Gabbie Stroud - Dear Parents: Letters from the Teacher- Your Children, Their Education, and How You can Help

PRAISE FOR GABBIE STROUDS

Teacher

An achingly heartfelt personal reflection on the way bureaucracy dehumanises and compromises our teachers and our children how the joy of teaching can be turned into despair, and how children are becoming less important than outcomes. Heartbreaking.

NONI HAZLEHURST AM, ACTRESS, WRITER, DIRECTOR, BROADCASTER

Gabbie documents the inside story on the harm done to kids and teachers in our stressed-out, test-driven schools. Schools, especially primary schools, need to be based on relationships and a love of learning, yet we are doing the very opposite. Intense, personal, and impassioned but also crystal clear about what has gone wrong, and therefore how to fix it.

STEVE BIDDULPH AM, PSYCHOLOGIST AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Moving. Insightful. Funny. Sad. Gabbie Stroud was a gifted teacher. She loved and nurtured her students, she was proud of their achievements, they made her laugh and cry. But the system ground her down, and teaching left her. She is a loss to the profession, and the children she might have taught. Her journey is a lesson for everyone who cares about education and the future of our childrenand the country. How can the system be made to work better? How can we respect, recognise and reward the professionalism of teachers? Gabbie Stroud brings these questions to life with a passionate insiders insight, from the classroom, staffroom and the principals office.

JULIANNE SCHULTZ AM FAHA, PROFESSOR OF MEDIA AND CULTURE, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY AND FOUNDING EDITOR OF THE GRIFFITH REVIEW

What do we want for our children when they start school? What kind of teacher does any family want for their young ones? I want a teacher like Gabbie Stroud. PLEASE! Gabbies story of a gifted teachers experience shows what might be possible if we changed the policy settings to allow good teachers to do their job, attending to their students rather than documenting forever to demonstrate standards and be accountable. Every citizen needs to read this book, feel the authors love for teaching and think about what would need to change to keep good teachers influencing our children.

MARIE BRENNAN, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, VICTORIA UNIVERSITY

Teacher is the story of one teachers love of teaching and her ultimate heartbreak as the education system finally took everything she had to give and left her broken. Unfortunately, Gabbies story is shared by many other teachers.

The love and commitment she shows to her students, the guilt that she experiences as her students get the best of her, and her own daughters get the crumbs that are left, the overwhelming exhaustion she feels as her plate is piled higher, the frustration of spending so much time being forced to do what she knows does not benefit her students, all these things are palpable in Gabbies story.

This is such a valuable story to tell and to be heard. Gabbie was broken because the system is broken. Teachers all over the country are breaking and, even worse than that, students are breaking too. The joy has all but been sucked out of classrooms as standardised instruction and assessment have taken over from the creative art that once was teaching.

Gabbies story needs to be shouted from the rooftops. She very eloquently shows us why and how education needs to change. Teachers like Gabbie (once a teacher always a teacher) have so much to offer. Passion and wisdom are powerful things and she has them in abundance. Teacher made me laugh and cry. I loved it!

KATHY MARGOLIS, EDUCATION ADVOCATE

In this powerful and poignant memoir, we share Gabbie Strouds lived experience of what it really means to be a Teacher. Her wonderfully creative and compassionate teaching journey highlights each days joys and challenges and increasing demandsuntil finally it all becomes too much. Beautifully crafted, honest and authentic, this memoir has the potential to help us understandand potentially rescuethe profession. A must-read for all who care about the future of the teaching profession.

ROBYN EWING AM, PROFESSOR OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE ARTS, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Gabrielle Stroud details the minutiae of one teachers life in a brutally honest individual account so well that it becomes a universal story. Her slow burn of passion, compassion, emerging skill, hope and dread, but above all the humanity of the most humanising of professions, provides great insight into the costs and benefits, triumphs and tragedies of teachers work. Youll laugh and cry. But you will really learn about life as a teacher. A must-read for all considering the profession.

PHILIP RILEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

Teacher by Gabrielle Stroud is a heartfelt and moving memoir about one woman who wanted nothing more than to teach our children and inspire them with her own big-hearted warmth, generosity and love of learning. Instead she finds herself broken by a system that cares more for data and demographies than young minds and spirits. She shines a penetrating light on all that is wrong with the Australian education system and how it fails both our children and our teachers. Impossible to read without choking up, this is an eloquent rallying cry for change and should be mandatory reading for all politicians and policymakers. Luminous and heart-rending.

KATE FORSYTH, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BITTER GREENS

Gabbie Stroud has written a poignant book that explores her personal story of the good, the bad, the inspirational and inexplicable in the life of a classroom teacher. She was incredibly capable, passionate and committedand yet she was eventually defeated by the forces of curriculum change, the pressure of incessant accountability and the sense of disempowerment and disrespect that has affected the teaching profession. Her story is becoming sadly all too common, and it is our children who suffer and who are missing out on a better education.

MAGGIE DENT, BESTSELLING AUTHOR, PARENTING AND RESILIENCE EDUCATOR

A comforting reminder that somebody gets it A must-read for teachers and those who value Australias educators.

GOOD READING

Stroud is unflinching in her criticism, yet her frustration with a system she sees to be broken does not overshadow the joy, humour and love that spring from the pages A compelling analysis of the way our children are being taught, Teacher is a book for all of us with an interest in the future of our education system.

WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

The stories in this book are irresistible and will encourage parents and teachers to value similarly complex and touching experiences of their own this book powerfully records what can happen when teachers are put under too much pressure and when peripheral issues are allowed to take centre stage. It is a plea to educate our young in a context of hope, joy and common sense.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Stroud does a sterling job of conveying both the highs and lows of the job, from knowing that youve changed a life forever to fearing you can never do enough. Impassioned, empathetic and eloquent, Strouds work should be widely read: teachers will recognise much of what she covers, and othersincluding, hopefully, policy-makerswill come to understand how passionate and talented teachers will leave the jobs they love in a flawed system.

BOOKS + PUBLISHING

Stroud is a gifted teacher, and this is a lesson our society should take to heart.