Joy Seary ( granted life membership )

I first met Joy when I joined the (then) Remedial Teachers Association of Queensland in the mid 90’s, when I started in this new role. Joy soon impressed with her expert knowledge, enthusiasm for helping students with difficulties and her ability to see the "bigger picture". She was elected to the position of President, when some of the founding members of the group retired, and proved an excellent leader. Already very busy at home with her own "Brady Bunch", she nevertheless put in an enormous amount of work and gained wide respect for her abilities, friendliness and charm.

Gerard Healy (ST:LD

Can you give a brief sketch of your teaching career so far with special mention of those life-turning/altering moves which helped bring you to the position you occupy today.
After completing 12 years of schooling in my home town of Ayr I went to teachers’ college at what was then the Townsville Teachers’ College. It was an exciting time, meeting new people who became life long friends. An added bonus I have since discovered is that these life long friends are now spread all over the state and no matter where I go in Queensland if I make contact at the school I find someone I know, or at least someone who knows someone I know. This has proved to be very handy in occasional times of crisis while travelling.

My first year of teaching, 1974. was at East Ayr State School with a year three class. CCPs or ‘Current Curriculum Plans’ had only been in a little while as the expected mode of daily planning and even experienced teachers were struggling with the concept. One of my teaching predecessors had left their old ‘workbook’ in the cupboard at the front of the classroom I was allocated and I found it to be a most valuable resource. It was a treasure trove of content and strategies. The precious ‘workbook’ and the tireless support of an experienced year three teacher in the classroom next door kept me sane that year. After a year to settle in and get to know the ropes I was transferred to Georgetown, which is four to five hours drive west of Cairns.

My father was very excited about the adventure of heading off to Georgetown and helped me move all my goods and chattels from Ayr in one of the farm utilities. We travelled in convoy, me in my little car and Dad in the trusty ute, up through Charters Towers. To break the journey we spent the night in Greenvale. That was an interesting introduction to what was coming as during the night one of the hotel patrons who was staying at the motel we were at had become disoriented and lost his room key. His solution for getting into his room was to climb through the small door they used to deliver the breakfast trays. However, he was trying to climb into our room. After a bit of shock and excitement we got the message through that he was headed in the wrong direction.

In spite of its isolation, life in Georgetown had plenty of entertainment and I really enjoyed my time there. Two of my teachers’ college friends were the other two teachers on staff, Bruce Robinson and Michelle Marin. They were terrific company and we spent a few social evenings at the ‘When Are You Hotel’, short for ‘When are you going to finish building the hotel?’ As we were all in our second year, we were due for second year inspections. Being young and naive we thought it was only right to be sociable and take the inspector to the hotel for a drink after dinner. The local lads consisting of ringers from properties and miners and geologists from the mining leases around the town, decided they could really make life interesting if they put on a bit of a show. No damage was done fortunately and the inspector joined in the fun. We were subsequently most grateful for the line on each of our reports that said we were all ‘heavily involved in local community activities’.

Sadly my mother died in the April I was teaching in Georgetown and someone in the department was kind enough to let me go back to East Ayr the following year to help look after my father. I again had the privilege of teaching with two young colleagues from teachers’ college, Lex Sibson and Marg Rankin. What a great year we had. East Ayr had been lucky enough to attract funding for one of the new ‘open area’ teaching blocks. The principal decided that the youngest teachers on staff who were fresh out of college would be in the best position to use the open plan teaching spaces so the three of us in our third, second and first years of teaching respectively were given the newest and best equipped facility at the school. I’m not sure if the more senior staff were a bit miffed about the situation but no one made us feel uncomfortable about it.

While I had enjoyed these first three years of teaching, my experiences served to drive home the message that I really didn’t know enough about this challenging career and I decided to head back to study. My choice was to do a Bachelor of Education degree at James Cook University. I spent 1977 studying full time and 1978 and 1979 studying part time and teaching at Oonoonba State School in Townsville. While teaching at Oonoonba I was lucky enough to see first hand the work of the Support Teacher Learning Difficulties. I guess he was known as a Remedial Teacher at the time. Sadly I can’t recall his name but his personality and style are unforgettable. I was in awe of his ability while teaching the whole class to model strategies that had everybody involved and succeeding. He would then follow up with individual lessons for specific children and give me information that would help me do a better job with them when he was gone. His mentoring combined with studies I was doing at the time helped plant the seed of a life long interest in learning difficulties/disabilities.

Which individuals have had a major impact on your teaching beliefs/practices either through their personal style and/or well thought-out theories, etc.?
I may have been a bit long winded about the early years but they were and continue to be very influential in forming the type of teacher I am today. I now live and teach in Brisbane but I hope I never lose sight of how difficult it is for young teachers to get started and how essential it is for older experienced people to give them support. It is also important for those of us who have it all at our finger tips in the city to remember there are courageous colleagues working in isolated and sometimes deprived settings where the children are no less challenging and no less deserving of the very best education we have to offer.

The people who have nudged me in the direction of learning support throughout these experiences are the Support Teacher Learning Difficulties at Oonoonba mentioned previously and Bev McKenna who was Support Teacher Learning Difficulties at Wooloowin when I returned to teaching part time after having my children and sadly, the death of my first husband Terry. Bev was an inspiration and tirelessly explained her reasoning and methodology for working with some of the most difficult to teach children. She got me really hooked. I suppose indirectly then my thanks should also go to Jean Dougherty because I’m sure Bev would agree it was Jean who most influenced her. Bev encouraged me to go to my first Combined Associations’ Conference over at LISC in the early 1990s. I was astounded at the quality of the information people were presenting. I believe Bernice Wong was the Keynote speaker at this first conference I attended and she continues to be a world leader in the field. (For those of you who like to know the extra details, I also stuck a friendship with my second husband Ross at a Combined Associations’ Conference as he took care of registrations for the Brisbane Education Centre. That was an unexpected bonus)

At a subsequent conference I heard Sharon Vaughn speak about Collaborative Strategic Reading and as many of you know it is one of my favourite methodologies for assisting children. It was through my attendance at the Combined Associations’ Conferences that I became involved in the Remedial Teachers’ Association, which has gone from strength to strength in recent years as the Remedial and Support Teachers’ Association. I sat very quietly in those first few meetings listening to people like Margaret Toohey, Jean Dougherty, Pam Dodd, Marie Burns, Joan Lane, Peg French, Marie Hutchinson, and Judith Smith and thinking, "That’s it, I’m convinced I know absolutely nothing about education. How can I tap into the minds of these intelligent, informed caring teachers to improve what I do?" Hence began what I hope will be a life long commitment to and involvement with the issues of assisting students who experience learning difficulties and learning disabilities.

More recently I have enjoyed the enthusiasm of the current RSTAQ committee. Their presence at meetings on Saturdays when they could have their feet up, sipping cappuccinos, is a constant source of delight and wonder to me. They have injected such life into the organisation and I am so hopeful for its bright future. They represent a breed of tenacious individuals whose driving force in life seems to be to never give up on even one child, to continue to do all they can to give each individual a chance at reaching their potential. It is a real privilege to be involved with such a committed group of people.

Spanning my involvement from the old guard to the new is the presence of Michael Boyle. Michael is such learned, gentle man. His insights have made a valuable contribution to my personal learning journey and no doubt to the learnings of many through his efforts with the various RSTAQ publications over the years. He is not only informed because he is so widely read but he has a sense of compassion and quiet wisdom that is evident in the way he generously shares his knowledge. Thank you Michael.

How has your daily job altered over time?
The major change to my personal work over the years as a Support Teacher Learning Difficulties has been to go from three and a half days at McGregor State School with one and half days at Carina State School in 1995, to the full time placement at Aspley East State School that I currently enjoy. I know some people enjoy working at more than one school but I grew frustrated with the difficulties of having to cart resources from one spot to the next. Perhaps that is because of my personal learning difficulties. I never seemed to be organised enough and was always looking for something I had left at the other school or in the boot of my car. Congratulations to those of you who do it well.

Which "movements/ fads" in education have been better than some others, or worse? 
I don’t really have an educational fad to comment on but I do have an opinion about a topic of debate for Support teachers everywhere and that is the question regarding ‘in class’ or ‘withdrawal’ methodologies which is probably more of an issue for Primary than Secondary practitioners. The Appraisement process provides us with the most structured and consistent process I have seen in my time in Learning Support that ensures there are modifications applied to strategies in the classroom across a student’s whole learning week. Through the writing of support plans, class teachers and Support Teachers Learning Difficulties can create a learning environment that best suits the student.

However, if I am going to work with a student myself, if I try to work physically in the classroom I have often found myself to be functioning in an aide like capacity. Older style classrooms don’t lend themselves to the presence of too many adults and the students, particularly upper primary students, become self-conscious about my presence. Consequently, I prefer to remove the students from the classroom and support them in the context of the class program. I negotiate the content with the class teacher and I pitch the level of difficulty to suit the student/students I am working with. This may cause some debate and debate is fine with me. I’m sure some comments to the RSTAQ website wouldn’t go astray.

What about a saying to pithily sum up your thoughts and finish off this interview?
It may seem glib and the terminology has lost some of its potency through over use but working as a Support Teacher Learning Difficulties is very much a vocation and not just a job.

You may have other ideas, Joy, you'd like to add.
I light-heartedly said to my children a few years ago that one of my major life goals is to ensure that before I die there is Legislation in this country that recognises the existence of Learning Disabilities and Learning Difficulties and ensures that there is educational provision for diagnosed individuals. Perhaps I should revisit that notion. There is quite a lot to be done. Does anyone have any suggestions about how it could be achieved?