Australia’s mainstream media have negatively framed the teaching profession, with narratives that ignore the profoundly positive impact we know teachers have on young people, AITSL’s CEO has said.
Speaking to EducationHQ ahead of World Teachers’ Day (this Friday, October 31), Tim Bullard has called out what he suggests is skewed coverage that doesn’t serve the teaching workforce.
It’s an unfortunate reality Bullard says he’s seen play out during his time at AITSL and in his previous role leading schools at the system level as Secretary of the Tasmanian Department for Education, Children and Young People.
“A lot of the media coverage is often negatively pitched. So, it’s about particular students or children and young people who haven’t had positive experience at school.
“It’s about violence, it’s about workload, it’s about burnout.
“Now, all of those things need to be discussed but there is also a place for those really good news stories.
“I see teachers changing lives of children and young people, and we often don’t see that in the mainstream media,” Bullard says.
A world-first Australian study from 2022 analysed more than 65,000 media articles from all 12 national and capital-city daily newspapers and found that stories about teachers were disproportionately negative in their representations.
“I did find ‘good news’ stories in my research but they were outnumbered by articles that focused on how teachers, collectively and individually, don’t measure up,” researcher Dr Nicole Mockler from the University of Sydney reported at the time.
“This included the linking of ‘crises’ to ‘poor quality’ teachers…
“In other words, ‘teacher-bashing’ is the norm when it comes to stories about teachers in the Australian news media,” Mockler concluded.
For Bullard, the media’s influence goes some way toward explaining the disconnect between the public’s great appreciation for teachers and the extent to which this sentiment actually resonates with the profession.
Indeed, a new AITSL survey found almost 9 in 10 Australians say teachers deserve more recognition, with 69 per cent reporting they’ve had at least one teacher who has changed their life significantly for the better.
“Teaching is a profession. It’s like [law and medicine]. It holds with it not only the skills and knowledge but also the ethical responsibility and a very high standard of performance,” Bullard says.
“And so just recognising (this), talking about that in public forums, I think, all goes a long way toward teachers seeing themselves as something that the Australian community really holds dear.”
AITSL CEO Tim Bullard says World Teachers Day in Australia is far from a tokenistic, one-off day of support and appreciation.
AITSL’s research found the top traits people value in teachers include patience (59 per cent), empathy (38 per cent) and dedication (31 per cent).
But one of the most positive data points to come from the Australian Teacher Workforce Survey speaks to teachers’ job satisfaction, Bullard says.
“…89 per cent of teachers say their job makes them happy at least some of the time.
“I think we’d have the hard pressed to find another profession [which could say the same], but we also hear, and we can see in the data, that there are challenges at the moment for the profession,” he adds.
Heavy workloads, time pressures and the emotional demands of the job are all weighing heavily on our teachers, Bullard says.
Burnout is a serious problem, as is the severe stress that one in four teachers are reporting.
A recent TALIS report revealed Australian teachers are significantly more stressed than their OECD peers, and yet more than 70 per cent of the workforce would still choose teaching again if given the chance.
Bullard says we know teachers can take on the issues and barriers their students might be facing in their lives, such is their commitment to their growth and learning.
“That is something that we need to be looking at nationally about how we can address.
“And work has certainly started on that through the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan and looks like it will continue with a discussion around what more can be done,” he urges.
As Deakin University researcher Dr Mark Rahimi said last month, meaningful work alone is not enough to safeguard wellbeing when teachers are confronted with overwhelming and unrealistic demands.
“While many teachers find deep meaning and purpose in this work, this very strong sense of commitment can be a double-edged sword.
“It can drive them to go above and beyond even when demands are overwhelming and often unrealistic, ultimately putting their own wellbeing at risk,” he flagged.
Often it’s the case that as students move up through school and beyond, contact is invariably lost with ‘that special teacher’ whose support and guidance altered everything, Bullard notes.
“And so, we don’t often get the chance to go back and say ‘thank you’ or show our gratitude for the impact that they’ve had.
“And from my personal experience, [this has been the case].
“All we can really do is to take opportunities such as World Teachers Day to be showing our appreciation more broadly for the profound influence and maybe talking about a particular teacher in our lives.”
Teachers often miss out on receiving this kind of feedback, he adds.
“Because you’re not seeing the children or young people that you’re teaching as adults, you’re not getting that feedback in the classroom, and the day-to-day demands of the job just take precedence.”
This Friday, AITSL once again is behind the special ‘Hats Off to Teachers’ initiative on social media, with a free Celebration Kit ready to download the comes complete with with hat props, posters, thank you cards and activities to help schools and communities give a very visible message of appreciation.
This is far from a tokenistic, one-off day of support, Bullard indicates.
“Our feedback from previous World Teachers Days is that it’s so appreciated by the profession.
“And look, I recognise that lives are really busy at the moment and that people can often forget to show their appreciation – so we would really encourage people to be showing their appreciation and gratitude all year.
“But let’s use this day as a really special day to showcase the incredible work that teachers do…”
