Working for God
Attention all parents: Please take comfort in the fact the the Victorian Government is investing in the state’s teachers. The days of mandatory Professional Development for government school teachers are steadily increasing each year. I have recently been enrolled in a professional development program that spans eight unspeakably gruelling days.
As a beginning teacher I would relish the prospect of the latest research-based approach to teaching, learning or school operation. I would also look with disdain upon the more experienced, some would say jaded, teachers. They’d seen it all before and knew that this new whizz bang theory wouldn’t change their practice one iota (there’s my mandatory Greek for the week).
When I began, PoLT was all the rage, the Principles of Learning and Teaching, which I had to explain to secure my first job with the government. Soon after, with PoLT but a distant memory, I found myself presenting to my colleagues on the wonders of the e5 Model. It was not until the rise, and ultimate fall of the Ultranet that I too began to turn a certain shade of jade (try saying that five times fast).
For those of you who don’t follow the educational sector news very closely, the Ultranet was the recent subject of IBAC investigations in which several top level Education Department bureaucrats were charged. In fact, if you ask my wife, lamenting the short comings of our government’s education system is one of my favourite past times.
However, while I may complain, I have continued in this profession for over 13 years now. Why? Because I believe it is important work. Sure, some of the government’s initiatives may seem misguided or pointless but, somewhere in the tangle of red-tape and bureaucracy, a child is seen. At the heart of all these initiatives, the child comes first. Even the so-called failed initiatives had the intention of improving the learning and opportunities for our students. The government’s is currently ‘relentlessly focused on student growth’ – a well meaning, if somewhat aggressive, position.
As I sit, feeling like the old, jaded teacher, pressure is building as I must present to a roomful of colleagues on the government’s latest initiative, PLCs. I have many options as to how I react to this pressure. First, I think of running like Jonah, but things didn’t exactly turn out well for him, so I turn to the New Testament:
Colossians 3:23 ‘Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,’ (ESV)
This, in fact, is a text I was directed to maybe 20 years ago when working in a steel factory. I hated wiping down that stainless steel that I had already spent all day cutting, drilling, bending, welding, sand blasting and painting. It had never occurred to me that I could praise God in these activities.
It does me well to remember Colossians now also. The Lord may not be listed on my pay check and I may not like all the bureaucracy that goes with my job, but I can see that child and I can teach as if I am teaching for the Lord and not necessarily for Mr. Merlino.
