wake up and start teaching your children what respect really means.

And show some yourself when dealing with teachers.

I will never return to secondary teaching as I can only see this problem getting worse.

 

Friday November 30, 2007

"NSW Ex-teacher" emailed The ABC:

He got out of the NSW system the day he turned 55.

He doesn't get much in the way of superannuation but he is a lot healthier and a lot happier.

At his last school, the principal would quite openly come to work and tell her Deputy that she was there to "kick arse" amongst the staff.

Which she would do.

This particular school was considered to be the most difficult in the region, if not the state.

The result was a toxic environment where there were high levels of staff sick leave and stress leave.

How did this person get to be a principal?

Why was nothing done about this person?

The problem is the spineless bureaucrats in the Education Department.

 

But teachers are not only being bullied by other employees.

When teachers' cars are vandalised, their houses damaged, their personal safety threatened by violent teengaers and parents on a daily basis in NSW, then there is something very, very wrong.

The sad thing is that teachers are now so used to the bullying from all quarters, the threats, the intimidation and the high stress levels that it all seems "normal".

Baby boomer teachers like him are leaving in droves.

"We could have stayed on, but why bother? It's not worth your health or your sanity. Most of us came into the job with the best of intentions, but most of us leave with a bitter taste in our mouths."

Every day is a good day now that he doesn't have to go to school.

 

          MEDIA RELEASE : WEDNESDAY 7 NOVEMBER, 2007

   Queensland Teachers Easily Bullied Out of Work.

Ban Bullying at Work Day will be celebrated in England on Wednesday 7 November. What will we celebrate in Queensland?

In schools and District Offices all over Queensland, Education Queensland administrators can quietly celebrate how very easy it is to bully Queensland teachers into ill health and out of work.

My advice to any Queensland teacher who is dealing with workplace bullying would be - go directly to a solicitor as soon as the bullying begins.

The Education Queensland "official processes" are utterly dysfunctional and your health and your career can easily be destroyed in a couple of days with malicious gossip and sticky-notes.

On 23 June 2002 I met Anna Bligh, Minister of Education, and Jim Varghese, Director-General of Education.

I told them that the Queensland Teachers Union had advised me that there was systemic abuse of the Diminished Workplace Performance Process (now called the Managing Unsatisfactory Performance Process).

And that, when a Queensland teacher was bullied at work, the union's only advice was that there was no hope of justice and to "accept the things you cannot change".

 

Anna Bligh already seemed to know more about the situation than I did -

 

On 3 November 2000 I was working as a specialist teacher in a Queensland state school.

I asked the acting principal to support me in saying that too many children were missing from the Grade 7 classrooms.

Unsupervised groups of Grade 7 children were roaming about the school, disrupting other classes.

The acting principal advised me to discuss the situation at a staff meeting.

She put it on the white-board agenda for discussion at the next staff meeting.

But, at the start of the staff meeting, the acting principal made certain statements concerning me to the staff.