Inspiring teachers

Effective teachers understand the learning needs of their students. They can manage their classrooms and expect good behaviour from students so that they can learn effectively.

Good teachers are also good communicators, not just with their students but with parents and with the wider community.

Teachers understand that ongoing professional learning is part of the job. They understand that teaching is an unending challenge. They know they must continue to stay up to date with the detail of their subjects and the best ways to teach.

Make no mistake; good teachers make a difference to our children’s future. There’s also no denying that good teachers equip our children with many of the skills they will need in the future. It’s a huge responsibility and those who dedicate their lives to it deserve recognition.

In fact, I’m counting on this fact, as my son begins Year 12. As any nervous parent of a final year student knows, we want to be sure that our children are encouraged, supported, and guided properly as they juggle study pressures with their hopes for the future.

The Howard Government has spent the last ten years beating up on our teachers, blaming and name-calling them. Only recently, the Education Minister, Julie Bishop, called educators Maoists, forgetting, or perhaps knowing, that Chairman Mao was a vicious and barbaric anti-intellectual.

The Howard Government says it wants to introduce merit pay. They let the cat out of the bag when they said merit pay could involve putting teachers on Australian Workplace Agreements.

Labor will not have any truck with setting teacher against teacher or with John Howard’s industrial relations agenda. Parents and children need governments to reward our best teachers - pay them more when they achieve rigorous high standards.

Great teachers have inspired us, nurtured us and broadened our horizons. Our children need our classrooms to aspire to the highest standards in the world.