in the classroom
You really worry about and care about these kids and you know they ’ re often in difficult situations . with memories of his own schooling still fresh well into adulthood , and stranger still when you consider that he now teaches at that very same school .
“ In terms of my relationship with the school , I suppose , growing up , I had a bit of a mixed relationship , if I can put it that way ; a mixed experience of school . I was quite academic , but school wasn ’ t my favourite place to be a lot of the time ,” he says .
But he uses this particular ghost to give him the ability to deal with both the bullied and bully alike as a teacher .
“ I think , for one thing , you ’ re a lot more attuned to students who might be bullied , or I hope that I ’ m quite attuned to that . I think I pick up maybe some signs or some clues in my students that others might overlook . I feel like any kind of experience of bullying you might ’ ve had yourself as a child is going to help you in that way .
“ At the same time , when dealing with bullies , I think you have to be careful not to discard kids and dismiss kids as , ‘ Oh , this kid is a bully . Let ’ s label them and let ’ s therefore assume they ’ re a bad little person who someday is going to be a bad big person .’
“ You have to recognise it for what it is , which is a professional opportunity to show that young person that there is a better way to be and a better way to behave .
“ Often bullies are seeking a feeling of power and we can show them that there ’ s
Photo : Ella Nigro
much better ways to have that sense of fulfilment by doing more constructive , positive things ,” he says .
The book is not all horror story , however . Murray thinks deeply about what he does and dissects the trade when thinking about some of its old truisms , like ‘ don ’ t smile ‘ till Easter ’.
“ Don ’ t smile ‘ till Easter is an interesting one , because I first encountered it at university and it was used in a flippant way ,” he says .
“ But then people are serious about it . There is this sense that if you begin a year with a class being tough and being firm and policing boundaries really strictly , you ’ ll be able to control that class far better throughout the duration of the year .”
But this idea highlights a more problematic issue at the heart of education .
“ I think that it highlights , in my view , the really minimal amount of training and advice that new teachers get in terms of what is really one of the hardest parts of the job , which is behaviour management .”
The massive pressure that the HSC and ATAR brings yearly gets some mention as well as the usual , and some unusual , tales from a school year .
It is a book about the job and the teachers who make up a school . And we get a picture of the emotional toll that can be exacted on people who choose the profession .
“ If you care for the kids , and the vast majority of teachers I know really do care about kids in general , and then specifically care about the kids who they ’ re teaching at any given time , it does take an emotional toll on you ,” he says .
“ Because you take on some of those worries and some of those concerns about their futures and you recognise that you ’ re a person in a position to direct them towards a better future if you do your job well , and if you can get them engaged , and if everything goes according to plan . There is that emotional burden that we carry .”
But part of the job is about finding ways to carry that burden , as approximately 50 per cent of people who join the teaching workforce leave within the first five years because of it , he says .
Murray is that teacher who lives and dies with his students . And ultimately this book is about them and the love he has for the job .
“ I ’ ve said to a number of people that writing this book is the best thing I ’ ve done as a teacher . I mean that . It ’ s not an exaggeration when I say that , because it ’ s made me really stop and really think about the kids in my classroom and be aware of just how much they bring into the classroom each and every day , what their experiences might be : their backgrounds , their feelings .
“ I think that ’ s something that we try as teachers to remember every single day ; that kids have a life outside of school . But really stopping and writing this book , and I suppose deep diving into the backgrounds of some of my former students , brought that into a really sharp focus for me ,” he says .
Murray teaches because he loves it and it jumps out of the book . But perhaps a small bit of him teaches to exorcise his own personal ghost . The one of that child who flew down the concrete staircase , weightless , and who , for a moment , was neither dead nor alive . ■
educationreview . com . au | 17