By Chiara Turrettini and Aimilia Konialidis, Year 12
We had the pleasure of interviewing two teachers. Read the interviews and guess who you think they are! The answers are at the end!
Interview 1:
When did you realise that you loved singing?
I started singing at 18 and didn’t even know I could sing at the time. But, they were recruiting a new worship team in church and asked me to join. So I did, and that’s when I realised I could sing.
What made you become a teacher in the arts?
Well first of all, I’m not a teacher, I’m a performing arts assistant. I am currently doing a bachelors degree to become a certified teacher, maybe in the arts. Right now, I am a mentor, performing arts assistant and the social impact coordinator which I very much enjoy. I love interacting with students because I want to help them find hidden talents like I found mine.
What was your dream job as a child?
Well, first I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to be so many things but because I love to be creative, I wanted to be an interior designer.
Do you have a favourite year group?
Well, I love all of you. Y9s to 13s. I love you all. No way I can choose!
What do you do when you’re not at school?
Well, I go to church, and I’m studying so that takes a lot of time. And what else…baking, cooking, travelling, calling my family and watching movies.
What is your least favourite and favourite thing about working in school?
Admin is my least favourite thing. So boring. But my favourite thing is definitely talking to students and being among students.
If you could do anything else except be a teacher, what would you be?
I believe I would be a baker and full time singer. Two things I very much adore.
Interview 2:
What made you want to go into a career in teaching?
It was less of a conscious decision and more of following the opportunities. It was more along the lines of what interested me at that given moment and what I was really into at that time. That’s the way I’ve kind of always made choices, ever since I was a child and all the choices that I’ve made since then, rather than being driven by an overarching plan. So, when teaching came around, rather than looking at it as a career, like, ok, gonna be a teacher now, I looked at it really along the lines of what are the little skills that I’m gonna be using on a day to day as opposed to what is my title.
Now in terms of teaching, I was already doing it in college as a teaching assistant and then after working in industry, I went into private tuition and tutoring. And, naturally, when you start doing that, you get a lot more experience on helping students with their own kind of personal needs because some people really understand one type of explanation and other people are really visual. So I don’t know what got me to teaching but it’s more kind of like following the opportunities.
What was your dream job as a child?
I don’t know. For me, again, it was more kind of the idea that what I wanted to be doing as an adult, was never geared to a career. I’m not like, my life is complete because I am x, y, z. So it was more along the lines of emotions or feelings of what I’d want to be doing in terms of activities. So I want to have time to spend with my family or I want to have time to build all of these little furniture pieces or I want to go and do a bunch of sports or I want to be happy. So it was really all those types of things. So, with those types of ambitions, the career kind of switched all the time, right? Because when you’re a child you’re like, oh if I’m a pilot then I get to travel the world. So now you’re ticking that box of travel, but you’re giving up on the idea of stability, having a stable relationship. These are the kind of questions that I had to ask myself each time because you’re like, hmm what do I want to do, and then you realise that it really comes down to what are the things I want to value in my life and then I’m not someone that the title of my career defines if I’ve succeeded or if I’m fulfilled, it’s more how do I feel. If I feel happy then I’m successful.
Do you have a favourite year group to teach?
It’s a lot harder to deal with the young ones in terms of energy and discipline because they’re all over the place. However, the positives there are that there’s this level of blank slate enthusiasm that they have and if you harness that energy you can get them to learn something, in a very effective manner. However, what I enjoy a lot are the IB classes as well, because year 12 and 13 you really see a student go from like a high schooler to a young adult, like you can see that transition from beginning of year 12 to the end of year 13. Now I’m seeing it with my year 13s, they just had their mocks and it’s like a different look in their eyes and it’s a different level of ‘right we’ve gone through the IB’ and this burden that suddenly starts to feel like less of a burden and they’ve gone through that struggle. That’s a super interesting human dynamic to teaching because you not only have to teach the content but also teach them about the journey which is super fun and super rewarding. But no I wouldn’t say I have a favourite year group, they each have their benefits.
What do you do in your free time?
Hmm, It depends on the phase of my life. At the beginning of covid, I was really interested in video games, then I wanted to relearn the guitar and then… I mean I always try to find ways to entertain myself, you know, watch movies, read a few books, a lot of news and stay up to date with stuff. And then just also general trash, you know, internet, YouTube, reddit. I haven’t really started TikTok because I know that it will be a time waster but I risk going there. I never got into instagram, but reddit yeah. Youtube, oh my god, waste of time. What else do I do for fun? I used to make a lot of music, I don’t anymore, I need to get back to that. And then travel, so my girlfriend and I, we like to eat. A lot. So we like to go to Italy and we like to eat and we like to go to nice places and nice cities and eat whatever they have. So, eating and sleeping are, you know, good stuff.
What is your least favourite thing about being a teacher?
Least favourite part is linked to marking. When you’re marking, it’s serious, of course; however, when you have to suddenly give back bad grades, I don’t like that. Especially when you know that student has put in work because many times students define their success based on their grades. So you’re like, oh I got a three so I suck. No. A grade is a sort of metric based on those questions that you’ve been asked but it doesn’t necessarily mean, oh you’re bad and the same thing if you get a 7, it doesn’t mean you’re excellent. It just means you managed to get through this exercise set. So that would be my least favourite part, giving back a bad grade when I know they’ve worked hard.
What is your favourite thing about being a teacher?
So, the thing I like is when I explain something that I didn’t understand at school and the student that I’m teaching it to understands it. I love it. Because it’s like, I felt their pain of not understanding a subject, like calculus, I remember Calculus and in the IB and I was like what is this? I don’t get it. And although my teacher tried his best, I wasn’t engaged enough to care and so I kinda learned the mechanics of what I needed but I didn’t actually fully understand the concept. When I got to university, I actually applied myself and was really interested in learning why calculus was useful and when I did I was like oh my god this is so cool and I loved it and I still love it. Now, if I can get a student to suddenly understand something then I’m like ok, a lot of time has been saved here. So that would be my favourite thing. Along with vacation.
What would you do if you weren’t a teacher?
I’d probably be unemployed. No, I don’t know. Probably either back to engineering because I really enjoyed it and it was super interesting. Or, I think I would’ve probably gone along the road of making a company and inventing something, to do with climate change or some sort of chemical process. I guess I could do that as well, but I still need to work a little bit to fund that, but yeah, either have my own business or engineering. But more along the training side because the teaching really kind of made me enjoy that part of working with the transfer of knowledge.
What’s a piece of advice that has helped you throughout your life and/or career?
Don’t look for perfection, always be aware of your flaws and always be aware you’re going to make mistakes. And look forward to those mistakes because when you make those mistakes that’s when you learn stuff.
Answers:
Interview 1 is with Ms. Lynch
Interview 2 is with Mr. Manchala
