Educated
in areas like Fairfield and Bankstown, one goes through school with an “us” vs.
“them” mentality. “Us” being the kids from the notorious gun wielding, knife
pocketing Western Suburbs, and “them” being the straw-hat-wearing, blazer-clad,
Northern Suburbs snobs. Although as a 20
year old I can read back over that sentence and see its obvious frivolity, I can’t
help but shake that nagging feeling that my experiences growing up as “Westie”,
(where it was assumed I was poorly educated, from a low socio-economic
background, and without the intellectual or monetary capacity to enter an
institution that would provide me with a level of education revered as one of
prestige and fortune), and being labelled as an underdog, has changed the view I
have of education, and question whether my motives to become a teacher differ to those in different circumstances to myself.
While a vast majority of teachers, both
pre-service and practicing, are according to research, competent, committed and motivated
to surmount the minimal requirements of their profession, the motives that
drive individuals to initially enter higher education is seems do vary amongst
different socio-cultural contexts (Schunk, 2008). Individuals have been found to be motivated
by a range of intrinsic, extrinsic, altruistic, or a combination of these
motives as a way to procure particular goals. These motives I’ve found however,
don’t change so much from suburb to suburb, but more so from country to
country. Turns out that while the States, the United
Kingdom, and Australia have an attrition rate of 40% within the first five
years of teaching as a result of stress, burnout, and disappointment,
identifying myself as a source of specialist knowledge, an underdog whose
identity was somewhat attributed to being told I was culturally incapable of succeeding by tabloids, did not leave me with any new or singularly
inspirational motives for becoming teacher that separate me from the
afore mentioned “them”.
Identified
motivations for becoming an educator include working with children, making a
social contribution, job security, job benefits etc. (Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, 2005) . Watt and Richardson (2007) also
determined that teaching does not appear to be a fall back profession, with
most entering the field aware of the demanding nature and little return of the
career.
As this is a personal reflection, I note
that I cling to the idea that all pre-service teachers hope that they
will make a valuable social contribution. I hope this is done in such a way that inspires the desire
to learn and attain knowledge to ensure the continuity and progression of a
culture that moves beyond stereotypes like the suburb in which you were
educated, and instead revels in the notion of an intelligent and critical
society where thinkers such as Honi Bhabha, suggest that new social cultures
are brought into being through encounters and engagement, the whole idea of
an intrinsically superior person based upon the place in which they were
educated or born is destabilised, and the
identity of individuals not tainted by what appears to so ironically be, a
mutual lack of education.
References:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD).
2005, ‘Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers’,
Paris: OECD Publishing.
Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P.R. and
Meer, J. L. 2008, Motivation in education,
3rd edn, Englewood
Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall.
Wadham,
B. Pudsey, J. & Boyd, R. (2007). Culture
and education. Sydney: Pearson Education. Chapter 1: What is culture?
Watt, H. M. G., & Richardson,
P. P. W. 2007, ‘Motivational factors influencing teaching as a career
choice: Development and
validation of the FIT-choice scale’, The
Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 75 no. 3, pp. 167-202.
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