Why I’m joining thousands of other teachers on strike today.

All week on The Spinoff we are delving into our relationship with the world of work in Aotearoa. For more Work Week stories, click here.

I’m a high school drama teacher and an English teacher in Timaru. On a normal day we’re at school by 8.25am. A staff meeting goes to about 8.35am. We have a whānau class, which is like a form class, which we do every single morning. That’s pastoral needs, student wellbeing, connecting with parents, and goes to about 9am. Then we start period one. We have five periods a day. I teach classes from year 8-12 for three or four periods out of the five. We’re quite lucky being a relatively small school. The school prides itself on having small classes. I have 24 students in my classes.

You’re required to do an extracurricular activity, whether that’s coaching a sports team or some sort of arts and cultural club. All the clubs are run by teachers in their own time. Being the drama teacher, I’m in charge of the Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival, which is happening soon. That’s coaching and directing a group of students to perform for an audience. I’m also helping with the school musical. That’s taking all my Sundays and lunchtimes. I share that role with two other teachers. We spend a lot of time sourcing things, doing little jobs outside school. It’s such a lifestyle. It’s really hard to separate your work and your life.

You’re constantly adapting. Spaces and resources are really stretched thin at the moment. We’re in the process of getting a couple of new classrooms built. First we need to get some old buildings that are not earthquake safe demolished. So we are sharing classrooms with teachers from all different subject areas. I’ve got English in a maths classroom. Technology sometimes doesn’t work. I’m in a state integrated school where we don’t get as much funding as a public school. We charge fees. Those fees have to go somewhere and sometimes it’s not allocated for resources for teachers.

I am only in my second year of teaching and I already think this career is unsustainable. My body is weak. I am exhausted. If I watch a movie, I feel guilty because I’m not marking my Year 11 English internal assessments. I am given no time during the week between teaching periods. The expectations of teaching go far beyond a job. It becomes a lifestyle, our identity, our whole life depends on our work.

We juggle the need to prepare students for society, supporting and implementing pastoral care. We become the first port of call for emergencies to do with health, mental illness, learning difficulties and family needs. But we care. Most of us were born for this career. It’s in our DNA. Society’s rambunctious needs have prompted new initiatives and curriculum refreshes – leaving teachers strained for support in doing so.

Walking into school, we are weighed down by our bags stuffed with marking and lesson plans, curriculum books, sticky notes, an existential bag that is packed each day, taken home to analyse during mealtimes and before bed. We are riddled with frustrations and exhaustion, consequently severing ties with our social life. The amount of information that is given to teachers each day is enough to catapult any professional into another career. There is too much information, too many expectations, and too little compensation – of time, and money – to make it reasonable. 

Teachers are striking today to earn their respect and acknowledgement in society. A lot of our work goes under the radar. We’re pitching for validation and appreciation, and for better working conditions. Our health and wellbeing is not taken seriously by the government and the Ministry of Education. This is an odd parallel considering teachers are responsible for student health and well being. The satirical notion of an increased Teaching Registration fee, which is now $564.37 every three years, is just not good enough. We are paying the government money so we can retain our jobs. Make it make sense.

We are careful people. We love helping. We are considerate, thoughtful, and appreciative. We spend years crafting our teaching personas. We think critically about ourselves so that we are giving students the highest education, the tools to think for themselves, to explore and investigate the processes of society, to learn the fundamentals and leave school with purpose and drive to succeed. Our personalities are taken advantage of because we have hearts and will continue to raise generations of children.

It’s such a fulfilling job. You feel like you’re making real change. You’re building relationships and connections constantly.  You leave the day feeling like, “I had such a great conversation with this kid,” or, “I managed to inspire this little interaction”. So there are little moments throughout the day that makes this job really fulfilling. But we’ve got to find the good moments in between all the chaos.