John Park

John Park appeared on the Secondary Resource teacher scheme in 1978, questioning: why? what? how? and why not? John has been a catalyst in his role at Macgregor State High School and a very active member of the then Secondary Resource Teachers’ Association.

I always think of John as a strong advocate for all students’ ability to learn and that it is incumbent upon us to make it happen. He is able to present passionately the case that learning does not have to be the same for everyone, nor does it have to happen in the same way or at the same time. His belief that adults should be role models for students has led to a commitment to life-long learning shown by his willingness to take risks in the support role.

As well as maintaining almost continuous executive responsibilities in the renamed Resource and Learning Support Teachers’ Association, John was frequently a spokesperson on behalf of the Association with Education Queensland personnel. His other arena of advocacy has been with the Queensland Teachers’ Union, where he had a large hand in their development of the ‘Support Teachers’ Kit’.

Another activity that saw John working at the ground floor was his involvement in the highly successful Combined Association Conferences of RSTAQ held every two years.

John has dedicated his professional life to working to ensure the barriers to learning are removed for all students and in particular for those young people in our schools wo do not ‘fit’ academically.

Genuine concern for students at the school level and leadership in broader educational forums have been the hallmarks of John’s approach to bring about change.

Students and colleagues alike are the richer for John’s dedication.

Jennie Lawless

Could you tell us about your early teaching career?
I started teaching geography in a coal mining village in Yorkshire in the early 70s. Having grown up in South London it was more of a cultural change than it ever was when I came out to Australia! After completing a geography degree at Nottingham University I’d been lucky enough to undertake my education year when considerable emphasis was placed on strategies to teach the mixed ability groups which were a feature of many of the comprehensive high school at the time.

My first year also coincided with ROSLA – the acronym for Raising Of the School Leaving Age to 16. I was one of 17 first year teachers at a large high school who were taken on that year and were asked to teach the students who had been forced to stay on for an extra year.

What experiences prompted you to become a Remedial/Resource (STLD) teacher?
After a year teaching reluctant ROSLA students, many of whom had learning difficulties and disabilities, I became involved in a humanities team designing programs targeted at the ROSLA students. I was keen to make learning active and relevant and amongst other approaches launched enthusiastically into using and developing games and simulations. The school I worked in at the time had double and quadruple periods so active learning activities like this were both possible and necessary.

I was also involved in developing support materials in the Social Science Department. I’ll always remember a student I worked with at that time whose primary teacher had quoted in writing that he was as rewarding to teach as a suet pudding! He was later very proud of the fact that he learned to write and managed to send me a couple of letters when I was first in Australia.

Having worked in a situation that had demanded flexibility I found the Queensland system quite rigid and frustrating when I first arrived. After a couple of years at Wynnum SHS I saw the Graduate Diploma in Resource Teaching course at Kelvin Grove as an opportunity to be involved in making changes and working together with other teachers to try to find inclusive solutions to learning problems.

What aspects of the role do you enjoy? What are the frustrations?
The original intent of the resource teaching role was a very broad and demanding one. A major focus of the role was working with other teachers to find solutions to overcome barriers to learning. At the same time there has always been an expectation that individual support would be available. In secondary schools, this dichotomy has always been a challenge. It’s been the constant challenge of new situations that has produced frustrations and the rewards of the role.

Having worked at Macgregor since 1978, I’ve been lucky to be involved in a whole range of school wide projects including work education, literacy and numeracy plans and promoting the use of technology in learning.

Trying to respond to growth in the number of ESL students in the school particularly from Taiwan placed demands upon my time especially until the late 80s when numbers in the support area were increased by the establishment of a Special Needs Support Group. The eventual establishment an ESL unit was welcome and the special needs focus was consequently able to change focus.

The mid to late 90’s were characterised by a growth in the number of students with identified low incidence disabilities. Macgregor went through a period of change as we adjusted to the needs of this group of students. This was a time when there was no ASD category and the SNSG and resource teacher role encompassed the management of ASD students.

By the end of the 90’s an SEU with an ASD tag had been established and once again the range of students dealt with had to change. We have recently renamed ourselves as a learning support team and our responsibilities have been focussed on one group only – the students with learning difficulties.

Currently I spend 50% of my time working in the senior schooling area while my teaching time is in the learning support. A new focus that integrates the two roles is the need to support students with literacy, numeracy and learning needs in Vocational Education subjects. It’s even a requirement of the new Australian Quality Training Framework that schools need to provide evidence at audit time to show that support processes are in place in for VET students.

What advice would you offer a teacher taking on the role for the first time?
I was lucky enough to enter the role at a time when a funded training course was available. There have been a whole host of courses and inservice opportunities that I have enjoyed and participated in since that time. Anyone working in a learning support role needs to participate in a training program or at least to take advantage of networking and PD opportunities.

There are so many issues that need to be addressed in relation to our role that I’d advocate active membership membership in professional and industrial groups. I’ve been an active QTU member that has included attending the QTUs special education committee for a number of years. Unless our voices are heard through these groups we cannot advocate effectively for both our students and ourselves.

Could you describe one or two strategies or approaches that you find are particularly powerful in working with students with learning difficulties?
In the past few years I have been responsible for our school wide program in the literacy, numeracy and thinking skills area. I’ve found the latter particularly exciting and have been able to dovetail it into teaching approaches. Our models for synthesis, inference, interpretation and problem solving have given me a real handle on integrated processes to support literacy, numeracy and learning to learn needs of students.

Our school wide program attempts to make thinking explicit, active and transferable to new situations. We have worked at encouraging the explicit teaching of thinking in all our subject areas. The school taxonomy of thinking skills that we developed from the work of Beyer is used a means of deconstructing KLA outcomes. As subject areas rewrite their KLA programs they are asked to integrate the teaching of focus thinking skills.

I’ve also put great value in the use of technology and still believe that one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal is the word processing program. All the add on software gadgets like Text Help are great but the underlying value is the word processing program. I certainly cannot write without one – students should not be expected to either!

What are some of the best ways to encourage teachers to work cooperatively (i.e., to share the professional load)?
A few years ago, I worked with a principal who taught me so much about professional cooperation. The essence of his philosophy was respect and fairness in the school community. We felt supported, valued and gave of our best in a truly collaborative situation. When he left he claimed as a mark of his success that responsibility and authority were delegated widely. It’s those underlying values of respect and fairness that make all the difference